Giada's article - wrestling school

Fight Like a Girl: Pro-Wrestling Eve, a new generation of women.

By Giada Bocca 19 April 2018

Punk, Feminist; Riot Grrrls of Pro Wrestling!’ These are the adjectives used on the website of Pro-Wrestling Eve to describe what and who they are.

Eve is a DIY promotion about women wrestling. They are openly left wing, liberal, and ‘obviously feminist’.

“It started eight years ago because I had a little girl and wrestling was something that I loved and was working in. I could see so clearly that women were not been given the same platform as men,” said Emily Dann, one half of Eve (Her husband, Dann, is the other half).

“I wanted to make a change on that. With my husband we started an all women wrestling promotion with the goal being to get as much focus on women wrestling, but also to help them grow and develop as performers and to help make it clear that wrestling is not to be sexualise and women can be wrestlers too just as good as men,” she added.

Pro Wrestling Eve provides fantastic shows, it is theatrical with its actor doing their own stunts.

“People sometimes say that we pretend and that pro-wrestling it’s not a sport. We do not pretend. Pro-wrestling is something that is real,” said Read.

As stated on the website, eve was created to destroy the stereotype that women couldn’t wrestle.

An example is the fact that the WWE decided to call their women division a divas division.

“I never really understood why they ran with these, but they sexualised the women. they had bikini contests, mud wrestling, bra and panties match up,” stated the co-founder.

According to Head Coach, Rhia O’Reilly, ‘Japan in the 90s’ was when women wrestling was absolutely spectacular, better than the men’s, and it had nothing to do with the women’.

Eve call themselves a gang and as such they have two main mottos.

‘SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GIRL GANG’ stands as women supporting women. The founders always look for designers and artists into women who own small businesses and who are trying to build it successfully.

Another one is ‘FIGHT LIKE A GIRL’ and it’s a reclaiming of the same phrase when you would hear it as an insult.

“When you fight like a girl it’s succeeding it’s not weakness.”

The next big upcoming event will be on the 5thof May: it’s the biggest women wrestling event in European history and it is a big celebration of women in power. The venue is the York Hall in Bethnal Green, London, known as the home of British boxing.

“We wanted to use this venue in particular because it’s built as the men’s boxing venue, a very testosterone-full place and heavy in the toxic masculinity. That is why we wanted to go and make a statement because there is no point in doing an event like this and hiding it away,” Said read.

“If you want to make a stand you want to do it on the front line. You want to make sure that people can see what it is, and you want to do it in a place that causes the most shock because that’s when people will start to take notice.”

In addition to Wrestling Queendom (the biggest event), they are running monthly shows from the second Saturday of every month, which are called The Resistance Gallery.

Moreover, there is a brand-new event for the less experienced women called She-1 Tournament.

Emily Read - On Eve's Mottos