WWE’s COO, Triple H recently spoke with Manny Tsigas where he discussed in detail his thoughts on intergender wrestling and whether it empowers women. Below are some highlights with a H/T to Rajah.com for the transcription.
On not seeing the need to focus on it as shock value:
“It’s a funny thing to me, there’s just a shock moment to that and a spectacle moment to that. Women WWE Superstars don’t need a man to make them successful in the ring. They don’t need a man to step in the ring with them to make them have a spectacular match. … They don’t need a man in the ring with them, they need each other, they need the opportunity, they need the platform, and they need to be set free to do what they need to do. And when we do that, they rise to the occasion, they have stolen the show, they’ve been the main event, and they will have their PPV on October 28 from New York, the first all-female WWE PPV.
“They don’t need that and I think anybody that says, ‘Well, to have the man vs. the woman’ it’s just shock value, you don’t need it. I think when it’s done right there’s an exciting moment when it can happen, but I don’t mean to think that needs to be the standard.”
On not feeling that it empowers women:
“I don’t. To say for a female to prove that she is empowered she has to compete against a man, or to have a man in the ring with her to be able to do what she does at a high enough level? No, you know what makes a female empowered? When she is so good with another female in the ring that no man on the card can stand up to them. … When they do all the things that they can do right now, on their own, because they have that ability. That is the empowerment. It’s not about us giving them something or ‘You’re wrestling a man now, now you’re doing something.’ That’s a man’s ego.”
Manny Tsigas