If You Grew Up on WCW You’re Probably Into MILFs - WCW Monday Nitro 2/5/96
WCW had a type, and that type was "classy lady."
I know it may seem like a stretch, but hear me out. Over the course of his feud against Ric Flair, “Macho Man” Randy Savage decided to fight fire with fire — if the self-proclaimed “Nature Boy” fashioned himself a ladies’ man, well, so could he. The difference between Savage and Flair, at least until Savage’s 1999 midlife crisis-spurred reinvention, is that he cut a more wholesome figure: no French maids, no open invitations to anyone supposing they were over the age of 18. He was a 43 year old man, and the women who he brought to the ring were, I would say, pretty much as age appropriate as these things get in pro wrestling
On this episode of WCW Monday Nitro, that’s his ex-wife, Miss Elizabeth (35) and Woman (31). Yes, I’m aware of the gap in ages, but as a 37 year old woman who grew up watching a medium where most on-screen relationships between men and women, romantic or platonic, featured wild age and power imbalances, especially in the Russofied-late 90s and in the post-WCW years when Vince McMahon could let his freak flag fly without fear of his direct competitors making fun of him, it’s kind of a trip going back to mid-90s WCW and seeing women in their 30s presented as the most beautiful (and in Woman’s instance, the most cunning) people in the world.
They were not alone, either, as the WCW roster of the time featured Sherri Martel (38) and Madusa (33), and would soon feature Debra McMichael (36). This is interesting to me mostly because there’s no broader point to dig into on this episode of WCW Monday Nitro — it’s a good show with one great match, three fun ones and a couple of short promos in service to an upcoming PPV, yet another argument in favor of one-hour wrestling shows — but until the Nitro Girls debuted to fill time when the format expanded, the youngest regularly featured woman on WCW’s roster was Kimberly Page, who was 26 at the time and largely presented as if she was a member of the Mousketeers, amiably cheerleading one midcard babyface or another while her real life husband Diamond Dallas Page schemed to take her away.
WCW had a type is what I’m saying, and that type was “classy lady.” That kind of shit imprints itself on the impressionable youth drawn to watch cable TV’s hottest show, the same way people who grew up watching this stuff formed nigh-unbreakable bonds to figures like Rey Mysterio, Eddy Guerrero, Sting, Chris Jericho, and the kinds of wrestling they were exemplars of. The fantasy of hanging out with a classy lady in an evening gown and impressing her with feats of masculinity is alive and well in 1996. It, like many other vestiges of southern wrasslin’s prime, would soon die, but to paraphrase Bruce Springsteen, everything that dies some day comes back. There are many websites that support this theory. I will link you to none of them.
Colette Arrand
Up Next: The 288-sided die has demanded that I stay in 1996, which I am delighted to do. The 50th episode of WCW Monday Nitro, from August 26, 1996, is heavy with Horsemen and cruiserweights. Can't wait to see how The Rock n' Roll Express fare in a post-nWo world! Can't wait for JIM DUGGAN VS. THE GIANT!