The history of women's wrestling in Great Britain

The rise of All-In Wrestling in the 1930s was the reason for wrestling’s scrutiny in this decade. The sport became increasingly violent as more holds were introduced and fewer restrictions were placed on the wrestlers.

However, due to a lack of a governing body, different promoters saw the “All-In” style as a free-for-all, discarding any restrictions and giving them a license to do whatever they wanted, no matter how brutal and bloody.

This led do weapons being used in professional wrestling for the first in Britain. The matches became less of a sport and more of a spectacle, with less emphasis on the physical skill and talent of the performers. Fans would chant “We Want Blood!”, and objects like stools and water buckets were regularly used. Matches were more like the hardcore-style bouts from ECW than what you’d imagine from the early-20th century.

This change actually caused a boom in the wrestling business, with it becoming more popular than ever. That included women’s wrestling, which the British public first saw in a tour of German lady wrestlers in 1867.

Women’s wrestling soon became a draw, although there were much fewer all-woman matches than their male counterparts. The first intergender bout was in 1880, while Ivy “Blonde Tigress” Russell vs Peggy “Brunette Bearcat” Parnell drew thousands of fans in 1934.

However, the scene would take a huge hit in 1938 when the Entertainments Committee of the London County Council banned women from wrestling in public matches in London, while “All-In” wrestling wasn’t banned until 1944.

While other cities in the country didn’t stop the women wrestling, losing out on the biggest market was a huge detriment, not to mention the effect the outbreak of the Second World War had on the scene just a year later. Wrestling continued during the war in cities like Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool, but the business took a huge hit due to a large number of the population leaving for war.

After the Allies achieved victory over Hitler’s Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers, there would be a new world of professional wrestling built in Britain, although one that did not welcome women. The British Wrestling Board of Control was formed in 1946, with Admiral Lord Mountevens and company creating the rules that would govern the sport for decades.

These Mountevans Rules codified what wrestling should be and took the sport away from the lawless world that the All-In rules had descended it into.

This change created a more sanitised and professional sport, with the creation of Joint Promotions in 1952 starting a boom period never seen before. However, Joint Promotions didn’t see the value in women’s wrestling.

Max Crabtree, who took over booking for Joint Promotions in the 1970s, perfectly encapsulated the higher-up’s view on women’s wrestling with this quote from his chat with Simon Garfield.

“I never promoted them I’m a male chauvinistic pig,” Crabtree said. “But no matter who they were, and I say this respectfully,” he said, disrespectfully, “there was never a place for them in the history of British wrestling. I think that if I had attempted to put them on television, ITV would have instantly taken it off [the air].”