Kemo
03-20-2023, 07:58 PM
The historic main event of the December 6, 2004, episode of Monday Night Raw would not have happened had some in WWE at the time got their way.
That show was headlined by WWE Women's Champion Trish Stratus defending her title against Lita, in the first women's match to close out a Raw taping.
Lita was able to dethrone her rival to win her second Women's Championship, though her reign ended abruptly the following month due to an injury.
While WWE had previously had women's matches be the final match of the show, 2004 marked the first women's match to be the final segment of an episode of Raw.
On Twitter, Jim Ross (once WWE's Head of Talent Relations) explained that there had been pushback against the idea of two women closing the show.
Ross (who called the match with Jerry 'The King' Lawler) said that both Trish and Lita deserved the spot in the main event.
1637637462972420101
For the 2012 DVD counting the top 100 moments of Monday Night Raw, this match took #55, beating moments including the Higher Power reveal (#61) and Ric Flair and Mr. Perfect's Loser-Leaves-Town classic (#75.)
This match was a huge deal for women's wrestling at the time, and there is no shortage of women who were inspired by the two Hall of Famers.
In 2020, Mandy Rose said that Stratus had always been her inspiration, while Zelina Vega has said that Trish and Lita inspired her to get into professional wrestling.
Stratus and Lita will team with Becky Lynch to face Damage CTRL at WWE WrestleMania 39 next month.
That show was headlined by WWE Women's Champion Trish Stratus defending her title against Lita, in the first women's match to close out a Raw taping.
Lita was able to dethrone her rival to win her second Women's Championship, though her reign ended abruptly the following month due to an injury.
While WWE had previously had women's matches be the final match of the show, 2004 marked the first women's match to be the final segment of an episode of Raw.
On Twitter, Jim Ross (once WWE's Head of Talent Relations) explained that there had been pushback against the idea of two women closing the show.
Ross (who called the match with Jerry 'The King' Lawler) said that both Trish and Lita deserved the spot in the main event.
1637637462972420101
For the 2012 DVD counting the top 100 moments of Monday Night Raw, this match took #55, beating moments including the Higher Power reveal (#61) and Ric Flair and Mr. Perfect's Loser-Leaves-Town classic (#75.)
This match was a huge deal for women's wrestling at the time, and there is no shortage of women who were inspired by the two Hall of Famers.
In 2020, Mandy Rose said that Stratus had always been her inspiration, while Zelina Vega has said that Trish and Lita inspired her to get into professional wrestling.
Stratus and Lita will team with Becky Lynch to face Damage CTRL at WWE WrestleMania 39 next month.