Something’s always bugged me about pro wrestling, and WWE in particular: if match outcomes are choreographed and predetermined, then why are the divisions still segregated by gender?
If you can plot out every stage of a match in advance, then what’s stopping the guys and gals from mixing it up from time to time?
I guess you could argue that it’s something to do with realism – wrestling already makes it hard for me to suspend my disbelief without Alexa Bliss taking Brock Lesnar to a 45 minute draw – but this is the same sport that had an undead zombie cowboy as a featured player for like three decades, so I’m not sure that argument holds up.
Whatever the reason, WWE seems to be slowly relaxing its rules on intergender match ups now that Triple H is in charge, with the most notable example being Rhea Ripley’s defeat of Akira Tozawa on a recent episode of WWE Raw.
If this is a trend that’s going to continue, it would open up a whole world of never-before-seen match ups in a company where rematches were the norm for many years.
So it’s worth asking: which intergender wrestling matches could Triple H end up booking in 2023?:
Bianca Belair vs Otis
Bianca Belair has proven time and time again that she is one of the most physically dominant forces in a company that mostly employs seven foot tall ex-football players who look like they were built in an unethical laboratory sponsored by Planet Fitness.
Because of that, you could really have her go up against anybody in the men’s division and call it a fair fight, but I went with Otis for two reasons:
Firstly, Otis is the best, and I will fantasy book him in as many of these lists as I can until they pry this laptop away from me and fire me from WrestleTalk.
Secondly, Bianca and Otis have already kind of had an encounter before, when Belair carried him on her shoulders during her obstacle course challenge against Bayley during the Thunderdome era.
We already know that Bianca can handle the 330 pound giant, and I’m interested in seeing how that would translate to a full-length matchup.
The story writes itself, as Bianca faces a member of the self-proclaimed best wrestling stable in the world to prove who really deserves the title of EST.
Rhea Ripley vs Rey Mysterio
Similarly to Belair, you could really put 75% of the men’s roster after the “vs” here and create a compelling match up.
There’s an argument to be made that she’d be better suited against a larger opponent to show off just how scary strong she really is, but you can’t deny the appeal of seeing her go up against Rey Mysterio to answer that age old wrestling question: who is Dominik’s real Papi?
It’ll be just like Kramer Vs Kramer, if Meryl Streep powerbombed Dustin Hoffman through the prosecutor’s table for custody of Billy.
Dominik and Rhea have been terrorizing Rey ever since Mysterio Jr Jr turned on his dad at Clash At The Castle and joined the Judgement Day (for normal, non-horny reasons I’m sure).
Having that feud come to a head in an unexpected way, by having Rey take on Rhea instead of Dom, could be a great way to cap off that storyline.
Should it be in a ladder match where the winner becomes Dom’s legal guardian? Who’s to say? (Me, I say they should do that, please do that).
Nikki Cross vs Dexter Lumis
If Nikki was still wearing a cape and going by ASH, you know this spot would have been filled by Hurricane Helms in a mask vs career match.
But alas, she’s back to being crazy Nikki, and that means we need an equally crazy opponent for her to face.
Enter Dexter Lumis, a man who WWE wants us to believe has definitely killed before without ever actually coming right out and telling us he has.
It could be a nice reversal of roles for Lumis, who is usually the enigmatic Jason Voorhees-esque stalker in any given feud.
Here he would be caught on the back foot, as his attempts to scare Nikki fall flat as she counteracts his creepiness with some InSAnitY of her own.
Seeing the usually-stoic Lumis up against somebody who is completely unphased by his whole serial killer vibe would be a great way to keep two often-one note characters fresh.
Becky Lynch vs Finn Balor
Does it count as an intergender match when it’s a man going up against The Man?
Like Ripley and Belair, you could probably have Lynch go up against most of the men’s division and people would be happy no matter who you picked.
Did I choose Finn because he and Becky are both Irish, and I can’t help boil a wrestler’s entire personality down to their nationality like a promoter in the 1970s (or Vince McMahon every single year of his career)?
Yes, but also Becky and Finn actually go way back, training and wrestling together during their early days on the independent scene in the UK and Ireland.
Who better to tell Balor to catch himself than a fellow countryman who knew him before he got notions of himself and started running an after school club for wee goths?
That’s not even to mention the fact that Becky and Balor are two of the best wrestlers in their respective divisions, and are more than capable of putting on a show stopper together.
Ronda Rousey vs Matt Riddle
Ronda may not be the wrestler she was when she first began to dominate the WWE women’s division back in 2018, but she’s still one of the few people on the roster who you can say is a verifiable, real-life badass.
Similarly, as an ex-MMA guy himself, Riddle’s goofy stoner gimmick betrays a fighter who could kick the asses of most of his fellow competitors with ease.
As two people who made their names kicking people’s heads off for real in the octagon, the pair could have an all-timer owing to their mixture of pro wrestling and shoot credentials.
From a character perspective it would make perfect sense too, as Ronda gets a lot of flack for being a little too self-serious in feuds and coming off a little flat in promos.
What better way to remedy that than by pairing her up with everybody’s favorite bro, who could help bring her out of her shell in their non-wrestling encounters.
Riddle has already proven that he works best when working alongside a straight man (come back soon Randy), and him accidentally goading the self-consciously badass Rousey into a match could make for comedy gold.
Raquel Rodriguez vs Braun Strowman
Two strong powerhouses, Raquel vs Braun would serve as a clash of titans from their respective divisions.
I’m not expecting a competitive match up here, but I am expecting Raquel to use her speed and strength to get the better of Strowman for at least part of the match.
This is really just an excuse to let Rodriguez pick Braun up at some point and bodyslam him for that Hogan vs Andre pop.
It would be a huge boon to Rodriguez, who is trying to build up a reputation for herself as the strongwoman of the WWE women’s division, but often finds herself against much smaller competitors.
Putting her up against somebody of Strowman’s size – and having her put in a good showing to boot – would help seal that reputation more than a thousand squash matches against opponents built like Aliyah.
Alexa Bliss vs Bray Wyatt
Hey, do you guys remember in the introduction when I joked about Alexa Bliss going up against Brock Lesnar?
Look, call me a hypocrite if you want (preferably by signing up to WrestleTalk.com and leaving a comment below – any engagement is good engagement), but I genuinely believe this could work.
After all, it’s not like Bliss is a stranger to intergender matches. Remember that time she fought Randy Orton at Fastlane 2021? Remember how good that was? Remember how we all agreed it was great and cool?
Okay so that’s a bad example, but of all the potential intergender matches in WWE, this one probably has the most compelling story already baked into it, as Bliss has repeatedly hinted at having unfinished business with Wyatt ever since Son Of IRS made his return to the main roster at Extreme Rules this year.
When the Fiend put Bliss under his thrall all the way back in 2020, fans weren’t too happy about the angle (because it was completely insane and sloppily executed).
But as time has gone on, our desire to see a pay off to the story has overtaken our instinct to make fun of WWE’s goofy spookums.
While this match probably has the biggest disparity of any on this list in terms of the physicality of the wrestlers involved, it’s actually the one where that is least likely to be a factor, as Wyatt feuds tend to rely more on backstage promo work and special effects trickery.
As such, there are a million things you could do to make a match between the two make sense in kayfabe, as Bliss draws on the supernatural abilities gifted to her by Wyatt to give her the advantage.
If that still sounds a little too far fetched to you, a cinematic match could still be on the cards, as Bliss becomes Wyatt’s tormentor in a kooky inversion of the Firefly Funhouse match from WrestleMania 36.
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