“Female Superstars are ruling the ring and changing the game!”

Written by L.J. Tracosas, not that that information is on the cover. Or back cover. Here’s a book celebrating women in wrestling but the woman who wrote the book finally gets mentioned on the inside, and no author page.

If you’ve ever watched any of WWE’s documentaries, this is the text version of that. Real quick bites of information about each woman. Mentions of memorable matches, which would probably be played at that moment in the aforementioned documentary. Too much emphasis on some things, not enough on others. You find yourself wondering what the same book/DVD would be without the WWE spin. As a lifelong wrestling fan I’m sure Tracosas received many notes from WWE (“they’re not wrestlers, they’re sports entertainers”) and as great a job as she did I’m sure it could have been even better without that level of interference.

Every woman a fan would expect to be here is here. If there’s an arguement for them in the WWE Hall of Fame, then they’re guaranteed a spot. Elizabeth, Sherri, Blayze, Trish, and all the biggest names in the modern era. The book cuts off as Alexa Bliss is a star but before Asuka did enough on the main roster to get a spot. Allusions to the women’s tag team titles but no official word of it.

A new fan would find it very interesting and could use this book as a start for must see content on Peacock. Some matches are discussed as ground breaking, turning points, or historical. Little girls looking up to women on Raw, Smackdown, or NXT could learn which shows to study and maybe become the next star.

I was shocked at how many women aren’t mentioned. At 125 pages the book could have easily been bigger to accomodate them. Women like Sable, Sunny, Terri, Jazz, Molly Holly, and many more. There is too much emphasis on the warring three woman teams “era”. Teams BAD, PCB, and Bellas didn’t last long but are given so much space one would think this was a 5-10 year story. The biggest example of WWE pushing what they thought would happen next, is the two page spread of the warring Four Horsewomen. Sure, that’s hindsight. But one is still there, one lasted a year, and two of them never quite clicked in sports entertainment. On the other side, someone like Tamina is mentioned over 10 times yet gets no profile of her own.

As a DK book I would recommend this for a young kid discovering wrestling and soaking up all the facts their brains can handle. But for longtime fans we have less fun more nuanced places to look.