Alexa Bliss Proves There’s More to WWE’s Women’s Division Than the “Four Horsewomen”

When talking about the Women’s Evolution in WWE, there are four names that have a tendency to overwhelm the conversation. Known collectively as the Four Horsewomen, Bayley, Sasha Banks, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch have been at the forefront of the new push in the women’s division since the days of #GiveDivasAChance. For good reasons, of course.

However, when history was made on Sunday night at Payback, with one woman becoming the first to win both the Raw and Smackdown Women’s Champion, it wasn’t any of the Four Horsewomen. It was Alexa Bliss.

Bliss has probably been the NXT star to benefit the most from last year’s brand extension draft. While it was questionable if she was really ready for the main roster, she certainly hit the ground running, becoming one of Smackdown’s top heels and a two-time women’s champion in the process. While she was not one of the Four Horsewomen, she has definitely become one of the biggest success stories from NXT and the Performance Center. With her latest win over Bayley for the Raw Women’s Championship, she’s proven that the conversation about women’s wrestling doesn’t have to begin and end with the Four Horsewomen.

The Four Horsewomen have done a lot to change the face of women’s wrestling in WWE. There is no denying the drive they have brought and the matches they have put on, but to treat them as the sole saviors of women’s wrestling does a great disservice to the other women in the locker room. Women like Bliss and Emma, who trained alongside the Four Horsewomen, have worked just as hard to get to where they are, and have put on stellar matches as well. Just look to Bliss’s championship match with Bayley at Payback, or at Emma’s matches with Paige in NXT and anything involving Asuka, if you really need examples.

The other NXT trainees under Assistant Head Coach Sara Amato aren’t the only ones responsible for the uptick in WWE’s womens wrestling. Women like Natalya and Naomi who fought for years to get these kind of opportunities and are finally getting a chance to have them. Who would have thought five years ago that a falls count anywhere match between Nikki Bella and Natalya would have been possible? That Naomi could main event Smackdown Live and be a two-time women’s champion, earning that second title in the penultimate match at WrestleMania?

Watching Bliss in the ring on Raw taking part of her “coronation” as the rest of the Raw women’s division stood around, it’s clear that while The Four Horsewomen have done a lot to bring it to the current state, they cannot be pinned as the only saviors. It’s taken a lot for WWE to get to its current state of Bliss, and it only takes just a second of looking at that ring in Raw’s opening segment to see it’s not just the Horsewomen who have helped it this far.