WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal


The WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal is a professional wrestling battle royal held at WrestleMania by the American professional wrestling promotion WWE. The inaugural battle royal was held during the WrestleMania 34 Kickoff pre-show in 2018. The winner of the match received the WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal Trophy.
The match was originally named The Fabulous Moolah Memorial Battle Royal in honor of The Fabulous Moolah – billed as a pioneer of women's wrestling. However, her name was removed from the match after backlash from fans due to the [|controversy] surrounding Moolah's past. The match is the female counterpart to the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, which was introduced at WrestleMania XXX in 2014.
On March 29, 2019, it was announced that the Women's Battle Royal was returning at WrestleMania 35, thus establishing the match as an annual tradition. However, the match did not occur at WrestleMania 36 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

History

On the March 12, 2018, episode of Raw, WWE established The Fabulous Moolah Memorial Battle Royal in honor of Moolah, and that the first match would take place at WrestleMania 34 on April 8, with the winner receiving The Fabulous Moolah Memorial Trophy. After a controversy over their decision to honor Moolah, WWE changed the name to the "WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal". The trophy was subsequently renamed, and redesigned as a simple golden cup with tassels atop the trophy's base. The inaugural match was won by Naomi, after she last eliminated Bayley. The second match was won by Carmella, after she last eliminated Sarah Logan.
A third annual WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal would have occurred at WrestleMania 36 in April 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought many changes to WWE's programming during that time, the match was not scheduled to limit the number of wrestlers in the ring at the same time.

Winners

Participants

Name controversy

The decision to hold a battle royal in honor of The Fabulous Moolah drew fan outrage. Tufayel Ahmed of Newsweek wrote that Moolah "isn't quite the bastion of female empowerment she is proclaimed to be", with "years of allegations" that she had "monopolized women’s wrestling in North America", taken a large percentage of other wrestlers' pay, and "sexually exploited women under her mentorship". Jason Powell, from Pro Wrestling Dot Net, criticized the tribute as it does not "exactly mesh with what WWE wants their women's division push to represent". David Bixenspan of Deadspin pointed out that given Moolah's alleged abuses, fans were particularly turned off by WWE personnel describing Moolah as a "trailblazer for women’s equality". WWE also promoted Moolah as having "challenged the gender norms of a once male-dominated sport", but Bixenspan described that Moolah, by wrestling and teaching her students an "in-ring style low on athleticism and heavy on hair-pulling", relegated women's wrestling to "much more of a sideshow" instead of a "legitimate headline attraction" in the previous era. Mad Maxine, a wrestler trained by Moolah, commented that Moolah was the most "monstrous" person she had ever met, and that wrestling is "about generating heat. And you can't draw more heat than naming a match for The Fabulous Moolah."
On March 12, a Change.org petition appeared online demanding WWE change the name of its upcoming Fabulous Moolah Memorial Battle Royal, nearing its 10,000 signature goal. Initially, WWE reacted by disabling the comments section of their YouTube video that announced the Moolah battle royal. Later, Snickers, the primary sponsor of WrestleMania 34, called the decision to honor Moolah "unacceptable" and said they were "engaging with the WWE to express our disappointment." On March 14, WWE renamed the match "WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal", removing Moolah's name from the event.