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The return of women's wrestling, sort of (1993 to 2000)
When the WWF Women's Championship was resurrected in 1993 after current WWE Hall of Famer Alundra Blayze won a tournament to crown a new champion, a very short-lived revival of women's wrestling began in the WWF. Outside of Blayze, who held the title three times in the 20 months of its existence, the only other champions were Bull Nakano and Bertha Faye.
Exactly 2 years to the day that Blayze won the championship (December 13, 1993, aired December 26), shortly after Blayze left the WWF and joined WCW as Medusa, she would throw the physical Women's Championship belt in a trash can live on Monday Nitro on December 13, 1995. The WWF decided that the title would not make a return after the embarrassing moment, and it was deactivated until late 1998.
For anybody who was a WWF fan at the time or knows some history, it is needless to say that women's wrestling (at least Vince McMahon's version) was not at its peak in the late 1990s. A loose timeline would show that starting around 1995 (when Sunny joined the WWF), women got very little time on television (in non-suggestive roles). This continued for 5+ years. In 1998, Sable and Miss Jacqueline were involved in a feud that revolved around Sable's husband, Marc Mero, betraying her and becoming Jacqueline's main man. The feud mostly consisted of catfights and both women intentionally losing clothing. The Women's title was brought back, arbitrarily, in September 1998 when Jacqueline won the belt on an episode of RAW, defeating Sable with the help of Mero.
Sable won the title at Survivor Series the next month and spent the rest of her time in WWE (about 6 months) barely defending it at all. When she did, it was usually part of a feud based on the pettiness and cattiness of the women, and ridiculous ideas like an "evening gown" match to determine the champion. The law of the land from late 1998 until approximately late 2000, was suggestive in nature. Evening gown matches, catfights, contests to determine who looked best, matches that ended in pools and mud puddles, and women having their clothing torn at (or just doing it themselves) was mostly what you saw as a WWF fan in the first couple of years after the Women's Championship returned.
The trend very slowly started turning the other direction in late 2000, about 2 years after the championship made its return, but the years to come were not exactly great for the women of American professional wrestling.
