What AEW’s Mercedes Mone Really Thinks Of The Term Diva
Mercedes Mone has explained what the word ‘diva’ means to her and how she made it her goal to redefine the word.
Before women headlined WrestleMania, before a women’s revolution, before an all-female WWE Evolution, and before they were simply WWE Superstars again, the company’s women were known as Divas.
The word has become associated with a time when women’s wrestling was an afterthought in WWE with no real focus put on the women in the company past what they looked like.
Speaking to Evan T. Mack on Kick Rocks, AEW’s newest star Mercedes Mone gave her thoughts on the progress women have made in the wrestling business over the last decade and how the number of women she sees in promotions and wrestling schools has increased massively:
It’s so beautiful. I’m going to put over the women, but it’s not just the women, it’s the men. This is the most pro wrestlers in the history of wrestling and it’s the most women have ever been a part of this business. To see how many women are at pro wrestling schools, to see how many women are at different promotions from independent to STARDOM to TNA to AEW to WWE. I have no words for it. I started in WWE with eight women in developmental.
I don’t even know how many there are know, there are probably 30, and then you have main roster and AEW and STARDOM. It’s beyond my biggest dreams. I watched wrestling like, ‘How can I do this like the men?’ I discovered Japanese pro wrestling and was like, ‘Oh wow, they actually do it like the men, but harder.’ I saw that and wanted that in the United States. I always wanted to change the definition of what it was to be a diva.
“We Weren’t Treated Equally” – Mercedes Mone
Back to the diva word and Mercedes Mone admits that now she doesn’t view it negatively but remembers the lack of respect shown to women wrestlers of that era:
To me, now, no, because it means so much. Back then, I could never watch it with my mom or grandma. My grandma would make fun of me. ‘Yeah, that’s what I want to do.’ Those are the times. We weren’t treated equally, we weren’t treated the same. We weren’t given the same respect. Now women are main eventing. We are beyond killing it and it’s amazing.
Mercedes Mone made her not-so-shocking debut for AEW at Dynamite Big Business. Mone kicked off the night spelling out her reasons for being in AEW before she returned after the main event to help Willow Nightingale out of a beating at the hands of Skye Blue and TBS Champion Julia Hart.