Happy 19th Anniversary to Monday Night Raw’s first women’s main event

WWE’s women’s revolution has been a hallmark of the company over the last ten years. Advancements and developments for the women’s roster have resulted in a great sea of change in the company. Many of the company’s most popular and illustrious stars are now women. From Asuka to Charlotte Flair, Bayley to Bianca Belair, and Becky Lynch to Rhea Ripley, there are plenty of big guns around.

But, like our society, it wasn’t always this way. Women often got the shortest end of the stick. They would be used like it was an obligation to society rather than because the audience wanted to see them. Or that the people in charge wanted to make the audience see them.

In the early 2000s, two women — Lita and Trish Stratus — started to forge their own paths. Lita became an exciting part of Team Xtreme, while the versatile Stratus excelled in managerial roles in her first few years in the company. Both began getting their feet wet in terms of wrestling. The two stars, who quickly gained fame and attention, became budding rivals over the next few years.

Eventually, that all set the stage for one winter’s night. On December 6, 2004, WWE presented Monday Night Raw in Charlotte, North Carolina. This proved to be a historic night for the business, as Lita and Stratus main-evented Raw with the WWE Women’s Championship on the line. It was the first time women main-evented the company’s flagship television show with a wrestling match or otherwise.

To this day, the match is held up in extremely high regard. Lita and Trish continued on their paths to stardom in different ways. Both became WWE Hall of Famers and are inseparable from each other in history. Trish and Lita are two of the very best to ever do it, and their accomplishments and contributions to the business are in rarified air. This night nearly twenty years ago went a long way towards solidifying their legacies as trailblazers in pro wrestling.

[WWE on YouTube]