The taping for WWE Network’s Mae Young Classic, the company’s long discussed women’s tournament, is less than a month away, so we knew we’d have to start getting details soon.
Moments ago, we got our first concrete ones, as WWE revealed the first four participants in the tourney. It’s an interesting mix.
From outside the current roster, they’re bringing in a couple of ladies who hold titles in other promotions - and both the wrestlers and the companies they represent are on different ends of the experience/history spectrum.
From Mexico, Princesa Sugehit is the current Mexican National Women’s Champion. That belt, currently promoted by CMLL, has been around since 1955 and is one of the oldest women’s titles actively being defending in the world today. Sugehit herself has been wrestling for CMLL and AAA for more than 20 years.
Toni Storm was just recently crowned the first ever Progress Women’s champion. The 21 year old has amazingly been wrestling since she was 13. Born in New Zealand, raised in Australia and based in the United Kingdom, she represents another tie between WWE and Jim Smallman’s UK promotion.
Internally, two women who’ve been featured as enhancement talent on NXT will represent the Performance Center. Sarah Logan (fka Crazy Mary Dobson) was well established on the indies and trained in Japan before signing with WWE last year. Lacey Evans (real name Macey Estrella), on the other hand, is a former U.S. Marine who wrestled briefly on the independent circuit before signing with WWE in 2016*.
It’s an intriguing mix - and we still have 28 more names to add!
* This post has been corrected to reflect Evans’ 2014 - 2015 independent career, which included a run as champion for American Premier Wrestling out of Georgia.