After spending most of 2017 trying to sift through rumors of signings and scouting for WWE’s inaugural Mae Young Classic women’s wrestling tournament, we are finally, FINALLY getting some actual, concrete news.
On Friday, WWE announced the first four names of competitors who will for-real be in this international tournament. If this first announcement is any indication, the field will be a mix of women we expected, women we suspected and women we had no idea were even in the conversation. As any tournament worth its salt should be.
The first participant is New Zealand’s Toni Storm, who has worked extensively for World Wonder Ring Stardom in Japan, and in May, she became the first-ever PROGRESS Women’s Champion in the U.K.
The next two names are a couple of NXT wrestlers that we pretty much had penciled in already: Lacey Evans (the former Macey Estrella, a Performance Center standout who has been on NXT television quite a bit in the past couple of months), and Sarah Logan, who wrestled on the indie scene as Crazy Mary Dobson and recently re-appeared on the weekly NXT show with her new moniker.
The fourth wrestler in Friday’s announcement is luchadora Princesa Sugehit, who has been a champion in both CMLL and AAA. Her name has been spelled like a million different ways across promotions and around the internet, but it looks like WWE is going with “Sugehit.” She is also CMLL’s current Mexican National Women’s Champion.
So right now, WWE’s Mae Young Classic is featuring women who are currently, actively champions in Stardom, PROGRESS, and CMLL. Pro wrestling in 2017 is a constant miracle.
