Gail Kim vs. Serena vs. Hamada
Triple Threat Match for the Women's Championship
Bash at the Beach
Sacramento, California
26/07/2009
Triple Threat Match for the Women's Championship
Bash at the Beach
Sacramento, California
26/07/2009
The rise of women in wrestling was a noted development throughout the WWF in the early-mid 2000's, culminating in a strong presence on Monday Night Raw towards the end of the decade. In looking to make the two brands stand out, the Women's Division had proven to be a successful experiment that had gained the attention of the audience.
The prestige of the Woman's Championship had risen as time had gone on as well, slowly starting to be seen as an equal to its male counterpart by some parts of the audience. More work was needed however and several of the women took it as a challenge to put on the best possible matches in order to further put themselves in the limelight.
One such match took place with a heated feud between the WWF's three biggest names for female wrestling. The reigning Champion, Gail Kim had held a stranglehold over the division for a year, using whatever tactics she could to cling onto her title. As she did this, Hamada rose through the ranks to stake a claim on becoming number one contender for the Championship with Kim using her lackey, Serena, to get between them. Serena's ambition grew however and she yearned for a shot at the Championship that she had helped protect, leading to a clash at Bash at the Beach between the three women after the tensions spilled over into a brawl on Raw.
With bad blood between all three women, it wasn't surprising that they barely even waited for the match to officially begin before going at it hammer and tongs against each other. Former loyalties were forgotten as Kim and Serena were more than happy to attack each other over Hamada. The trio were soon going at it hard with each woman trying to claim their stake on the title. Gail Kim's offence saw itself coming up against Serena's increasingly savage assaults, fuelled by hatred of her former partner in crime.
Throughout the match, Hamada picked her spots to attack either of her opponents, wearing them down as they tried to cling on. The end came when Hamada managed to throw Kim out of the ring and then hit Serena with the AP Cross, putting the former down for the count and letting Serena gain her first ever Women's Championship.
With her victory, Hamada became the forefront of the Women's Division as she continued to feud with Gail Kim and Serena in the immediate aftermath. The latter two would then develop their own blood feud to last to the end of the year. Hamada, one of the bigger names to have come to the WWF from Japan, helped push the Women's Division into even higher popularity as she had high quality matches with a string of opponents.
The match signified what was to come, its high quality and placing three talented women wrestlers helping to further women's wrestling as a solid addition to the WWF's brand. This was noted by other places, with the GWF also starting to take notice and add their own women's wrestlers as time went by, to lesser success.