Throughout the 1980s, you had Crush Gals, Chigusa Nagayo, and Lioness Asuka selling out arenas, and pulling in ‘prime-time’ ratings for All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling (AJW), as they faced the ‘big bad’, Dump Matsumoto, and her faction, Gokuaku Domei
.. Netflix’s, The Queen of Villains, is a great re-telling of this golden-era of women’s wrestling - and the reference point for this project.
Toni Storm + Mariah May had one of, if not the, sharpest and most engaging story in all of wrestling for over a year .. Mercedes Moné, Rhea Ripley move tickets like anyone in the industry today .. And Chelsea Green gets the loudest pop in almost every building when her music hits. There is no question that women’s wrestling does what it needs to do when given the chance, and promoted accordingly.
When a promotion decides to build a star, it can - and it does .. So this gap in parity is, for sure, a choice and we want to measure + record this choice with The Red Belt Test, named after the AJW era - it’s time to collect some receipts ..
Weekly updates can be found over on Instagram → @redbeltreceipts
Scoring Criteria
The Red Belt Test Quarterly Report 2026 .. April 1 - June 30
Takeaway #1
Out of 52 shows, 13 episodes per brand, 6 scored a perfect 5 out of 5, AEW's Collision producing 5 of these, across 5 consecutive weeks in a row.
However, AEW were also responsible for the only 4 episodes, across both promotions, to score 0 out of 5.
Takeaway #2
Both WWE, and AEW's flagship brands, Raw, and Dynamite, scored just a 1 out of 5 on 4 occasions each - close to a third of their episodes for the quarter.
Additionally, with the 4 episodes of Dynamite that scored 0 out of 5 - this means over half of the Dynamite's episodes for this quarter failed to score above a 1 out of 5.
Takeaway #3
Each promotion effectively has 26 weekly episodes of television to produce .. In this quarter, only 23%, 6 episodes, of AEW's Dynamite + Collision combined gave the women at least a quarter of the total match time on each episode.
In contrast, the women in WWE had a quarter of the match time 73% of the time - 19 episodes.
0% of AEW's PPVs hit this criterion .. 
Takeaway #4
Despite the 73% pass rate of match time allocated to women across WWE's 26 episodes of Raw + Smackdown combined this quarter ..
And a 96% pass rate on featuring at least 2 female focused segments, promos, or interviews per episode ..
Women were only given the main event 23% of the time - 6 episodes out of 26.
Takeaway #5
With 7 PPVs or PLEs across both promotions for this quarter - only 2 of WWE's 4 shows gave the women at least 25% of the total match time.
AEW's allocated match time for the women did increase with each of it's 3 shows, but still effectively failed - peaking with just 21% at Forbidden Door in June.
AEW vs. WWE, pass rate % for each criterion
June 12, 2023 → June 30, 2026 .. All weekly shows, plus PPVs and PLEs, from both promotions collectively scored - taken from June 2023 when Collision first aired, and the point at which both promotions had 2 staple brands. (AEW's short-lived Rampage brand has not been accounted for in this study.)

1. Are there at least two women's matches on the show?

→ Over the 3 year period, AEW had at least 2 women's matches on the show 32% whereas WWE managed this 56% of the time.

2. Do women's matches account for at least 25% of the total match time?

→ Looking back over the 3 years, the largest gap between the 2 promotions comes when comparing the women's match time per show .. AEW hit the 25%-match-time threshold on only 11% of their shows, compared to WWE's 61%.

3. Are there at least two women's segments, promos, or interviews featured on the show?

→ WWE typically runs more segments/promos/etc., whereas AEW uses them more sparingly .. The result is a 25% gap in the pass rate between the 2 promotions, over the 3 year period - with AEW falling short noticeably more often.

4. Is there a women's match with a defined consequence, or stipulation?

→ The gap is smaller here than in other criteria when it comes to defined consequences for women's matches .. AEW hit this criterion 43% of the time, whereas WWE managed 50%.

5. Are women billed in the main event?

→ The least surprising of the 5 criteria .. AEW had women headline one of their shows 14% of the time over the 3 year period, and WWE is only marginally ahead with 17%.

The Red Belt Scores ..

→ If this result were high, there'd be little point to the study .. But AEW scoring just 5 out of 5 on 3% of its shows, and WWE hitting 6%, falls way below where these figure should be at considering how low the bar is - this test isn't asking for a 50/50 split, just a meaningful, legit presence. 5 relatively basic markers, where 4 out of 5 should be the bare minimum as a base mark.

Definitions
•  Pre-show/dark matches do not count
•  ‘Main event’ refers specifically to the closing match of the show
•  Intergender/mixed matches ..
Count as 0.5 towards criterion 1
Full match length counts towards criterion 2
Defined consequence/stipulation scores 1 point
Main event scores 1 point
•  Mixed-gender segments, promos, interviews .. Count as 0.5 (Weekly shows only)
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