Impact Wrestling Star Jordynne Grace Calls Out The Sandman For Criticizing Women Being Featured In Main Events
Jordynne Grace is putting wrestling legend Sandman on blast after he allegedly trashed the idea of women being featured in main events.
The Impact Wrestling star, posting on Twitter under her real name of Trisha Parker, shared a story on Saturday evening about an encounter with Sandman before an event. As Grace wrote, Sandman shared some apparently unsolicited criticism on the idea of women being featured in main events.
“Hey remember that time The Sandman came up to four women about to main event to tell us that women main eventing is ‘wrong’ and ‘any male wrestler with any sort of experience would agree’?” she wrote, later acknowledging that she was off by one day on the month. “Was this in 1998? No, it was tonight. December 2019.”
Grace appeared to be referencing her appearance at WrestleCade Weekend, held at the Benton Convention Convention Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, over the weekend. The family friendly three-day convention featured a number of current and former wrestlers along with a Saturday night show. Both Grace and Sandman were slated to appear at the convention from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday.
WrestleCade has gained a reputation for highlighting women in wrestling, partnering in 2017 with the WOW-Women Of Wrestling (WOW) to highlight its talent during the convention. The convention that year also featured WOW founder David McLane, considered a pioneer of modern women’s wrestling and creator of the television show GLOW-Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling, which highlighted the wild world of women’s wrestling during the 1980s.
Sandman’s apparent criticism of women being featured seemed out of place, and Grace’s tweet quickly attracted viral attention. Many fans offered their support and expressed disappointment in his views on women being featured in the WWE and other professional wrestling promotions. Others noted that Sandman himself had a reputation as being gruff and manly, with the persona later being adopted by Steve Austin to greater success.
“That’s a LOT coming from a dude who’s literally ONLY claim to fame was smoking cigs and bashing himself with beer cans on the way to the ring and swinging kendo sticks,” one fan wrote.
There has been a movement within the last decade to include more women wrestlers in main events, and Grace herself has been a beneficiary. The 23-year-old is in a two-year contract with Impact Wrestling and has been featured prominently, recently rising to become the top contender for the organization’s Knockouts Championship.
