Vince Russo Describes The Sexism Sable Faced In WWF At Height Of Her Popularity

It was a very different world when the WWE Women's Championship was relaunched in 1998 after three years of inactivity. Sable was WWE's top female star, had no desire to be a wrestler, and yet still became an active one because she had gotten over as a personality. However, since this was the Attitude Era, getting over as a personality was, for her, much more about being presented as WWE's designated sex symbol than anything else, which led to an environment uncomfortable enough that she left the company and sued them in June 1999, later settling out of court. On Wednesday, then-WWE head writer Vince Russo appeared on "Busted Open Radio," and expanded on the sexism he saw Sable deal with.

"What I witnessed was a level of sexism in the wrestling business that I never experienced before in my life," Russo recalled. "It was the 'good ol' boys' club." He then offered up an example that he felt illustrated the problem. "As a writer, bro, I don't care if you're male, female, black, white, a chimpanzee; I could care less. If you draw ratings, you're gonna be on the show. Period. End of story. And Sable was drawing ratings. What happened was she was getting so over, she was getting a  lot of TV time, and the good ol' boys didn't like a female taking their television time. And bro, I can tell you as a fact, I'm not gonna say who it is, but literally, a top guy got in Vince's ear, and the next thing you know, Sable is managing The Parade of Human Oddities."

For those not familiar with 1998 WWE, The Oddities were a heel stable managed by The Jackyl (Don Callis), who suddenly turned babyface and were booked as a comedy act after a storyline where Sable helped them embrace their inner beauty. Sable was not with the group long, instead focusing on her feud with then-husband Marc Mero and his valet Jacqueline.