As any wrestling fan who’s paid enough attention should know, WWE is hardly the only game in town, and not everyone can find success there, regardless of talent. This is especially true in WWE’s women’s division, which had spent decades as an afterthought to the promotion and fans alike. As a result, there are loads of tremendously talented female wrestlers who failed to succeed in WWE.
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Thankfully, some of them were able to find greater success outside of the company, particularly in promotions like Impact Wrestling. Fans are seeing it most recently in wrestlers like Ruby Soho, who’s already being featured more in AEW than she had been before leaving WWE, but let’s look at some more.
10 Maria Kanellis
Maria Kanellis signed with WWE after taking part in the Diva Search competition in 2004, and thus had to suffer through all the indignities female talent had to suffer in the pre-Women’s Revolution era: lingerie matches, getting her clothes ripped off, matches to win a spot in Playboy, a romance with Santino Marella. Outside of WWE, however, Kanellis proved to be a great heel as both a wrestler and a manager for her future husband, Mike Bennett (a.k.a. Mike Kanellis in WWE) in both Ring of Honor and Impact Wrestling, where she also was the evil authority figure of the Knockouts Division.
9 Serena Deeb
Fans remember Serena Deeb best for being a part of CM Punk’s stable Straight Edge Society, but it may come as a shock to find out that she only ever had one televised match during this run. She returned to WWE as part of the Mae Young Classic, but lost in the second round. Outside of WWE, however, she’s been able to prove herself as an in-ring performer, capturing the NWA World Women’s Championship and putting on some great matches for her current home of All Elite Wrestling.
8 Kharma (a.k.a. Awesome Kong)
Not many women who entered the WWE during the “Divas” era actually had prior accomplishments in pro wrestling, so Awesome Kong was a bit of a rarity. Unfortunately, as Kharma, her run as a monster heel arriving to dominate the division was cut short due to personal reasons, reducing her to a weird footnote in that company’s history.
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Of course, fans who pay attention to things outside of WWE know Awesome Kong for not only tearing it up in Japan, but also delivering some of the best televised women’s matches in North America in Impact Wrestling during her feud with Gail Kim.
7 Katie Lea Burchill (a.k.a. Winter)
In WWE, English wrestler Katarina Waters was Katie Lea Burchill, the sister of Paul Burchill, with heavy implications that they had an incestuous relationship going on. Both Burchills failed to get a lot of traction in WWE and ended up released in 2010. In Impact Wrestling, however, Waters found more success as Winter, capturing the Knockouts Championship as well as the Knockouts Tag belts and taking part in weird storylines involving mind control potion, which is an arguable step up from incest.
6 Taynara Conti (a.k.a. Tay Conti)
Brazilian performer Taynara Conti was a fun part of NXT for the time she was there, although she never really gained that much traction. After departing the company in 2020, she quickly made her way to AEW, where she ended up making leaps and bounds in improvement, becoming a staple of the company’s women’s division. She’s yet to win a title in AEW, but Tay Conti’s gotten a lot more exposure than she did during her NXT run.
5 Tiffany (a.k.a Taryn Terrell)
As Tiffany, Taryn Terrell found very little success in WWE and is mostly “remembered” for that odd run where she found herself as the general manager of ECW for some reason. In Impact, however, she ended up becoming a champion, capturing the Knockouts Championship from Jessicka Havok and holding it for 279 days. On top of that, she proved that she was actually a good wrestler, putting on a surprisingly brutal Last Knockout Standing match with Kim at Slammiversary XI.
4 Deonna Purrazzo
Deonna Purrazzo was only released from WWE in 2020, but she’s already proven herself to be way more successful in the Impact Zone than during her two years with her former employer. Strictly used as “enhancement talent,” the most memorable thing about Purrazzo’s WWE run was that her entrance video was reminiscent of the “confused math lady” meme.
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In Impact, however, Purrazzo has become the center of the Knockouts Division, enjoying two reigns to date with the Knockouts Championship.
3 Bertha Faye (a.k.a. Monster Ripper)
WWE aficionados may remember trailer park comedy character Bertha Faye as the woman once won the Women’s Championship from Alundra Blayze and held it for a couple of months, which is a shame because her achievements outside of WWE are worthy of praise. Trained by women's wrestling trailblazer Mildred Burke, Rhonda Sing was a force on the international scene, wrestling as Monster Ripper (!) in All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling, taking part in wars with the iconic Bull Nakano, and even capturing AJW’s WWWA World Championship on several occasions.
2 Rachel Evers (a.k.a. Rachael Ellering)
Rachael Ellering is only getting started with her post-WWE career, but she’s already way more accomplished than she was during her time in NXT. In WWE, she took part in both Mae Young Classic tournaments, but failed to gain much success before a torn ACL took her out in 2019. After getting released in 2020, Ellering has shown up in Impact Wrestling, where she’s managed to capture the Knockouts Tag Team Champions alongside Jordynne Grace.
1 Gail Kim
Aside from a forgettable run with the Women’s Championship, Gail Kim’s WWE career pretty much amounted to a romance with Daniel Bryan and an incident where she broke from the script and intentionally eliminated herself in a battle royal on her way out of the company. But in Impact Wrestling, however, Kim is a legend of the company, a seven-time Knockouts Champion, Hall of Famer, and a tremendous performer who was delivering great matches on TV as early as 2008.
