In the world of pro wrestling, intergender matches are a bit of a hot button topic. Outside of mixed tag team matches with strict rules, WWE largely avoids intergender matches save for bouts where a female wrestler beats up a male manager. Otherwise, there are vocal opponents of intergender wrestling -- fans and wrestling business participants alike -- who criticize the genre as unrealistic at best and evocative of domestic abuse at worst.
Despite the naysayers, there have been some incredible, even groundbreaking, intergender matches. Fans may be aware of high-profile examples like Tessa Blanchard vs. Sami Callihan in Impact Wrestling or Pentagon fighting Io Shirai, Kairi Sane, and Mayu Iwatani in a gauntlet match on Lucha Underground, but here are some other standout bouts that may have flown under the radar.
10 Timothy Thatcher vs. Toni Storm
A co-promoted show between Beyond Wrestling and Women’s Wrestling Revolution, Lit Up featured a card full of great male and female indie talent, the main event of which was a bout between Toni Storm and Timothy Thatcher, both now on NXT.
It’s one of those intergender matches where the female competitor has to overcome a dominant male counterpart, but it makes sense here because of Thatcher’s super technical style. It’s a more matwork-heavy match than some fans may be used to, but is totally worth it for the surprise ending.
9 Kana & Naomichi Marufuji vs. Meiko Satomura & Minoru Suzuki
Before leaving the Japanese wrestling scene for WWE, Kana -- now known as Asuka -- produced several indie shows in 2014, the second of which had a star-studded dream match in mixed tag form as the future Empress of Tomorrow teamed up with NOAH ace Naomichi Marufuji against joshi legend Meiko Satomura and NJPW’s Minoru Suzuki. It’s a legitimately great 23-minute main event where nobody holds back, and the closest fans will ever get to an Asuka/Suzuki dream match.
8 Kris Statlander vs. Chris Dickinson
Game Changer Wrestling puts on a number of Joey Janela-produced shows like Joey Janela’s Spring Break that offer fun cards full of surprising matchups, and even more surprising guest appearances.
2019’s Escape From L.A. had the wacky matchup of Mance Warner vs. Kikutaro, but it also had AEW’s Kris Statlandlander taking on Chris Dickinson, who’s been making waves on New Japan Strong. While some fans may write off Statlander due to her alien shtick, she and Dickinson delivered an intense, fast-paced 18-minute bout in front of a hot crowd.
7 Kylie Rae vs. Orange Cassidy
Uncharted Territory was Beyond Wrestling’s attempt to produce a weekly serialized wrestling show, and put a spotlight on many of the best indie wrestlers, including many future stars of All Elite Wrestling. The main event of the third episode had Orange Cassidy defending his IWTV Independent Wrestling title against Kylie Rae of AEW and later Impact.
As one might imagine from an Orange Cassidy match on the indies, the bout is loaded with great comedy stuff, but also equally great wrestling, and fans who aren’t as familiar with Kylie Ray just might end up rooting for her by the end of the match.
6 The Colony vs. Team Sendai Girls
The best time of year for the now-defunct indie fed CHIKARA was King of Trios, a three-day trios match tournament with star-studded teams made up of CHIKARA mainstays, indie wrestlers, international talent, and even WWE alumni.
Meiko Satomura’s Sendai Girls team were a staple of these tournaments, and in 2016 her team with Cassandra Miyagi and DASH Chisako put on one of the great KOT matches of all time against The Colony, made up of Fire Ant (Orange Cassidy), Silver Ant (Tracy Williams), and Soldier Ant (Drew Gulak). It was only a quarterfinal match, but it was so good it felt like it was a tournament final.
5 World’s Cutest Tag Team vs. The Young Bucks
SoCal indie wrestling pillar Pro Wrestling Guerrilla has booked some of the best independent wrestlers of the 21st century, but has received well-deserved criticism for largely ignoring women’s wrestling. The one exception was Candice LeRae, who was a regular in PWG thanks to her tag team with the ever-problematic Joey Ryan, World’s Cutest Tag Team.
The two challenged The Young Bucks for the PWG Tag Titles in one of the best and most violent matches in PWG history, with LeRae’s fierce, blood-soaked performance sure to impress fans who only know her work in NXT.
4 Brian Cage vs. Tessa Blanchard
While Tessa Blanchard broke new intergender ground in Impact Wrestling, she was no stranger to the genre. While not every fan knows of the now-defunct Texas indie WrestleCircus, it was there that she and Brian Cage put on a highly acclaimed winner-take-all title bout for Cage’s WC Ringmaster Title and Blanchard’s WC Sideshow Title.
The two put on a competitive main event where Cage got the win and both titles, but it wouldn’t be their last meeting -- Blanchard would get the win over Cage to become #1 Contender in Impact, leading to her aforementioned landmark Impact Championship win.
3 Sendai Girls vs. ALL OUT
The Sendai Girls didn’t just wrestle intergender matches on the American indie scene. In 2019, Sendai Girls -- with Chihiro Hashimoto instead of Miyagi this time -- did some great work with Dramatic Dream Team, including an exciting feud with DDT’s stable ALL OUT -- Konosuke Takeshita, Shunma Katsumata & Yuki Ino -- for the KO-D Six-Man Tag Team Titles. They had three matches together, during which Sendai Girls won the belts in the second, but the third proved to be the best of their rivalry -- fun but fierce, with amazing chemistry among the teams.
2 Nanae Takahashi vs. Masato Tanaka
Here’s a very surprising, seemingly unlikely matchup. Die-hard ECW fans certainly know Masato Tanaka, thanks to his legendary rivalry with Mike Awesome in ECW, and some fans may know Nanae Takahashi, the highly decorated joshi veteran of All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling who co-founded Stardom. She left Stardom to found her own promotion SEAdLINNNG, which gets far less attention in the West, but on one show she took on Masato Tanaka in a hard-hitting main event where the two stars were evenly matched, and did not disappoint.
1 Eddie Kingston vs. Sara Del Rey
While Sara Del Rey’s biggest contribution to pro wrestling may end up being her role in training NXT’s women’s division, she was also a standout wrestler in her own right. One of her last matches on the indie scene was a challenge to Eddie Kingston’s Chikara Grand Championship during his nearly three-year run with the title. Del Rey was adept at intergender matches, and this bout was no exception, as she fought like she was a legitimate threat to Kingston’s title, rather than the oft-used trope of the female underdog attempting to overcome a more dominant male opponent.