10 Notorious Real-Life Women's Wrestling Rivalries

Pro wrestling locker rooms aren’t always filled with content individuals as personality clashes, perceived slights, and just outright jealousy have created some very real feuds that have turned ugly and, in some cases, led to fights and firings. 

This extends to both the men’s and women’s locker rooms too. These are 10 Notorious Real-Life Women’s Wrestling Rivalries.

10. Luna Vachon Vs. Sable

During the Attitude Era, the role of women in WWE was clearly changing. There was practically no emphasis on actual wrestling talent, but a strong focus on other elements, thanks in large part to the emergence of Sable. 

Marc Mero’s then-wife got hired alongside The Wildman primarily due to her looks and was pushed heavily on television as a sex symbol. Luna Vachon – who, as an adopted member of the Vachon wrestling family was brought up in the business the hard way and didn’t possess the supermodel looks of Rena Mero – deeply resented Sable’s mega push. 

Vachon also resented allegedly being warned by Vince McMahon not to make a scratch on Sable prior to their mixed-tag team match at WrestleMania XIV and then not getting the praise she believed she deserved for carrying her far less experienced opponent, while Sable was showered with praise. 

Luna made no secret of the fact she hated the Playboy cover girl and both Marc Mero and Luna’s then-husband Gangrel had to intervene on various occasions to make sure things didn’t turn physical backstage. 

Luna was, ultimately, suspended and lost out on a pay-per-view Women’s Championship match after various backstage incidents, including confrontations with Marc Mero, Jacqueline and road agent Jack Lanza.

9. Dawn Marie Vs. Francine

When Dawn Marie first showed up in ECW as Tammy Lynn Bytch, everything was fine between her and the so-called 'Queen of Extreme' Francine. However, over time, their relationship began to deteriorate, seemingly due to professional jealousy. 

Dawn has claimed that Francine would make her life a living hell, to the point she would go home and cry about the situation once she was off the road. She also said that Francine would refer to her as ‘she’, ‘her’ and ‘it’, even when Dawn was right there next to her.

Francine, meanwhile, has denied that she was at all hostile while asserting that Marie didn’t respect the business and would legitimately attempt to hurt her during their catfight pull-apart brawls. 

The resentment lingered long after ECW had closed its doors and there was an unpleasant confrontation between the two women prior to the first One Night Stand pay-per-view, which did neither woman any favours with management. 

8. Missy Hyatt Vs. Peaches

The feud between Francine and Dawn Marie was not the first to cause issues in ECW. A couple of years prior, Missy Hyatt and Lori Fullington – the wife of The Sandman, who went by the name Peaches – had problems that played a major role in Missy opting to leave ECW.

According to Missy’s autobiography, Lori accused her of sleeping with her husband and even hit her with a boot on one occasion due to Hyatt’s past promiscuous ways and Lori’s paranoia that her husband was having an affair. 

Despite Hyatt assuring Lori that their relationship was strictly professional – especially after Peaches took offence to some close-to-the-bone comments Missy made during a promo – the tension didn’t lessen and Lori broke Hyatt’s elbow by hitting her with an extra-stiff cane shot at an ECW house show.

Missy had had enough and, when Paul Heyman turned down her request to do commentary work, she quit. Hyatt later confessed that she had in fact slept with The Sandman (twice) in a bid to settle nerves and improve their on-screen chemistry. 

7. Tiffany Stratton Vs. Charlotte Flair

While fans may be sick of Charlotte Flair’s consistent pushes and routine title wins, she is also an old-school beefer with a talent for causing real-life drama. Tiffany Stratton was the latest talent to experience this during the build to their WrestleMania 41 match for the WWE Women’s Championship. 

On the March 21, 2025 edition of SmackDown, the two had a back-and-forth debate (via video link) to hype their impending WrestleMania showdown. Flair kept cutting Stratton off, with most fans saying she got the better of the exchange. 

Two weeks later, however, it was a different story. This time in front of a live crowd, an in-ring promo segment between the pair went off the rails when they started going off-script and making personal comments. 

Tiffany referenced Charlotte’s hat-trick of divorces, while Flair (who was clearly rattled by the negative crowd reaction to her) made fun of Stratton’s voice and claimed that Tiffany’s boyfriend Ludwig Kaiser had been in her DMs.

Charlotte was reportedly very displeased about the whole thing when she got backstage, though she and Tiffany agreed to put their personal differences to one side and work professionally going forward. 

6. Chyna Vs. Stephanie McMahon

During his ascent from WWE mid-card to the main event, Triple H was in a real-life relationship with Joanie Laurer, AKA Chyna. With the Ninth Wonder of the World no longer a member of D-Generation X, however, Hunter was paired up with Stephanie McMahon on-screen in late 1999. 

Life ended up imitating art and, over time, The Game and the Billion-Dollar Princess became romantically involved. Laurer discovered the infidelity after finding a love letter Stephanie had written her one-time fiancé and, understandably, was not happy about the situation.

Chyna may have been more angry at her ex, but she still harboured a huge grudge against Stephanie and the strong possibility of the conflict creating a bad working environment was a contributing factor to WWE’s decision not to renew Laurer’s contract – especially after a backstage run-in where she allegedly threatened to ‘choke’ Stephanie out. 

Stephanie, for her part, never publicly disparaged Chyna, and did say that she felt her contributions warranted a WWE Hall of Fame induction following Laurer’s death in 2016. 

5. Melina Vs. Everyone

During her seven-year run with the company, Melina was a notorious heat magnet, having issues with a whole swathe of WWE’s female talents. 

A lot of the issues are ‘he said, she said’ rumour and innuendo, but there were constant reports of prolonged heat or singular incidents with Mickie James, Candice Michelle, Tiffany, Sharmell, Maria Kanellis, Brooke Adams and Lita, to name but seven.

Melina’s bratty behaviour was so bad that, at one point, she was hauled into wrestler’s court over it during an international tour. 

Whether you believe reports that she got kicked out of the locker room by Lita or almost got into a fight with Sharmell at a house show is really up to you, but there is no questioning that Melina was a heat magnet during her WWE run and many of her colleagues haven’t had nice things to say about her over the years. Fortunately, Melina has mended a lot of fences and is close friends with several former colleagues today. 

4. Awesome Kong Vs. Reby Sky

The bad blood between Reby Sky and Awesome Kong began when Kong participated in a YouShoot shoot interview and placed Sky in the infamous ‘ho bag’. 

Kong did so as she felt Reby was disrespectful, particularly when it came to comments aimed at Sid Vicious after Sycho Sid resurfaced on an episode of WWE Raw in 2012.

Sky took to social media where, among other things, she claimed that Kong had to participate in shoot interviews because she was broke and needed to support a bad drug habit. 

Things came to a head when both women were working for TNA in 2016. While overseas on a UK tour, Sky and Kong had an altercation in the locker room that resulted in Kong throwing Sky’s bags into the hallway. 

Matt Hardy’s wife then went back into the locker room to retrieve items for her young son that had been left inside, but was denied entry and, after reportedly calling Kong an ‘effing maniac’, found herself being choked out before security personnel and TNA agent Simon Diamond intervened. 

The former Knockouts World Champion was subsequently sent home from the tour and then fired by TNA.

3. Torrie Wilson Vs. Sable

Torrie Wilson and Sable – who had returned to WWE four years after quitting and suing the company citing, among other things, workplace sexual harassment – had an up-and-down on-screen relationship, starting off at odds, becoming tag partners and Playboy co-cover girls, and then feuding once again. 

Behind the scenes, relations between the two started well but gradually deteriorated to the point that, five days before they were due to team together at WrestleMania XX, they got into a shouting match at a SmackDown taping. 

Reports suggested they were locked in a room screaming at each other for half an hour, with an incident at a Playboy party both had attended a week prior being cited as the catalyst for the blow-up.

John Laurinaitis eventually had to cool things down, but the blue brand’s roster had already heard all the drama. Sable and Wilson were able to coexist for the next few months, when Sable once again left the company. 

Many years later, Torrie revealed that Sable had convinced herself that Torrie was trying to steal her spotlight. Interestingly, when Wilson was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2019, she was expressly forbidden from mentioning Sable in her speech.

2. Becky Lynch Vs. Charlotte Flair

During the early days of black-and-gold NXT, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch were very close friends. 

They, along with the other half of the Four Horsewomen, Sasha Banks and Bayley, were viewed as the performers who were going to take women’s wrestling in WWE into the future. After being called up to the main roster, however, Charlotte and Becky drifted apart. There was no specific incident, but a competitive rivalry centred around being the very best ensured they were no longer on the best of terms. 

Inevitably, this rift played out on-screen. During the October 22, 2021, edition of SmackDown, Flair and Lynch were involved in a segment that was supposed to see them swap title belts since they were swapping brands. 

But in an unplanned moment, Charlotte dropped her belt on the ground, forcing intermediary Sonya Deville to pick it up and hand it to Becky. When the two got backstage, Lynch reportedly confronted Flair, who was escorted from the arena. 

In an interview shortly after, Becky confirmed that she and Charlotte were no longer friends and that she didn’t trust her. Years later, however, tensions had thawed and, while they weren’t best friends by any means, they had agreed to let bygones be bygones.

1. Sunny Vs. Sable

There had been female wrestlers, managers and valets before her, but Sunny was arguably the first of what would come to be known as a WWE Diva. 

Tammy Sytch was not only a big fan of the business and a good performer, she was a major sex symbol for WWE, becoming AOL’s most downloaded celebrity of 1996. 

In 1997, however, Sunny’s popularity was surpassed by Sable and they did not get along backstage, with it plain to see within the company. Things didn’t get better when Sable accidentally stiffed Sunny during a slap fight. 

Sytch has in the years since claimed that professional jealousy had nothing to do with it, as they both had different roles to fill on the show, but that she disliked Rena Mero as a person, citing a conversation where Rena allegedly said she was glad her first husband died in a car crash as it enabled her to meet Marc Mero. Sable, for her part, has never really commented on the supposed heat.