In the late 80s there was Rockin' Robin. In the mid-90s there was Alundra Blayze. But nothing seemed to work. Promoters knew that the next female wrestler to get over would have to be attractive (after all, the demographic has always been predominantly male) and a good worker, but where the heck do you find a fine piece of eye candy who actually knew what she was doing in the ring?

After several years and several unsuccessful attempts to resurrect a women's division in both the WWF and WCW, Titan finally found the answer to the problem. It was so simple.

Question: Where do you find a gorgeous yet capable female wrestler? Answer: You don't. Just stick to the good-looking part.

So the WWF found the answer. Take the same hot chicks, dress them up in skimpy outfits and have them roll around a ring showing absolutely no wrestling skill, yet keeping fans entertained with the notion that if they grappled long enough, something might fall out (and it sometimes did.)

Mission accomplished.

By 1998, the WWF Women's Champion, Sable, drew pops only rivaled by the likes of Steve Austin himself. She didn't have a lick of talent, charisma or wrestling ability, but damn if she didn't look good in a leotard.

But when Sable made her exit earlier this year, WWF was in the spot of creating a new sex symbol and starlet of their women's division. They put the belt around Debra, who was over as heck as a visual display but had even less talent in the ring than Sable.

Then, the unlikely happened. The belt ended up around the waist of -- not the woman with biggest puppies, nor the most revealing outfit, nor the youngest looks -- but a woman who had until then, for the most part, had a very low profile in the women's division.

When Ivory debuted last winter, as the babyface manager of the hot Mark Henry and D'Lo Brown team, her character was bland and her sex appeal could not compete with the likes of Debra, Sable, Terri or Tori. She was feisty yet subdued and was hardly an obvious pick as the WWF's next big female star.

But things took their course and somewhere down the line somebody rolled the dice on Ivory. What they got was one of the most entertaining and interesting female wrestlers to come down the pike in a long while.

She's the World wrestling Federation Women's Champion. She is Ivory.

The Title Victories:

Although the WWF was banking on Debra taking over Sable's spot as the resident flag bearer for the WWF T&A factor, they couldn't realistically keep the belt on Debra. Although far from talented, Sable at least had a kick boxing background and a wrestler for a husband who could spend a few minutes teaching her a thing or two. Debra, on the other hand, couldn't throw a single punch.

After about a year of letting non-wrestlers wear the Women's Gold, WWF decided to go a different route and give the championship to someone who actually had a smidgen of athleticism in her, but wasn't hard on the eyes at all.

On the June 14 taped RAW is WAR, Ivory bested champion Debra, who I believe never really defended the title and never had any wrestling training at all, but was a fine piece of chicken. The match didn't last more than two minutes and ended when Ivory's then-bodyguard Nicole Bass choked Debra while the referee's attention was grabbed by Jeff Jarrett at ringside. Coming off the choke, Debra slipped right into an Ivory backslide and we had a new champion.

Ivory's first reign lasted a respectable four months, before she dropped it in a ``comedy''-match against 70-plus-year-old Moolah at WWF's No Mercy PPV. I put quotes around ``comedy'' because there was nothing even remotely funny about it.

Mercifully, Moolah's reign was short lived. A week after her victory, Moolah came out on RAW to announce her retirement and subsequent forfeiture of the championship. Not willing to leave well enough alone, Ivory scurried out to the ring, demanded a title shot and made quick work of Moolah for the three-count. Sufficed to say that neither of Ivory's title victories would rank amongst her most memorable matches.

The Reign:

Except for the one-week break in October, Ivory has been the champ for almost half a year, a significantly more impressive reign that any other championship in the WWF or WCW. Granted, the quality of competition is less-than-stellar, but Ivory has been a more dominant champion in her division that any female since the championship was resurrected in 1997.

Women's championship matches are still somewhat rare in the WWF. With a roster of about half a dozen to choose from (Not including non-wrestlers like Debra or Terri who are often stuck into matches just for the sake of increasing the possibility of the ``falling out factor.''), Ivory's title defenses have been sporadic, but still impressive.

In the last six months, Ivory has picked fights with Luna, Tori, Moolah and Mae Young as well as "fans" who she picked from the audience just to have someone to beat up on. She's been victorious in hardcore matches, three-way matches and even a mud wrestling match!

In a division where the matches usually rank in the negative-stars and where purists can only hope that the matches are kept quick and painless, Ivory has actually been able to pull out an entertaining match here and there under the right circumstances. Some of that can be credited to her athletic background (okay, so maybe the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling isn't quite All-Japan, but it's something.) But more importantly, what has added depth to Ivory's matches is her attitude. More on that later.

Ivory has carved a niche for herself in women's wrestling as a force to reckoned with - a feisty little pug with a heart sometimes bigger than her brain. The result has been a series of entertaining matches and even more entertaining promos over the last half-year by the WWF's resident ``bitch'' (if you're reading this, Ms. Moretti, I mean that in the nicest possible manner.)

The Breakdown:

The WWF's women's division has been absolutely saturated with big-boobed bimbos for two years now and with the new additions of Barbara Bush, Trish Stratus and ECW's former Ms. Congeniality, it looks like things will remain the same for quite sometime.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with that, but like all other things, there is such a thing as overkill. The women's roster can not survive with the same carbon copies of Sable making up the entire roster.

That's where Ivory comes in. Even without the use of blatant sexuality, Ivory has been quite good at getting herself over with the crowds. That's even more remarkable when you consider that when she first made her debut last winter, Ivory was downright boring and seemed like a strange choice to be added to the WWF's female roster.

But with Sable's exodus from the company, Ivory got her chance to shine as the WWF's top female heel. And from day-one it was magic. Her open challenges to anyone in the audience were legitimately humorous and really made Ivory out to be an arrogant little pain in the ass.

It is the "pain in the ass" quotient, in fact that makes Ivory so much fun. Just plain arrogance has been done time and time again by every female heel in the world. Sable's "men who came to see me and the women who want to be me" made my television dangerously close to having a shoe thrown at it many times. With Ivory however, the routine works because Ivory does not just come off as conceited, but as legitimately annoying. The best comparison is to that little hawk that used to always mess with Foghorn Leghorn. As small as he was, Foghorn was never able to just shake that pesky little guy off.

Ivory is an absolutely terrific heel. Her burning of Tori's back with a hot iron and scrawling "skank" on her body with a big jumbo marker were classics.

Her in-ring performances, while good for a women's wrestler, often aren't enough to save some of her matches from being real stinkers. I hate to make Ivory sound like God's gift to female wrestling, but it is hard to turn out a decent match when your competition always consists of elderly women or big-busted models. Sure Ivory can delivery the occasionally stinky performance as well, but I believe if paired with a decent opponent, Ivory could have consistently watchable matches. As is the case now, Ivory does have a better track record of putting on decent matches that any other female in the company, although they do come often in gimmick matches.

Yet, even with her spunky attitude and commendable athleticism, the fact is Ivory has not drawn a fraction of the popularity that her predecessors including Sable and Debra have. Sure, she graced the cover of last week's Entertainment Weekly Magazine, but that's mostly because the WWF is quite short on marketable babes right now. Ivory is the best of a shallow bunch, but has not made that transition to a mega-star.

The reason is obvious. Ivory probably has a few years on most of the women in the WWF and thus is not the young bombshell that many of the others are. Those who aren't too young have been the recipients of Vince's generous cosmetic surgery offerings.

The Outlook:

Many fans have bee crying for longer title reigns for a long while now, and it has probably gotten pretty repetitive by now. That said, I honestly believe Ivory should be allowed t hold on to the belt for a long while.

With the WWF Women's roster being as small as it is, it would be silly to have the belt move around frequently because in a few months everybody would have worn it, and then how do you distinguish the top-level women's wrestlers from the others? Ivory should be held up as the absolute best in the women's division and be promoted as the hunted champion who, although coming close to losing the strap very often, always manages to leave the match with her gold in tow.

This formula would not only get over Ivory as a huge heel and a legitimate champion, it would get over her babyface opponents who work hard to achieve that goal, but always fall short, and subsequently gain the audience's sympathy. When the champion is finally dethroned (let's say six months from now), it should be treated as a big deal - something that seems rare nowadays in WWF.

Championship Grade: A

Fonzo's Take: Does She Deserve the Strap?

In a perfect world, Ivory would be appreciated as an ideal combination of looks, athleticism, and personality in a female wrestler. But, the same fans who choose to still choose to sing along with the Road Dogg would probably rather see the belt around someone with bigger breasts. I say pick up a porno mag if you want to see T&A, but appreciate Ivory for what she can offer (which includes a considerable amount of T&A as well.) Without question, Ivory is the best the WWF women's division has to offer.

Championship Options: Who Else Could be Champ?

The WWF women's division is a pretty sad state of affairs right now, as anybody could have seen from the Survivor Series 8-Woman tag match. I'm not ready to see anyone in the WWF wear the championship gold besides Ivory. That said, a lot could be done to improve the division and perhaps make many of the ladies be taken more seriously as contenders.

Women like Tori, Luna and Jackie - all who share wrestling backgrounds - are basically collecting a check for doing close to nothing. Sure, Tori has the lame angle with Kane, Luna now accompanies her hubby to the ring and Jackie makes the occasional appearance, but in all three cases, it's a waste of the women's wrestling background.

Those ladies could spend a few months at wrestling camp just like the male WWF trainees and when they come back they'll have much more to offer and could be possible candidates for the women's championship.

It's too soon to tell how the WWF's new recruits will do in the WWF. The former-Miss. Congeniality and Trish Stratus are both said to have some wrestling knowledge. They may be decent candidates for short-term feuds with the women's champ. Barbara Bush may be pleasant on the eyes, but I think we're in for more Sable/Debra-esque cat fighting from her than actual technique.

So, I say keep the belt exactly where it is for now. With Ivory we have a unique woman who has shied away from style of the stereotypical WWF ladies' wrestler and made a name for herself with her multi-faceted talents. With a considerable amount of ability in the ring, plenty of spunk and an under-appreciated dose of sex appeal, Ivory is head & shoulders above her peers.

Now if we could only do something about that damn purple scarf.