Many greetings to you, wrestling fans near and far. I hope those of you in the U.S. had an enjoyable Labor Day weekend. As I’m sure we’re all still trying to digest all of the savory barbecue and appetizers we ate this weekend, I won’t give you too much to swallow with this post.
But boy, is there some meat and potatoes to get into over the next few weeks…
The Good
Heel Becky. Yes, they actually did it! WWE turned Becky Lynch heel, and I gotta tell you, although I had my reservations about making Becky the heel in her inevitable feud with Charlotte, I underestimated Becky’s raw acting ability. The woman is utterly believable on the mic, which is rare not only in the women’s division, but the main roster as a whole. It isn’t always easy to sell words that are not your own, but just like great actors across television, it can be done if you have the talent and commitment to the script. The Charlotte/Becky feud is straightforward and intense. Both women execute their roles convincingly, and they sell for each other physically and emotionally.
It will be interesting to see how the writers will deal with the crowd reactions to the feud. It’s obvious in the weeks since the heel turn that fans are firmly behind Becky. Will they make her an antihero? Will they make Charlotte play “dirty” like her father? I will say though — WWE must tread carefully with Charlotte. Choosing to keep her face (and giving her the title) despite fan support for Becky has her running the risk of becoming a bemoaned babyface like a certain Samoan Universal Champion we know.
Trish’s return. A small nugget of goodness, but still worthy of mentioning, is Trish Stratus appearing on the Toronto edition of Raw. It was fantastic to see her as always, but that wasn’t the good I want to talk about here. Trish came back to deliver an entertaining promo in a segment with Elias. And hearing Trish speak in her cool and confident manner showed me that we don’t really hear women speak like Trish anymore. She sounded natural and non-robotic, like she was capable of complex human emotion. And as snarky as that sounds, it truly is the opposite of what most promos by female Superstars have become.
I listened to what Trish was saying not knowing where the dialogue between her and Elias was headed, and that unpredictability is missed from the Attitude and even Ruthless Aggression Era. Even more so than Elias, Trish felt as if she was truly reacting to what Elias was saying as opposed to just taking turns speaking on the mic. Nostalgia act or not, it was great to see that realistic promo work on my TV from a woman.
The Bad
Quickie matches. At some point during all of the hyping up and back-patting about Evolution WWE has been doing, they did something else. They regressed by giving fans very short women’s matches and thought we wouldn’t notice. Naomi, Zelina Vega, the IIconics, Sasha Banks, and Bayley have been cheated out of screen time over the last few weeks. Their matches have been two to five minutes with little to no tangible storyline development. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, wrestling is made by feuds, and feuds are nothing if they have no payoff. And they definitely can’t progress if the performers in said feuds are provided very little time to work with. Shame on WWE for trading off women’s actual weekly exposure with cheap PR for an all-women’s pay-per-view.
The Thorny
Ronda. Ronda, Ronda, Ronda.
The thorniest segment of the last two weeks was undoubtedly the Raw after SummerSlam with Ronda Rousey, Stephanie McMahon, and for some unexplained reason, the entire Raw women’s locker room. If you haven’t seen the segment before reading this, I would advise you to check it out on the Network or online somewhere. To see this segment as anything but condescending to the rest of the women on the roster is giving it too much credit. The positioning of Ronda in the ring looking down on the rest of the women. Stephanie pointing out how Ronda has stolen the spotlight from them. And then, Ronda attempting to make herself into some sort of martyr by asserting her title win somehow meant something to the “women’s evolution” as a movement.
I saw what WWE was trying to do here. The writers thought they were being clever by going meta and having Ronda (and Stephanie) address plainly what many fans saw as a problematic win. They thought they were having her save face by acknowledging that the women that came before her — many of which were standing around the ring — allowed her to get to the place she’s at now. To a smarky wrestling audience, all this does is confirm our suspicions about Ronda’s ascent.
And the poor women who were called out to essentially witness Ronda’s coronation as champion could barely hide their indifference, if not disdain. Many of them plastered on forced smiles, while others like Sasha Banks and Bayley had difficulty mustering more than a smirk. Their faces as Ronda called them out made me feel such sorrow for them, as they wrestle in pointless matches every week while Ronda wrestles part-time.
Can you imagine the men all standing around the ring to celebrate a title victory for Brock Lesnar, and Paul Heyman “graciously” acknowledging his client’s peers as helping him achieve his status…and Brock played the role of face in this situation? Do you know how absurd this would be if this was the other way around?
I rest my case. Write women better.
***
I can say for now that I am looking forward to Charlotte vs. Becky in a Cell at the next pay-per-view. I’m reserving judgment on most everything else.
Stay legit bossy,
AC