With WrestleMania season now on the backburner, we start looking towards the future of the World Wrestling Entertainment’s (WWE) weekly television program.
Over the past year, fans have seen many improvements in the quality of the company’s weekly shows, RAW & SmackDown, mainly due to former Superstar-turned-Chief Content Officer, Paul Levesque taking control of writing its content.
While many things have changed under Levesque’s control, some have stayed the same. The biggest aspect yet to receive much-needed attention is the creative direction of the women’s division.
At an event with high-profile matches featuring the months-long Bloodline storyline, the women’s division got the short end of the stick at this year’s WrestleMania. For the second year in a row, the women’s roster did not receive a main event spot on either night.
Two matches that had the potential to be main events were Charlotte Flair vs Rhea Ripley for the SmackDown women’s championship and Bianca Belair vs Asuka for the RAW women’s championship. Both matches featured an accomplished veteran going up against a fast- rising star.
Though their talent alone is enough to get fans excited for these matches, storytelling is the most important part of professional wrestling. Sadly, this aspect was missing during the buildup to both matches.
Belair vs Asuka suffered from the commonly used wrestling storyline of “can these future opponents coexist?”, in which both competitors team up and save each other from attacks in the weeks leading up to their match.
It is a cliche that is commonly hated by wrestling fans, as it only comes around in the months leading up to ‘Mania. Think of it as an easy way out of writing a coherent storyline that slowly builds the personal conflict between competitors.
Flair vs Ripley, on the other hand, has history to back them up. The two wrestlers faced each other at WrestleMania 36 back on April 5, 2020.
It was a story of the newcomer Rhea Ripley representing NXT, WWE’s developmental system, by defending the NXT women’s championship against the ten-time women’s champion Charlotte Flair.
Flair would take the victory the first time around, which fueled the 2023 women’s Royal Rumble match winner Ripley to challenge for a rematch at this year’s ‘Mania.
Though this match had the potential for expanding the story further, much of its buildup was distracted by the fact that Ripley is busy being heavily involved in a storyline with Dominik and Rey Mysterio. This match seemingly took the backseat in favor of fleshing out the conflict between father and son.
If any more proof is needed to notice the company’s carelessness for building up the women’s division matches for Mania, look no further than the “Women’s Showcase” match.
The match featured four teams; Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez, Natalya & Shotzi, Chelsea Green & Sonya Deville, and Ronda Rousey & Shayna Baszler, in a four-way exhibition match. Out of the four teams, only Rousey and Bazler had history as a team prior to March 17, when the match was announced.
This is one of the biggest criticisms brought up by wrestling fans, as the company will commonly throw two random wrestlers together rather than giving them time to develop chemistry or opt for an already established team.
It is simply telling of the way the WWE has treated the women’s tag team championship belts since their debut on December 24, 2018:, as nothing more than participation trophies to fit more wrestlers on the match card.
This carelessness is something that most fans expected to be a thing of the past when Levesque took over Vince McMahon’s former role as leader of the WWE’s creative team in late 2022. However, not much has changed so far for the women’s division.
Since the Monday Night RAW after WrestleMania is known as being the company’s “season premiere” and the start of a new direction, it seems like the perfect time for the company to also place more emphasis on writing engaging storylines for fans of women’s wrestling to enjoy. Whether it will actually happen remains to be seen.