The Women’s Evolution: How to Continue Evolving

By Joseph Reds on Twitter/Instagram @WelpThatsAThing

It’s been a brief hiatus for me. I’ve been busy with work, home, new kittens (yes they’re adorable) and overall writer’s block have had me wondering what I could write about with true passion once again. Today I found that passion, it’s the ” Women’s Evolution” and it was brought about by an odd turn of events.

Recently, on Twitter, Mick Foley had a private DM conversation with a fan. The fan chose to be a real **** and post the conversation online. This both sparked an interesting point about the Women’s Evolution and also succeeded in showing that even fans can be assholes to Mick Foley.

In the conversation the fan expressed dissatisfaction with the under used Summer Rae. He inquired as to why she wasn’t receiving a push. Mick Foley countered by pointing out that we are very close to the biggest match in Women’s Wrestling History with a Hell in a Cell bout between Sasha Banks and Charlotte. The fan felt that this rivalry is the only rivalry being utilized on RAW and that it isn’t a real Women’s Revolution (or Evolution, dear God, WWE stick with one title) if you only push one match over and over. To be fair, I understand this fan’s point, though I feel it’s misguided. Also, handling that situation by getting agitated at Mick Foley and later posting a private message online was not only rude and classless, but it certainly accomplished nothing. Your voice wasn’t “heard” because of it, you just came out looking like a jerk who wanted attention.

So let’s break this down, is putting Sasha v Charlotte over and over holding other women back or becoming old? The answer to both is a resounding no. First, Sasha and Charlotte are at a logical point in their storyline. Sasha overcame all the odd and finally won the Title only to drop it a month later due to injury. Her coming back and vying for the title is only a natural character progression. Them having that Match at Hell in a Cell is tremendous. That being said, I do believe that either Hell in a Cell or Survivor’s Series needs to put the rivalry to bed for the time being. Thus allowing Bayley to challenge the eventual winner. If it’s Charlotte fine, if it’s Sasha, this allows for a Sasha heel turn and much more character progression. And admit it, you want to see Sasha v Bayley III.

Now as far as the Sasha/Charlotte angle being shoved down our throats, that really isn’t fair, again, it’s a natural story progression, but mostly: You cannot count NXT in this. Yes the WWE can use NXT to advance a WWE storyline, much like Owens v Zayn, but the audience can’t. Why is that? Because most of the casual audience doesn’t watch NXT. And as far as the “Smart Fans” go, you all wanted to see Sasha and Charlotte dominate the main roster the entire time they were in NXT. It’s only now that the WWE gave that to you that you’re throwing a fit about it because it’s no longer just yours, it’s everyone’s. The fan also compared Raw to Smackdown, saying that Smackdown has all of their women covered. No they don’t. They really don’t. Carmella and Nikki Bella is a good angle and those two are gaining a push because of it. You also have, for the Smackdown Women’s Title, Becky Lynch v Alexa Bliss. That’s only four women gaining any sort of push. Sure Naomi got a match at No Mercy against Alexa Bliss, but it was only due to Lynch’s injury. Natty is doing absolutely nothing and really, neither is anyone else. If you live by the credo of why is this person getting pushed and this person isn’t, you can never be happy.

The WWE can’t make everyone happy, they just can’t. Though I do agree that you shouldn’t just push like 2 guys for 15 years, you can push main guys for a few years before a changing of the guard. So as far as the Women’s Division goes, how do we fix this problem of not enough push for everyone? Yes it’s impossible, but we can sure alleviate the problem and I’m here to tell you how:

1) Eliminate all the garbage time and children’s comedy acts.
I’m not saying abandon the PG era, I’m just saying you can take that crap out and fill those fillers with actual match driven storylines, especially on a weekly 3 hour RAW. This gives plenty of time to put more women on. But what do we do with those women?

2) WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship.
Now we need a few more women to make this work and NXT is pretty dry so maybe call back a few; Victoria is still working today, Mickie James can part time, Melina is back in the ring (yes I know the horror stories, but she is a legitimately viable option).
This allows for a secondary title for women to fight for, something they desperately need, it also allows for a third story line. You may be asking at this point, what do you mean a third story line?

3) Grudge Matches.
We see these for men all the time, and in WWE’s defense they have started these with Nikki Bella v Carmella and Bayley v Dana Brooke. Women should just have some matches of two people who want to settle a score, it doesn’t have to involve a title. With the amount of talented women on the roster currently, it’s very easy to do. With a 3 hour plus PPV you can have a Women’s Grudge Match, a Women’s Tag Team Title Match, a Women’s Championship Match, a Men’s Tag Team Title Match, a Men’s Midcard Match, 2 Men’s Grudge Matches, and the Men’s Major Championship match. This would change of course for the big 4 PPVs but that’s a grand total of 8 Matches at each PPV, that’s not out of the norm and if you remove all the filler crap, everyone has time to shine.

What do you think? How would you fix or continue the Women’s Evolution? Let us know in the comments below or contact me on Twitter/Instagram @WelpThatsAThing