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Edwin

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As well as just being shitty in general, it's long-term bad for the company to keep feeding their fans the idea that their female wrestlers are lazy talentless hoes. Why would anyone want to pay money then to see them wrestle then? You know if Nikki Bella was a man they'd be promoting her as a super-tough badass who wrestled for two months with a broken neck and keeps coming back to wrestling when she doesn't need to because it's her passion.

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It also sells her short because she really has improved from the days where she wasn't much more than the typical good-looks-no-talent Divas era wrestler. 

It's just so WWE that even on the show meant to celebrate the Stephanie McMahon Memorial Women's Empowerment Movement they can't help but book the main event in the same old catty "you're jealous, well you're a ho" style. 

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The more things change (allegedly anyway) the more they stay the same in WWE. Hogan must pose has changed to Stephanie must get the credit somehow.  

On nikki Bella I agree she has actually gotten more than passable in the ring. 

I don't know if anyone here knows the answer but with this all women's ppv coming up, who's cornflakes in WWE did melina and Victoria urinate in ? On a show that will be showcasing women from many eras of WWE, two of the best they had seem like persona non grata. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Seeing all this hype stuff dropping now, we're less than 24 hrs away from the PPV and it's starting to truly sink in to me that it's actually happening.

(The Trish/Sasha/Toni panel they just livestreamed did me in. It flips me out when I see these Aussie girls in WWE marking out about wrestling or my faves in my accent because it's a very stark visual representation of like, "Yep, that's exactly what I would be like." That's exactly what I WAS like meeting Trish. It's eerie.)

I think, much like the Royal Rumble, my brain has managed expectations by largely avoiding thinking about it too much, lest I start fantasy booking a better card or let all of my wildest Divas Invasion dreams get me carried away. There are enough of my wildest dreams coming true as it is.

The fact that it's happening at all is one of them, and underneath it all it's important not to forget that. The idea of WWE being able to sell an entire PPV of just women's matches would have sounded insane only a few short years ago - a time when we were still quibbling about whether a women's match could headline even an NXT Takeover, let alone a PPV. Everything that has happened in this "Evolution" since 2013 has gone well above and beyond anything I could have envisioned for the women when I was watching them grind in their bullshit spots and just hoping that one day they could get 10 minutes to wrestle instead of two. And it's my full time job at the moment to write about the accomplishments of the Divas Era and the talent therein, but it remains that it was THEIR full time job to push against the ocean trying in vain to get any wrestling done.

There have been issues in the lead up to this. Some matches were thrown together and the build squandered to a certain extent. The underlying reasons for doing it at all and the political shitshow the company is in right now put a bad taste in one's mouth. But at the end of the day, we get a PPV full of women's matches, and that makes me happy. I'm not happy for the company for their corporate hand wave. I'm happy for the women wrestlers who will have never had this much time to wrestle in WWE ever before.

I'm just happy that the women wrestlers get time to wrestle.

It's 2018 and the more normalised women's wrestling gets the more odd that statement will sound. Good. But it really wasn't all that long ago that they didn't get any. So I remain happy for them that they get this kind of time to wrestle. Ultimately that's all I really want for them - opportunities to wrestle. Because I know they can take it from there.

Think about people like Trish and Lita, who accomplished so much in their careers and are HOFers, but nevertheless if these guys have a fun little 12 minute tag team match at this PPV it will still be the longest match either of them have ever had.

Plus I know how much it will mean to them to tag together. I know how much it means to literally everyone - I've already seen over the weekend pretty much every wrestler to a woman has been crying all over social media about this being real life. And I sure as heck know I'm not going to be able to remotely handle it when it happens. (I should sell tickets to watch me watching this show.)

So I refuse to be cynical. It means too much to me, and it means too much to the women.

Plus, get a load of this fucking card.

Yeah the battle royal is a waste but everyone gets a payday and I get to have a mini Rumble Pt. 2 with all of my Divas faves interacting with everyone in sight. And for you guys, a genuine Molly Holly sighting. Mainly I'm just psyched for entrances - if I don't get to hear "Holla" et al. I'm going to fucking riot.

Speaking of (segue!) the Riott Squad trios will probably rule. Everyone rules. Trios matches rule. Sasha and Bayley get to do spots instead of being in the battle royal. Crazy Mary Dobson and Heidi Lovelace are teaming together on a WWE PPV, what even is this life.

Trish Stratus, my sun and stars, moon of my life, is going to go to fucking work. I like Alexa and I'm bummed for her but this is one of those DIVAS INVASION BITCHES! times because I never realised how much I needed Crazy Ass Alicia Fox and Trish to interact until right now and now I'm pumped. Plus Trish and Mickie are in the same match so honestly if this whole match was nothing but Trish and Mickie punching each other and selling it I would be happy. They are the GOAT punch sellers. I'm super not going to cope with this whole thing.

I can't cope with any of it really. Kairi vs. Shayna is going to BANGGGGGGGGGG. It banged at the MYC I, it banged at the last Takeover and it's gonna bang now that Shayna is pissed about losing the belt and is going around actually murdering people for sport. Dudes Kairi Hojo and Io Shirai are working major singles matches on a WWE PPV. What even IS this life.

Io vs. Toni is gonna be sick too, and from following the MYC I am honestly more hyped for this than anything. Actually that's a lie because I'm hyped for so many things. But this is one of them. Either of them could win which is exciting, and they're gonna go all out to steal the show and Io may even possibly hit the moonsault! Anything could happen!

How can anyone not be pumped for Ronda vs. Nikki. Have you not SEEN Nikki forearm literally the entire world into the next dimension???  She can be as stiff as all get out here and Ronda is going to take it and sell her ass off probably because she is a professional wrestler daddy and then she's going to Ronda up and kill her to utter pieces and it's gonna rule.

OH AND ALSO, WAR BECKY FUCKING LYNCH.

People complaining about the build do not watch Smackdown because I haven't been this hype for a blowoff in a long ass time folks. WAR BECKY is giving less fucks now than ever before and Charlotte is going to get got. LMS means brawling, it means weapon spots, it means more brawling, it means TIME. YESSSSS GAGA. This is real main event fuck what ya heard. Imagine in 2015 being told that Becky Lynch would be the biggest star of the Four Horsewomen. She's been lowkey the best promo and character in the company since 2016, I've been saying it for ten damn years, and now she's been given the ball this is the greatest "run with the ball" run we've seen in literally years and years. I certainly haven't been in love with a wrestler this desperately in literally years and years.

So I guess my point is how can you not be fucking excited for this show.

 

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1 hour ago, Jimmy Redman said:

Yeah the battle royal is a waste but everyone gets a payday and I get to have a mini Rumble Pt. 2 with all of my Divas faves interacting with everyone in sight. And for you guys, a genuine Molly Holly sighting. Mainly I'm just psyched for entrances - if I don't get to hear "Holla" et al. I'm going to fucking riot.

Co-signed, being a battle royal vs the Rumble has me worried for the standard 'everyone walks out at once' deal.

If I could change anything on the card, it would be giving Asuka a showcase match. I wish Asuka vs. Meiko could've happened here.

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I actually think the build for this has been pretty solid, especially when you consider that they were building the Australia and Saudi shows at the same time.  The big matches here got ample time and promos across four TV shows -- four! -- as you had Ronda/Nikki and the Trish/Lita tag on Raw, Charlotte/Becky on Smackdown, Shirai/Toni on MYC and Kairi/Shayna on NXT.  The rest of it was arguably thrown together without a ton of focus, but how is that really all that different from most PPVs? 

I was stoked when they originally announced the show and thought it was a lock I'd go, and yes, the lineup and build end up such that I didn't feel compelled to risk getting home close to perhaps 1AM on a Sunday night, but the big 4 matches all *could* be legitimately great.  Unlikely that each of them will, but those are strong odds that we get a strong show.  Combine that with at least a couple moments when its likely to get a bit dusty in here for those of us who are softies that tap easiily and it should be a pretty fun night on the couch.

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Jimmy Redman - your positivity/optimism is appreciated, but I'm still kinda bummed about how this show was handled. I just can't shake the feeling that somewhere in Titan Tower someone is wringing their hands in anticipation for this show to flop just so they can play know-it-all and say, "See, nobody cares about women's wrestling! They couldn't even fill a 16,000 seat arena!" 

And it pisses me off because the WWE did little to nothing to make this show appealing to a wide enough audience to sell out that arena and make it a must-watch show and they could've

As you wrote, there are a ton of positives about this show and about this card. But I would've loved to see them actually stack the deck and give us the loaded card that many of us were fantasy booking months ago. I really believe that if they would've treated this like a WrestleMania - hell, like a SummerSlam - with feud-ending battles, guest stars in prominent spots (Maria Menounos, Cyndi Lauper, etc.), even a McMahon match (I know plenty are aghast at the suggestion, but if you're throwing every selling point you can on a show, there's room for a Steph match), this could've been the WWE Show of the Year. 

The fact is, while the MYC Finals and the NXT Title matches have a chance of stealing the show, to the mainstream audience of fans, these are unknowns. Meanwhile, Asuka, Nia Jax, and Carmella are getting minimal spotlight despite being the focal point of their respective brands for much of 2018. The way this card is booked is like if they decided to fill up the next WrestleMania card with 205 Live talent. Sure, the matches would be way better than anything Shane McMahon or Triple H or Randy Orton or the Hardys would do, but how many tickets would it sell? 

Which is to say that, critically, this show will probably be very good and I'm excited about it. But I wanted this show to be a blockbuster, to be a hugely profitable show that exceeded internal expectations and turned heads. When this show is over, we still won't know what the ceiling is for a loaded women's wrestling supercard because this isn't that and it has everything to do with the booking/marketing/planning and nothing to do with the talent. 

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Because this whole thing just #FeminismWashing, basically. And the usual revisionist stuff (they are 30 years behind the times but try to paint themselves as doing this incredibly progressive thing), of course, but it's mainly about making Stephy look like the Queen Bee of all thing women's wrestling and divert from the godawful Saudi deal.

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I like the lineup well enough. There are some matches that look appealing and COULD turn out to be worth watching. Becky is super fun in heel mode right now, so her match has my attention. Ditto for Shayna.

Nikki/Ronda could be a blast. It all comes down to their chemistry and the execution, of course. But I'm digging that one the most on paper & in theory. We'll see what they do with it. But yeah. I'm going in optimistic. I want to see some bombs, some 'bows thrown, some underhanded involvement from Brie, and then a righteous fiery comeback from rowdy Rousey.

I'm less enthused about the tag. I think it all comes down to which version of Trish we get. If it's Trish of old or even Trish from the Rumble, it could be passable. If it's this lobotomized, dead-eyed thing we've seen in the buildup? I'll pass.

Otherwise, Fox would be the only thing worth seeing in that one. Mickie's okay (and outshining both babyfaces in the angle itself), but Foxxy is fucking head & shoulders above the rest in terms of character. She's infinitely watchable in everything she does - time & time again making the most out of the nothing material they give her. She draws your attention like very few (men AND women alike) on their roster could aspire to do.

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The show looks like pink butterfly shit, but to those within the WWE bubble, it's very easy to see why they'd think Ronda vs. Nikki is both a marquee match and one the fans would get excited about. After all, they've used the same formula with the men: new vs. old - Cena vs. Rock, Rock vs. Hogan, etc.

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So it sure does seem like they are promoting Alexa like she is in the match.  Even though we know she isn't

By the way, I know that claiming Alexa Bliss is a horrible wrestler is a cool message board thing apparently but the idea that Alicia Fox is a big upgrade is really laughable.  It is definitely a push.   Not a knock on Foxy as I think she is really underrated and a great character

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9 minutes ago, El-P said:

Can't be. She did porn.

Absolutely. Wouldn't want Steph's kids googling Chyna. Just like Steph wouldn't want them googling that their mother is firmly on the wrong side of history by making a "business decision" to work with a backward, murderous regime.

It's all okay though, because she and she alone decided to #givedivasachance and is the sole reason the Divas Revolution turned into the Women's Evolution we are seeing tonight. 

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42 minutes ago, hammerva said:

So it sure does seem like they are promoting Alexa like she is in the match.  Even though we know she isn't

By the way, I know that claiming Alexa Bliss is a horrible wrestler is a cool message board thing apparently but the idea that Alicia Fox is a big upgrade is really laughable.  It is definitely a push.   Not a knock on Foxy as I think she is really underrated and a great character

Where are people claiming Alicia Fox is a big upgrade over Bliss as a wrestler? I push for Foxy based on her personality and her outstanding ownership of the screen. Chick commands attention whenever she's on, whatever she's doing. I'm not watching this shit with a notepad, looking to give it a grade or an analytical thesis. Give me characters and stories over some outdated idea of workrate all day, everyday.

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