Given the talent of women wrestlers nowadays, it won’t need to BE a bathroom break. I’ve been to two Mae Young Classics…there are PLENTY of women wrestlers who have exciting talent to merit an intriguing midcard.
Besides, the midcard is a bathroom break regardless of if it’s male or female. Having a larger female roster just slightly prevents the next major PPV women’s match be filled with Alexa/Bayley/Sasha/Charlotte/and sometimes Nia. I’m so bored with them.
I disagree, Sir T-Cups. The problem with the women’s mid-card is that same as the problem with the men’s mid-card, and even in the men’s upper card. Vince, who still has final say on everything, is out of touch. That’s why NXT is good top-to-bottom, could expand to two hours and still fill it out with compelling stories. Instead, on the main card, they bury mid-card talent for months on end, then expect you to care when they elevate them (see “Dolph Ziggler”). It wasn’t always like this. You could create compelling stories of wrestlers jockeying for position for title shots and personal grudges without replaying Sasha/Bailey/Natalya vs Riott Squad (look, we’re cool because we have two "t"s) for the umpteenth time. Instead, it’s just ‘watch this match again with no reason to care’. Why is Lashley feuding with Balor? What does it mean? We don’t know, and no one is bothering to say anything. Instead, it’s just more filler.
All true facts, but that still doesn’t prove why there shouldn’t be a women’s midcard. I don’t care if it sucks as badly as the men, at least they’re there.
I’ll also slightly push back on bringing up NXT as a comparison. You can’t compare the two products because they are vastly different products with vastly different structures. It’s not as dramatic as a full apples-to-oranges comparison, but it’s more like a red delicious to granny smith apples in comparison. They’re alike enough to be called apples, but different enough in pretty much every other way.
Despite years of producing wrestling, WWE doesn’t always produce masterpieces, of course. Sometimes they throw something out there to see if it gets any heat. Finn vs Lashley may not be over, but sometimes they’ll tweak things here and there to see if gets any better audience reactions. Sometimes they strike gold, like the time they had Elias and KO together in Seattle. All they had to do was mention Seattle’s basketball team moving and they got booed for 10 minutes. Then KO had to have surgery, they turned Elias face, and we won’t see that lightning in a bottle again.
LU had their season finale, and among other things, they introduced Shaul Guerrero as the new ring announcer. She’s the daughter of Eddie and Vickie. Famous B came out to shoo her away, and she grabbed the mic and screamed “EXCUSE ME!” just like her mom. Then Chavo came in and they beat up on Famous B. Shaul gave him the Three Amigos and Chavo dropped a Frog Splash on him, working a nice tribute to Eddie.
Another WWE reference came at the end of the show. After Jake Strong won the LU title, he made his way to the mysterious limo where Dario had been making deals with a shadowy figure who smoked a cigar. I think we speculated last season that it would be a Baron Samedi knockoff. But, the shadowy figure leaned into the light, said “I’ve got some bad news for you,” and it was Wade Barrett! I was hoping he’d come back somewhere. The premise is that Aztec gods are now inhabiting bodies of wrestlers so they can bring The Apocalypse.
Plus, Aerostar asked Johnny Mundo for the Gauntlet of the Gods, gave it to Black Lotus, and she tore out Matanza’s heart. Aerostar also got the two halves of the medallion fused back together, and he brought Dario back from the dead. Lot other shit happened.
I would posit it is not that different a product, as they are preparing people for the main roster. It’s just that Vince has been hands-off on NXT. Vince simply can no longer feel the pulse of the crowd. And from what little I can see, neither does Shane nor Stephanie. I will admit, though, it is a lot easier to appease a smaller base of knowledgeable fans, versus the larger base of casual fans that the main roster tries to reach. As for building a mid-card for women specifically - they barely build a mid-card for men (and then we hear about Vince complaining about why they aren’t getting over). I think to try to build a better women’s mid-card, given how bad WWE is at it, might do more harm than good as they continue to build the women’s brand.
Elias, because of how good he is at getting the crowd behind and/or booing him, is one of the very few mid-carders who can be buried in matches yet still remain relevant. Personally, I think he should remain a tweener rather than becoming face. And if the women’s division doesn’t realize how over Bekkah is and book her that way (bad-ass face), they’ll lose her momentum too. As for Finn/Lashley not getting heat, that’s again on WWE. A 2-second backstage snub leads to a feud? The payoff fizzled, but Bailey vs. Sasha at least built their story over time. It made sense. It had meaning. I agree, everything won’t work, but at least try.
And she’s married to Aiden English.
Yes, and I get the feeling he’s going to show up in Season 5 since he doesn’t seem to have any relevance after the break with Rusev.
Stephanie’s wish list and thoughts on the women’s division
Daniel Bryan has won back the WWE Championship!
Yes! Yes! YES!
My out of left field prediction, Daniel Bryan walks out of Survivor Series victorious and a Paul Heyman Guy.
Ehhh, I don’t see it happening. WWE seems to have abandoned the concept of “Paul Heyman guys” after the end of Rybaxel, and Bryan is the kind of guy who doesn’t need a manager to get him over.
Brock vs. Bryan has me legitimately interested in this show, though, because it really could go either way. If they’d done it at Summerslam 2014, like they were originally going to do before Bryan got hurt, it would’ve made perfect sense for Brock to squash Bryan the same way he ultimately did to Cena at that show. Now, however, since Brock’s lost a shit-ton of weight due to the fact that USADA is testing him and he isn’t on steroids anymore, it feels like a much more even fight.
This’ll probably be Brock’s only match between now and when he inevitably drops the belt at 'Mania (hopefully to Braun Strowman). He doesn’t really need to win here - losing to someone on Bryan’s level won’t make him any less credible, and as a new champ Bryan needs the win to show that his victory wasn’t just a fluke.
So I hope Bryan wins, heel turn or not, because he’s my hometown boy and I’m gonna be cheering for him no matter what. 
WWE has been anything but predictable this week.
Becky Lynch is no longer representing SD vs Ronda Rowsey, because she ate Nia Jax’s elbow and broke her face. Nevertheless, she kept going in the melee, wearing the Crimson Mask. She then put up a picture on her twitter and called it “Irish War Paint.” She then appeared on SD with half her face purple, but still acted like she owned the place. I got hit in the face with a baseball in high school, and I cried like a little bitch. She passed her SS duties on to Charlotte, which I like because Charlotte has her dad’s ring savvy and knows what to do even when she doesn’t. I would like to have seen Asuka take on Ronda because it would have looked more violent, but maybe some day.
I wonder why they decided to have Daniel Bryan instead of AJ take on Brock? I’m pretty sure it’s going to be 15 minutes of DBD selling suplexes followed by a couple minutes of Yes kicks and then Brock comes back with a few F-5s and a win, like every other Brock Lesnar match. They even took AJ out of MMC. Did he get on somebody’s shit list all the sudden, or did they just decide not to repeat last year’s match? It would have been Roman vs AJ if not for leukemia.
The 10 on 10 (really 11 on 12) tag match is going to be a clusterfuck with the undercard teams bound to get eliminated in short order. I do look forward to Murphy vs Ali and Seth vs Shinsuke, but I have a feeling those matches are going to be shortened. The 5 on 5 men’s match could have some weird shit, like Braun turning on the RAM team, and/or Dolph getting his heat back by pinning Shane. I just hope they don’t make everybody wear brand shirts this year. Looks too corporate.
Becky is just the internet’s queen now, huh?
They definitely have an iron-clad storyline with her now…let’s hope they do good with it.
15 minutes of Daniel Bryan selling suplexes? Like Brock Lesnar can really be bothered to “wrestle” for 15 minutes.
Gotta give props to Cedrick Alexander vs Lio Rush on the latest 205L. Ced hit Lio with the Lungblower, and Lio somehow bounced 5 feet in the air off Ced’s knees. It was a work of art.
D-R-E-A-M Dream! This is how one books a match!
This is the first time I’ve watched Takeover. These last two matches were crazy good, and the main event hasn’t even started yet!
Takeover is always the better night. Survivor Series won’t be this fun not this good.
I’ll definitely have to keep watching them.
Bayzler/Sane was nonsense. They took what should have been a ring classic and turned it into a schmozzfest to build a six-woman-tag that doesn’t need to happen.
Aside from that, though, this show was gold.