I’m gonna skip the big intro and get to the point here…If you’re seriously going to deliberate over whether someone is ready to be a major wrestling champion there are only two questions to ask:
One, has their character shown the necessary ability to beat the current titleholder and any challengers that may come afterwards? In other words have they won some stuff and shown they’re capable of beating the champion even in matches where they failed?
And two, has the person behind the character shown the ability to perform like a champion and handle a championship schedule, from TV to PPVs to the road when that comes back? In other words can they perform at a high level knowing they’re going to be on more than ever and more than most other people there?
If the answer to both of those questions is yes then there are no other questions about the person in question. Seriously I can end this piece right now, but since some people are being dumb about it, I won’t. But I promise you this won’t be extra wordy this time.
The character Bianca Belair just won the Royal Rumble after coming in at number 3. The year before she came in at number 2 and lasted over a half hour. Two years ago she almost beat Shayna Baszler for the NXT title even though it was essentially three against one. A few months ago she beat Bayley, who’d held the Smackdown title for over a year. She didn’t lose a match for the few months she was on Raw. What about that says she’s not able to win a championship match at WrestleMania? I think some of y’all have watched way too many sports documentaries, where they paint these narratives about teams and players growing and maturing to the point of being ready to be a champion. Yeah, well that’s nonsense.
Tiger Woods showed up at the Masters as a rookie and smoked the field. Magic Johnson won the NBA title as a rookie, and famously played out of position at center in the deciding game. People show up and win (10 bonus points for getting that reference) early on all the damn time because well, you just have to be better than your opponents that day and beat them. Everyone doesn’t go through a road of trials and tribulations like Michael Jordan did in the NBA (and even he won the NCAA title as a freshman, so yeah). But even if you want to go there…..
Gee, whoever tweeted that should get a raise or something. So please, just stop it already. Pro wrestling is based on real life sports and sometimes people win championships the first time even trying. Sometimes people go through some big losses first. Sometimes they run the defending champion out the building in short order and sometimes it’s an epic encounter. Bianca fits whatever kind of narrative you want to spin. It’s her first title match at a WrestleMania but she’s also taken some losses in previous big matches. Pick you poison for real.
As for the second question, how the hell do we know? Until it actually happens the right answer is that we have no idea. But that’s true for everyone who’s ever been a champion in pro wrestling. You can guess, and in this case I guess the answer is yes but I don’t know any of these people well enough to say one way or the other. Y’all got it, I guess.
(Now as a side note if you’re a Sasha Banks fan and you just want her to win for that reason only, then say so. It’s fine! You’re not the booker, and we’re supposed to root for the characters the way we root for actual teams. You don’t have to justify or explain it. This is your fun thing to do and you don’t need some grand explanation for why you want your favorite people to win. So as long as you’re not a toxic jerk about it, it’s totally fine. Anybody that wants you to show them why your favorite should win can go play in traffic.)
But if you’re really trying to come up with some logical explanation as to why Bianca isn’t ready to win or whatever, please stop. If there was a way to have Sasha win where the heat would come down on her as a villain then yeah you could do it. But in 2021 we know that isn’t happening. Whatever heat there is would come down on the company, and creative, and maybe even Mercedes the person but not the character Sasha Banks. We’re just not at that point anymore, sadly.
So that’s it….ok, no it’s not. There’s a section of the fanbase that has the same ‘problem’ with Bianca that they have with Naomi, and have had with Sasha (how ironic that they have to back her in this instance to make their point). Some of these folks love to bring up alcohol when the name Alicia Fox comes up. Some of these dudes have been asking ‘why does Tamina still have a job?’ since like 2013.
You seeing a pattern here?
And not that they don’t have anything bad to say about any white women wrestlers but when they do there’s usually some offense they’ve committed, even if it’s an imagined or misconstrued one. These dudes should be properly shamed when the opportunity presents itself. Ignoring them doesn’t work because they’re like cockroaches so by all means drag them for being the filth that they are.
Ok now we’re done. There’s no reason she shouldn’t win and there’s no way she loses without it backfiring in every way. We’re talking a WrestleMania 34 Main Event level deflated balloon here even though she and Roman are at different points in their careers. So yeah unless Sasha is your favorite and you just want her to win, then you got nothing. Stop being stupid.
Stroke of Genius 