How much do they care now?
Summerslam is in the books, and it was a pleasant surprise given the extremely low expectations going in. It wasn’t just the opening ticket prices or traveling to Minneapolis, it’s the quality of the material on WWE programming as well. And while the company may have had a cold after WrestleMania, the women’s division has had creative pneumonia for a while now. And the three women’s matches on the card embodied all that is wrong with how the division is being booked this year. The WWE Women’s World Title had been defended twice all year, zero times since WrestleMania. When Stephanie Vaquer took off to recover from injuries after losing to Liv Morgan, there apparently was no backup plan as far as giving Liv any opponents. Bayley and Lyra Valkyria were right there and were doing nothing until June; either of them could have stepped in as a one off challenger (it could have even added to their story together!), but the creative people decided to have Liv do nothing in May and then enter the Queen of the Ring tournament in June. Liv’s motive for getting in the tournament was to win and challenge for Rhea Ripley’s WWE Women’s Title so she could win and hold both belts. OK, a defending champ getting in the Royal Rumble has been done before but the story behind it was that they’d beaten who was in front of them already and needed a new challenge. Liv literally just won the title and had zero challengers to date; this just doesn’t pass the logic test at all.
Now speaking of the other women’s title, it was just as bad if not worse. Ripley hasn’t wrestled in two months and revealed that she has a torn meniscus and is unsure of when she’ll be back. Normally that kind of thing means you strip the champion of the title and crown a new one. But in this case they decideded to crown an ‘interim’ champion, to fill in until Ripley can return. I get that HHH didn’t want to strip Rhea of the title again after having her relinquish it in 2024 but designating a substitute teacher champion is bad. Everyone knows that they are just keeping the seat warm and very possibly will just lose to Rhea when she gets back. Having her bitter rival Jade Cargill or her ally for the moment Charlotte Flair, who are currently feuding with each other, win the title outright to fill the vacancy would have made more sense, but instead we got a ladder match that absorbed their feud and kept US champion Tiffany Stratton from defending her title (in her home state nonetheless!) on the show as well. Jade and Charlotte should have had a singles match, be it for the vacant title or just a grudge match, while Stratton defended the US title. Instead we got neither, and putting Stratton in the match also put any potential challengers of hers on ice for weeks. Blake Monroe, who was rumored to be her Summerslam challenger, was relegated to not even wrestling on Smackdown because now she has no match to warm up for, and other potential suitors like Nia Jax, Candace LeRae, Kiana James, former champ Giulia, and Jordynne Grace have all been moved aside for now while Tiffany prepped for the ladder match. They could have always done the ladder match on Smackdown, weeks ago and with the same result.
None of this made sense and it reeked of laziness on the part of the bookers. Roman Reigns, he of the often maligned part time schedule, had more title defenses since WrestleMania than Morgan and Ripley combined. Having both of your top women’s champions sit on belts for months because their planned primary challenger is out injured, or they themselves are injured and can’t go, is a way to drain any interest in your division outside of people just wanting to see their favorite wrestlers, but even that only goes so far because if they have nothing to strive for then what’s the point? Meanwhile on the other side of the street the now former AEW Women’s World Champion Thekla had seven televised defenses over five months as champion this year, including two TV main events. Champions should defend their titles sometimes even if it’s just for the sake of doing it. That AEW’s women’s division is doing that better than WWE’s this year is really saying something.
This leads me to believe that once they decide who’s going to win the top titles and where, they stop trying creatively. The week to week build for any women’s PLE matches is usually the most basic kind of stuff – attacking someone before or after a match, interfering in a match, etc. with very little escalation beyond the obvious and none of the exposition or character development that we’re seeing in the top men’s feuds. On the men’s side Roman and Seth Rollins’ long history together was been recapped and mentioned in their promos so much that you could feel the full weight of 14 years during their match. Same with Punk and Roman going into WrestleMania. Meanwhile on the women’s side we get forced matchups with no history like Jade and Rhea this year or Tiffany and Charlotte last year, or minimal interactions leading up to the matches like Rhea and Becky in 2024 and Bianca and Asuka in 2023, or they find a way to take the steam out of a big match like Asuka vs Iyo by delaying it until Backlash. Chad Gable’s return after losing his mask in AAA has gotten more detail than any of the women’s title programs this year for crying out loud.
Then there are the story directions that defy all logic like Jade winning a title on her own, forming a faction, and then losing her first defense afterwards even though she now had them to interfere instead of Jade winning the first match with their help then Rhea evening the odds and beating her later. We’re talking wrestling booking 101 here. But that would mean doing the title change at Backlash and not WrestleMania. The same with the women’s tag team titles; when Nikki Bella couldn’t go they could have put the Kabuki Warriors in the match and had Nia and Lash retain the titles, or one of the babyface teams win, but instead Brie Bella and Paige are thrown together and they win the titles so we can have a big return and big moment at WrestleMania instead of a better match and more coherent storyline. But that’s a staple of the women’s division lately – chasing and trying to create big moments even when they defy logic or disrupt things that are working. When it comes to making stories it seems that they just don’t care.
Well, either they don’t care or they’re doing it on purpose. The women’s card placement has gradually declined over the last three years, both on TV and PLEs. While the lack of PLE main events goes back to when Vince was still in charge, there aren’t very many TV main events now either. So far there have a grand total of 2 TV main events this year for women between RAW and Smackdown; by comparison AEW Collision has like 10 already. Title matches like when Stephanie Vaquer took on Raquel Rodriguez, or historic matchups like the Bellas vs Charlotte and Alexa Bliss get shoved in the middle of shows with little build.
The women on RAW and Smackdown are not lacking for history with each other to build off of, or motivations that are easy to turn into a story – Jade and Charlotte were talking to each other about fighting while Jade was still in AEW for crying out loud. None of that was spoken of, and instead we got a year of staredowns between them in the aisle when one was heading to the ring and the other was leaving. If they can find a way to cool off something the women are doing they will do it every time and as a result nothing gets enough buzz to even be considered for main eventing a PLE.
Just think, we may never actually get Jade vs Charlotte one on one on a PLE where it should be. Or actually have them talk about it on TV, get right to the precipice of doing it and then just shove it aside and flush it down the memory hole. (Instead it booked for the post Summerslam episode of Smackdown, which means that it’s likely to be short and filled with shenanigans).
How many big matches have to be delayed or postponed or scrapped because it’s more important to check a box or position things on a calendar? Rhea and Bianca have been on the main roster together since 2021, and for the four years that it was available never met in the ring in a singles match. Charlotte and Bianca haven’t met one on one since 2021 and were moving towards each in other in 2023 but instead we got a Damage Control feud rehash with them as partners. Becky Lynch has been going on side quests for most of the last three years – feuding with Trish Stratus, going to NXT, holding the IC title and feuding with AJ Lee – only breaking out of that to do a one off job to Rhea. A loaded women’s tag team division at the beginning of this year was effectively de-pushed and dismantled at a time when it could have main evented a PLE if they gave it proper attention, because it was Mania season. The creative focus seems to be solely on which women will get a turn with one of the big belts, right up until they get them. If anything else manages to get any traction it’s almost by accident creatively and because of the hard work of the talent, but will be pushed aside as soon as another Big 4 PLE needs to be planned for.
It feels insane to even imagine that a women’s wrestling division was booked better under Vince McMahon, but here we are. Big matches delayed and denied. Stories dragged out with big plot points just dropped (remember Roxanne making moves on Dominik Mysterio?). Match builds and angles that turn main event worthy matchups into midcard filler. Champs who barely wrestle, let alone defend their titles, after winning them. Midcard titles that barely see the light of day unless the right person is holding one of them, and there’s some very specific purpose in mind. They can’t even be bothered to even up the rosters even though Smackdown has twice as many women as RAW and has gone back to two hours. The whole thing is a mess and I’m really fed up with it right now.
Stroke of Genius 