The Truth Behind WWE's HEAVY Pushing Of Evolution?

Only a few days removed from WWE’s historic announcement of Evolution, the company’s first all-women PPV. Reports in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter suggest that the timing of the event might be a preemptive PR move on the part of the company.

While the reaction to the event has been overwhelming positive, As with everything involving WWE though there’s maybe some justification in examining the motivations behind decisions of this size. It’s never normally as straight forward as you’d hope is it?

Now, first and foremost WWE are doing this PPV because, for the first time in the company’s history ,they have the talent available to it. It’s very important to keep that in the forefront of your mind that they deserve this (clap clap, clap clap clap).

But the timing of it is, nonetheless, quite odd. Only a few weeks ago we were told WWE had pulled Clash of Champions from its calendar and moved TLC to December, effectively creating a slot for a new PPV in October which ended up being Evolution.

So where has that fairly sudden decision come from? Why did WWE not decide to build it in when they announced the PPV schedule, rather than requiring quit an awkward rejig. Well, according to reports in today’s Wrestling Observer, it’s because in November they might be going back to Saudi Arabia.

Now, if you cast your minds back to Greatest Royal Rumble there was something quite significant missing from that show. As well as any matches having even the thinnest slice of significance, the entire women’s roster was absent from the card at the request of the Saudi organisers.

This naturally attracted a lot of criticism at the time but the counter argument to it was that this was merely the first landmark show in a country that’s rapidly modernising. Surely, in future, WWE would start to integrate women into the shows, in line with how attitudes towards them in the country are currently changing. Surely?

While we would dearly, dearly like to be proved wrong about this, if WWE indeed are planning another show there for November, and are going incredibly hard on the promotion for the first ever all-women’s show in October, it’s an easy read that they’ve already been told women can’t be involved in it. From a PR perspective, it’s a no-brainer.

There had been some speculation that women would be allowed on the second Saudi Arabia super show, following the Russian Circus allowing their female performers to appear in the country. However there have been reports of significant backlash to this decision from within the Saudi government, so it makes sense that WWE have been told well in advance that it’s off the table.