10 WWE Stars We Aren't Allowed To Like
The tail is wagging the Big Dog.
"WhatCulture articles are becoming too negative."
"All Sidgwick does is sh*t on WWE."
"I don't want to read this moaning while I'm taking my morning sh*t". (That last one is depressingly real.)
How else can you perceive WWE other than with a crushing sense of nihilism?
When wrestling was a ticket-selling business, promoters, though not immune to nepotism, ego, and plain f*ckwitted behaviour, tended to promote the acts the public wanted to see in order to sell tickets. It was, bar the drugs, the deaths, the sex scandals, and the ribs in which wrestlers would substitute steroids for milk, a more innocent time.
Now, since WWE is a sports entertainment empire heavily financed by desperate TV companies terrified by the coalescing rise of the streaming revolution, this maxim no longer applies. The company preys upon the loyalist, ageing core fanbase, many of whom simply cannot be arsed nor have the time to "get into" something new. It's as daunting as the prospect of finally leaving WWE behind. They might not f*ck Adam Cole up, we bargain instead, because Vince probably fancied Shawn Michaels back in the '90s and Cole looks a bit like him.
We'll be allowed to like Cole, for a bit. But Roman Reigns like him?
Like him like him?
10. Becky Lynch
Why wouldn't you like Becky Lynch?
She's massively endearing. Watch her receive a pair of custom sneakers here. How can you not glow inside at the sight of this unbridled joy? She is, demonstrably, an awesome person. She is also, demonstrably, an excellent babyface pro wrestler, able to conjure genuine emotion from audiences through her hard-luck charisma, authentic selling, and roaring comebacks. It is nice when nice people win. Everybody likes Becky Lynch, apart from Corey Graves, but he's since turned into a bit of a cringeworthy bootlick, so it's not as if we're in good company.
Do you like Becky Lynch?
Tough t*tties!
She isn't Charlotte Flair. You should like Charlotte Flair more. She's Ric Flair's daughter, thus allowing us to further mine his legacy, and we built her from scratch in the Performance Center. She is also blonde.
This isn't mere entitled fan behaviour. We aren't defying WWE's narrative with our own contrarian, idealised version of it. WWE defied its own narrative by portraying Becky as a deserving, sympathetic figure, whose dreams were dealt a crushing blow at the last second, and expecting us not to identify with the poor sod.