6 Ways Vince McMahon Can (Realistically) Save WWE Raw's Ratings
3. The Lacey Evans Problem
Going into WrestleMania 35, WWE's women's division was hotter than it had ever been - and we don't mean in the retrograde, objectifying manner it had so often been sold to us during the height of the Attitude Era and beyond.
The company's biggest show being headlined by a trio of women wasn't mere tokenism aiming to reap the benefits of emergent feminist capitalism. Obviously that was part of it - WWE are as cynically avaricious as a Charles Dickens' caricature of a Victorian industrialist - but fans absolutely wanted to see their new hero Becky Lynch take home the gold against bonafide star Charlotte Flair and mainstream megapower Ronda Rousey.
Lynch's apogee echoed the rise of Daniel Bryan five years prior. Unfortunately, just as Bryan's joy was short-lived, The Lass Kicker's apex has all the hallmarks of an ending rather than a beginning. Since Becky's two-belted New Jersey coronation, the women's division has gradually been shunted back into its traditional place.
This has been perfectly - or imperfectly - encapsulated by Lacey Evans' sudden push to prominence. Evans, relative novice, albeit one with potential, is clearly below the expected level of a champion, but one has nevertheless been accelerated into the frame - and not as a mere makeweight. Any sense of a progressive narrative arc or a logically stratified roster is entirely dismissed when a performer who can barely fumble through the basics is suddenly aligned with a pedigreed champion who had to fight tooth and nail for the opportunity.
A jobber like, say, Jinder Mahal wouldn't suddenly challenge for the... oh. Right.