7 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (September 17th)

1. Pro-Women To No Women

Saudi Arabia WWE
WWE.com

WWE has been in full pat-itself-on-the-back mode with the upcoming Evolution PPV, the company’s first all-woman special event. They’re pulling out all the stops, getting legends like Trish Stratus and Lita to lace up and wrestle, with others likely joining them.

This “revolutionary” show will take place on October 28. And then five days later, WWE will travel back to Saudi Arabia for another WWE Network special, Crown Jewel.

Well, not all of the WWE wrestlers will travel to Saudi Arabia. Most likely, as in April, the women won’t be making the trip. April’s Greatest Royal Rumble was notable for its total absence of female performers, and there’s no reason to think the November show will be any different.

So for all their Barry Horowitz-like back-patting, WWE is turning around days after Evolution and traveling to a country where women have historically been treated as second-class citizens, and where the same women who wrestled at Evolution likely won’t be able to compete.

Keep that in mind when Stephanie McMahon applauds herself for the WWE Women’s Evolution.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.