WWE is blind. Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, and the WWE Universe deserve better.
The Lass Kicker herself, Becky Lynch, goes on a tirade about how we forgot about her...that we cheered for. Courtesy of the WWE.
By Matthew Klink (@klinkmatt)
August 24, 2018
After a confusing booking and a fan favored retaliation, the WWE decided to take a route that could doom Charlotte and bury Becky Lynch.
Becky is not the bad guy here. She had a match booked with Carmella that was taken from her. Then, when the title was all but hers, that was taken from her too. Both of those were taken by Charlotte Flair.
No matter how you slice it, this is dumb.
Don't get me wrong, I love seeing Charlotte and Becky go at it. But the story telling, the booking, and now the heel/face aspect is potentially ruining it.
Let's go back to the Money in the Bank. Fans were going absolutely nuts, at the time, for the possibility of the quinoa loving Lynch winning that briefcase. It doesn't really make sense for a face to hold that briefcase, so I'm not here to argue that she should've won, but there was no denying that the fans were firmly in Becky's corner.
Then we had the numerous appearances on SmackDown Live that only resulted in more fan support. Every match she was involved in helped build her up. The fans know her talent and damn it all to hell if she isn't one of the most lovable off-camera superstars they have.
Next was the number one contenders matches. Seeing Becky beat Carmella was an opening of the flood gates for bloggers like me. "Becky Lynch deserves this shot and she will be a great champion" was the response. It should have been the response. Its a very true statement and I think we all know she can carry that title.
What these are examples of are the points in which the WWE built a story with their eyes closed. The moments that said "don't turn Becky heel, it won't go well" and the WWE decided to keep on truckin'. Sound familiar? It does to me.
After that we saw it all implode. Charlotte, who is best friends with Becky Lynch, takes away her opportunity at a championship match. Her best friend? Huh? I wrote about this before SummerSlam, but how dumb is that? If they were best friends, Charlotte would have respectfully declined the opportunity and would have been proud to watch her win the championship.
Like...the philosophical and psychological breakdown of this friendship is disturbing. Flair thinks shes owed this opportunity and then Becky would just have to be okay with it? Because she's a Flair? Our queen (as shes dubbed)? This is easily every nerd and cool person friendship that I've ever seen play out in a movie or TV show. So what we're learning, based off this 'kids show' is that if you're a privileged, spoiled brat, you get your way. And if you're an Irish Immigrant (I know, but for the sake of my argument), you accept your place and hope things shake out in your favor.
So dumb...
Now it's SummerSlam and we've watched the Triple Threat for about fifteen minutes. Becky has it won and that asshole of a best friend decides its time to end this match. With Becky's back turned, Charlotte hits the Natural Selection (a move that reminds us of her lineage). Shoulders are down and Charlotte pins her 'best friend' for the win. That's right! Your face...I'll type it again for good measure...YOUR FACE champion pins the fan favorite for the title.
What the f#$% were they thinking?
The immediate post-victory visual was Charlotte smiling, laughing and looking for her title. I'm not saying they meant for her to do this...but come on!?! Charlotte looks down at her defeated best friend and pats her on the belly. As if to say "good dog". Again...I'm not saying this was on purpose...but this is your chosen face. Coach her up a bit!
So Charlotte wins...hugs her best friend...turns on the water works. I know the room of gentleman and ladies I was watching the show with were pretty upset with this result. Thankfully, Becky was too. She beats the hell out of Charlotte. Her best friend. Who turned on her, TWICE! And even expects Becky to fall in line after this. What a best friend...
With friends like these...who needs enemies?
The best part was SmackDown Live. And I'm not going to talk about the fans and their reaction. I'm mentioning it now, but the point is how bad this booking is and how little sense it makes. Sure, the fans loved Becky's heel turn. They should. It makes sense. We're not animals. We don't want to see our underdogs get buried. If you do love seeing that, you are a horrible, horrible monster and you need to be stopped. And I hate you.
What happened was a lack of any semblance of humility, awareness, or empathy for the plight of Becky Lynch...by who you ask? Well...her best friend, of course! 'The Queen', as it were, decided she had heard enough and came out to shut up Becky Lynch. You know...as any true super hero or good guy would. If this were text, you'd see a smiley emoji applied sarcastically and ironically.
The line has been drawn in the sand. Fortunately, sand is not stone anymore. This feud has to change because it the right way to tell this story. Either that or they have to stop reminding us that Charlotte is a cold-hearted, privileged, brat. Stop letting Becky explain her frustrations, because we can all relate. Definitely stop lying about us ever not believing in her, because the WWE Universe is very stubborn and will cheer for her even harder.
If changes aren't made, you've got another Roman Reigns on your hands. I've seen Bubba Ray on twitter claim that this will be the case, but I think its already here. Charlotte has been forced down our throats and we're being asked to cheer for her even when she does shitty things. This is the point where wrestling is so different from other forms of entertainment. When other writing teams can consider fan response and actor's abilities for different roles, the WWE works in the opposite direction and then hopes you won't notice. We do notice. And our response is usually to 'boo'.
On top of Charlotte getting booed, the kids should also be able to look up to these characters as their heroes. Roman fought through a ton of adversity and finally took down Brock Lesnar after multiple failures. We, as adult wrestling fans, can see through his adversity, but kids can't. They see a guy who could be the champ, but kept getting help back by rules, decision making, and a bully, like Brock Lesnar. Its not the case for Charlotte.
Charlotte is blonde, busty, expects obedience from her friends and comes from rich blood. Just like Spider-man, Superman, and Wonder Woman...right? Her success is the opposite lesson every other form of entertainment is trying to teach us right now, which is anyone can be anything. If I'm honest...part of this is because I am so tired of seeing Charlotte be champion, but I feel it has SOME truth to it. There's a reason that the Miz, Ziggler, McIntyre, Lesnar, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Samoa Joe, Baron Corbin, Alexa Bliss, and Carmella are all heels.
Becky is now the Daniel Bryan/Stone Cold roster representative. Maybe kids don't need to be introduced to the anti-hero this early in their lives, but its better than what Charlotte teaches them. Becky's character is teaching us to fight for your dreams. She's teaching us that not all of the people in our lives now are good influences. She's teaching us that change can be good. She's teaching us that you can fight for yourself instead of for someone else's approval. She's teaching us that the established order might be wrong. She's teaching us that emotion is okay.
Becky Lynch will hopefully get the better of her crappy friend and Charlotte will be taught a lesson. Either that or expect service industry workers to abused by former wrestling fans, who have grown up, but were taught to be spoiled brats to get their way.
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