Brie Bella: What do we do with this?

Brie Bella holding up the neck and head of the supposed unconscious Liv Morgan, after taking multiple kicks to the head. Photo Courtesy of the WWE.

By Matthew Klink (@klinkmatt)

September 25, 2018

In once of the ugliest minutes of professional wrestling you’ll ever see, Brie Bella knocked Liv Morgan unconscious after hitting her with ‘Yes Kicks’ to the head. To make the moment truly ugly, Brie pinned Liv Morgan (who was knocked out) forcing the battered and confused human to shrug a shoulder to end the pin. Liv was then tossed into the corner, while she could barely stand, to get tagged out of the match.

The sight of a wide-eyed Sarah Logan putting her hand to her mouth as Liv’s limp body fell to the corner, sells the level of damage done in this moment. As Morgan was rolled out of the ring, Logan grabbed her and set her down at the side of the ring to be tended to by medical team. the match continued for a reported seven minutes (got that from Forbes article on Liv Morgan’s injury) and even included a six person suplex, that included Liv Morgan.

This was not handled well by anyone. Brie, the ref, the medical team, or the WWE.

Now, Brie is not free of blame, because her first priority is to ensure that she doesn’t hurt anyone. And while usually her botched moves are only careless in regards to her own safety, this still falls in line with the string of evidence and patterns that suggest she lacks the talent to do this job. Obviously, Brie did not want to injure anyone, but how often do we need to discuss her abilities before it does become a real problem?

And who says it isn’t a real problem, right now, anyway? Liv Morgan, I remind you, got kicked in the head twice and then was tossed to her corner by her head and neck. There is still plenty that can go wrong, hasn’t been noticed, or hasn’t been diagnosed yet. I don’t say that as a man of science, but one of caution.

I don’t only want to focus only on Brie. Is Brie a real problem when the solution to prevent this is to take her out of matches? We all know that just won’t happen. Why? Because the WWE cares about their opportunities more than anything else. The Bellas, who are the stars of Total Bellas, need to be on TV to ensure their show is interesting. To ensure they are continuously building a viewership. To ensure the relationship between the E! channel, NBC Universal, and the WWE stays strong. If the WWE celebrities don’’t produce ratings on their programs, then the expansion of this genre (like Miz and Mrs), doesn’t happen.

The WWE, against the majority of what fans want, against the idea of putting the best wrestlers in the ring, and against the idea of quality over quantity, had put a human in danger. This goes a step further because there is an ear piece inside the ear of the match referee. All they needed to do was end the match. Instead, the match not only continued, but also involved the six-person suplex. A rather slow, over-done, not impressive anymore, suplex.

So, instead of ensuring that Liv Morgan is fine and that I don’t have an opportunity to write an article like this, they do it anyway. The ref…eh…he could’ve made the decision on his own…I guess. So, he’s partially to blame, but the producers of this show and everyone in gorilla position that controls the show, should’ve taken the decision out of the ref’s hands.

And finally, I think it needs to be said that stopping your matches for the safety of your talent, is never a bad thing. I do hate what I see in the NFL right now with tackling and penalties, but we’re talking about a human being who isn’t signing up to be kicked in the head…getting kicked in the head TWICE and then dragged around the ring by her neck. An injury is an injury. Stop the match. Regroup. And be creative with what you do next.

The easy thing to do with this situation, as I’m even guilty of, is putting all of the blame on Brie Bella. She’s not really made for this business and the decision for her to be on TV needs to be taken out of her hands. She’s not good on the mic, she’s not good in the ring, and she doesn’t have the following that can’t be duplicated with another wrestler and time. Simple as that. Because I see these issues as glaringly obvious, this is the fault of the WWE officials and those who had the power to prevent Brie from being in this match.

A sure sign of good decision making is taking Brie out of these situations going forward. I don’t want to be this brutal or suggest anyone lose their job, but if she needs to practice and get better (as everyone else is forced to do at the NXT performance center) then that’s what you should do. Its a black mark on your product, your decision making, and your respect for the business. I could probably keep going, but these lists have to end in threes.

And I’d also like to point out that I wouldn’t write this article for the botches we saw Brie perform in the last month. Diving out of the ring and either hurting herself or almost getting someone else hurt. This is an outlier and a horrible situation. If you’re looking at that go down and don’t have a few questions, I’m here to tell you that this was close to being as bad as it can get.

I hope Liv Morgan is fine and is back in the ring as soon as she’s healthy enough to do so.

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