I walked away from last night’s Raw with one thought in my mind that basically the Co-Main Event for Summerslam is Brie Bella vs. Stephanie McMahon. It is quite the revelation to come too, but honestly can you argue it is not the case. The build up to making the match that I honestly have wanted to see for some time. Part of the reason for that I think is the fact Stephanie has not wrestled a match in over a decade. Her last match to the best of my recollection was against her father a week before her real life wedding to Paul Lévesque AkA Triple H.
Will get to what to expect from Stephanie in the ring, which might be better than you think in a minute, but let’s talk about the build to this match. It has been a slow and steady build that began even prior to Daniel Bryan’s injury and they still carried on with it.
They worked around the Bryan injury and still ran with this angle as Brie in the end got fired for basically no reason with Bryan unable to return and was stripped of the title anyway despite Brie quitting to save Bryan from having to choose between his wife and the title.
I think the best selling point to this angle on a personal level to me is my mom who is not a wrestling fan in the slightest and her only really exposure to it is me. She has been interested in watching this angle just based on Stephanie alone. Even the most casual wrestling fan to someone who is aware of wrestling knows who she is and she is very good at what she does.
For those who just dismiss Stephanie as a character are just simply hating on her based on her real life position in the company but she is for my money the best female performer on microphone in this company and has been for quite sometime. A.J Lee is the only female in this company that can even comes close to her in terms of skill on the microphone.
Brie Bella is not a terrible wrestler her acting skills are not exactly the greatest and that is being kind. She is only mildly better than her sister Nikki who is terrible at acting in any sense. In this angle they have kept her talking to a minimum. She has been able to drop some naughty language in the PG WWE landscape.
The match itself is never going to live up to this tremendous build-up it has been given. It will not be as bad as you think though I believe. Brie is as I mentioned getting better in the ring and really showed growth in the time she was broken apart from her sister who was out with an injury. Daniel Bryan giving her some pointers has not hurt at all. Stephanie has recently been training in Jiu JitSu, her girls have been getting trained in it by Rener Gracie, who is married to former WWE Diva Eve. Stephanie has been learning as well. So this alone might make Steph a more component in-ring competitor. This is all assuming this is more than a slap fest cat fight which it has been in the build up to that point.
This has been one of several female angles that WWE has been running with in the last month or two. Even the Diva’s title program with A.J Lee and Paige has taken a backseat to this angle. This is not surprising considering even big angles have been positioned behind this feud between the two.
Another part of this is so many times Steph has been positioned against male performers where they are basically rendered helpless in the WWE where a man hitting a woman is not happening in this PG era. So Brie is able to in a sense be the one to get revenge on Stephanie through Brie.
What is the outcome of this angle? Some have suggested perhaps will spill off into a Bella vs. Bella feud with Nikki turning heel on her sister. The logic of this thought is a little flawed but maybe the plan was always to sucker Brie into this match. Will see how it plays out, but it made a majority of the wrestling audience interested in a women’s angle with great passion since Trish and Lita.
You may not be happy with who is representing the ladies at the top of the heap here but it is a huge step for women in the landscape of things. I am pretty sure a female angle has not closed Raw since the much talked about match with Trish and Lita that Main-Evented Raw.
The success of all these female angles recently can be debated but this angle with Steph and Brie has been as good as it gets.
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