Rarely have I gone into an event with lower expectations and less enthusiasm. And yet, rarely have I been more wrong.
Andy Datson is a serviceable podcast host. Trust me, I’m as shocked as you are.
Oh, and also Evolution was surprisingly great.
Woefully under-promoted, the one thing we were told about Sunday’s pay-per-view was that it would go down in history as a historic night of history-making historicalness.
And truthfully, investor-friendly hyperbole aside, WWE wasn’t wrong. When confronted with the excellence on display at Evolution though, it’s easy to overlook just how dramatically WWE’s attitude towards women’s wrestling has changed over the last decade.
For some perspective, almost ten years ago to the day, WWE held its fifth and final Cyber Sunday pay-per-view. The card on that night featured exactly ONE women’s match: a 16-Diva Halloween costume battle royal. There were no eliminations; no woman even stepped foot into the ring. Instead, in line with the show’s concept, the winner was determined by online poll. All told, the “match” was so wholly forgettable that it isn’t even recorded on the event’s Wikipedia page.
Sunday night felt like a lifetime removed from that debacle. Evolution represented the culmination of years of effort, guts and determination from a supremely talented cast of women. It was deserved (and long overdue) recognition of a roster that has transformed itself from teenage boy pin-up material to one of the most technically-gifted and capable divisions in all of wrestling.
With that in mind, my question may seem contradictory. Do we need another Evolution next year?
A follow-up event was heavily teased by Michael Cole throughout the broadcast and of course the temptation is to hold another – presumably equally excellent – all-women’s event. And while I certainly appreciate the enormity of the moment and enjoyed every match on Sunday’s card (yes, even the battle royal), I simply don’t know if a regular women-only pay-per-view should be the end goal.
Trying to find words to explain the feelings of last night. The feeling in the building, in the ring, backstage. It was like the first Takeover, or a Wrestlemania. To see everyone come together to create this magic was something so real & so special. But, you fans are our heroes.
— Bayley (@itsBayleyWWE) October 29, 2018
It’s hard to escape the idea, at least in my cynical mind, that Evolution only came about as a direct response to the controversy created by the male-exclusive Crown Jewel. A notion that WWE has done nothing to dispel by scheduling the respective events less than a week apart.
And that grimy undertone is perhaps why Evolution doesn’t quite sit well with me. Is it a way to elevate women to the point where they share the spotlight with their male counterparts? Or is it simply an annual reward with little build, which conveniently also covers up WWE‘s Saudi Arabian venture?
Per usual, the answer was probably best articulated by Becky Lynch during a Reddit AMA she held on Saturday. When asked about her vision of the future of women’s wrestling, the champ had the following response:
“I see it getting to a point where we no longer differentiate between genders and everything flows seamlessly.”
That should be the goal. Not to segregate WWE‘s roster along gender lines, but rather to make it feel like a dynamic, inter-connected world where men and women interact on equal footing. On a related note, Becky is still the GOAT:
https://twitter.com/BeckyLynchWWE/status/1056890653374853120
Holding an all-woman pay-per-view is unquestionably a landmark moment. Prioritising women’s storylines, giving them meaningful exposure on weekly television and elevating their feuds to top billing on major pay-per-views is true evolution.
That said, this weekend has left us with two inescapable conclusions:
Evolution was awesome.
Andy-lution was fine.
So how did all the goodwill generated through Evolution play into Raw last night? And was WWE able to string together consecutive nights of good content? Our WrestleTalk writers are chomping at the bit to take you through their best and worst segments from Raw, and share their overall rating of the show. Read on to find out what they thought.
What was your favorite moment from Raw?
Dylan Kapisky
Burn it down… on the mic. On what was perhaps the most important Raw in years, the top storyline on the red brand delivered in a big way. Seth came out and demanded answers from his former Shield brother, Dean Ambrose.
This was Seth’s best singles, babyface promo in my opinion. He spoke with conviction, everything he said was justified and it felt like he believed it all. You can’t ask for much more, yet there was so much left in the segment. Dean coming out through the crowd (Shield style) but saying nothing, instead responding with a faraway stare at Rollins, was the cherry on top of a near-perfect segment.
Seth using Ambrose’s silence against him by recalling the initial breakup of the trio, and how Rollins had the decency to explain himself, capped off the brilliant work from the ‘Architect’. Pure excellence.
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Nicholas Holicki
Elias’ face turn has the potential to elevate him up the card and that’s an idea I can get behind. Never short on charisma, Elias’ biggest obstacle was always his booking.
As a heel, he was never more than a comedy act, periodically fed to whatever mid-level babyface WWE was trying to push that week. As a face however, he gets to do all the comedy, while hopefully also being given the chance to chalk up a couple of wins.
Just don’t ask him to sing for Dana Brooke.
JP Wood
Elias the face. I had honest doubts when they turned Elias to the light side of the force on last week’s Raw. I didn’t think that he would be able to get over when the crowd knew that WWE wanted him to be over. I was wrong. His schtick works perfectly well this way and the crowd hasn’t lost interest.
Eric Stites
My favorite segment was the opener. I really like Corbin as General Manager and he did great here too. Braun and Brock were awesome and Paul Heyman’s promo was perfect.
What was the worst part of last night’s episode?
Dylan Kapisky
What’s the deal with tag teams? What was the point of that triple threat tag team match? To showcase how the division on Raw now mirrors the Divas division pre-AJ Lee?
AOP and the mismatch team of Roode & Gable (The Ascension were also there) had a match that belonged on Main Event, because these teams, while having a storyline, have been shown little care by the creative team. The action in isolation was fine, but there was little reason to care.
Not only that, but Lucha House Party debuted on Raw last night. Why is that bad? They beat The Revival! I should not have to explain what is wrong with that sentence. Goodness gracious.
Nicholas Holicki
The Raw tag team division is just nowhere at the moment. Most of the division has been flattened out to the point where only two teams feel like they’re worthy of being champions.
The worst of it? One of those teams has a member flirting with the main event picture, and the other is currently feuding with one another! Don’t expect to see any meaningful tag team wrestling on Monday nights any time soon.
JP Wood
The Dean Ambrose/Seth Rollins fallout this week killed a great deal of the emotional momentum that the angle had. My disappointment alone is enough to slot this in as my worst moment on Raw.
Last week’s sudden and emotionally brutal Ambrose heel turn was one of the most emotional wrestling segments that I can remember. For the first time in a long time, I was looking forward to seeing what happened this week.
Then this week, Dean said nothing. I’m instantly 50% less interested than I was before. That angle needed a strong follow-up, and this wasn’t it.
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Eric Stites
I really didn’t like the Lucha House Party match. I guess the match itself wasn’t that bad but I just didn’t get the context of it. Why are they suddenly on Raw? Why should I care? And why the hell did they beat the Revival? I would be fine with them moving from 205 Live to Raw if WWE tried to give me a reason to care. But they didn’t.
How would you rate the show overall? (From best to worst: In Awe, Cor, AvRAWge, Poor and Bore)
Dylan Kapisky
Cor. Aside from the butchering of the tag team division, I really enjoyed this show. Almost every segment pushed forward the stories they were telling (which, lest we forget, is the point of weekly television), with Lashley’s heel work, and Seth Rollins’ babyface fire being the highlights. I was very intrigued to see where the company would go without its top guy (Get well, Roman), and I was not disappointed.
Nicholas Holicki
Maybe I’m just suffering from an Evolution hangover, but I thoroughly enjoyed this week’s episode of Raw. Seth and Dean had a tense exchange, a repackaged Elias was hilarious and Becky’s excellent face-off with Ronda has me looking forward to Survivor Series.
A few poor matches and the absence of any real build for Crown Jewel do knock last night’s show down a rung for me. Nevertheless, this week’s Raw is a high Cor.
JP Wood
AvRAWge. Raw wasn’t bad this week. But it sure as heck wasn’t good this week either. It was Raw this week. This was one metric Monday Night Raw. It was neither below nor above my expectations for the Crown Jewel go-home show. It was a tepid cup of tea on an overcast morning. Last night was the wholewheat pasta of wrestling. It was functional, bland and didn’t leave a terrible taste in my mouth.
Eric Stites
I thought the show was boring. Nothing really significant happened except the opening segment and the Ambrose & Rollins confrontation. It wasn’t really that bad but neither was it good. I’m giving it a Poor.
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