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We are merely days away from the 35th installment of WWE WrestleMania, taking place in East Rutherford, New Jersey, which is expected to have 75,000 screaming fans packed on a show that has a high probability of lasting over seven hours.
With huge stars like AJ Styles, Daniel Bryan, Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio, Brock Lesnar, and Roman Reigns, among others, scheduled for matches, it will be the women headlining WrestleMania for the first time in history.
Becky Lynch is walking into the match as the babyface challenger, while her counterparts, Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair, both hold championships. Stephanie McMahon revealed during the opening segment on the go-home Raw episode that whoever wins the match will win both championships. The winner of this match will mark the first time in history that one woman will hold both the Raw and Smackdown Women’s Championships at the same time.
Is Becky Lynch ready to hold that mantle though?
From August to February, Becky Lynch was the hottest superstar on the planet. She transformed from the do-good Irish Lasskicker to “The Man.” Arenas around the world would echo with “Becky,” chants even when she wasn’t in attendance.
The iconic bloody nose segment gave rise to many entertaining memes. Becky was not only a champion and a number one contender during this time; she was all alone in a realm of superstardom.
Becky is still one of the top babyfaces in the company, but Kofi Kingston has leapfrogged her on the totem pole. She was nursing a “knee injury” for quite some time and lost a lot of momentum. Her only big match since the Royal Rumble was against Charlotte, and quite frankly, was the worst match on the card. Both superstars were forced to hold back while Becky had to fake limp throughout the ring, and the WWE ultimately decided to scrap the injury the next night on Raw.
Now nothing hints at Becky not being deserving to win, or that she is no longer over, but when you look beneath the surface, it is easy to see that she was never meant to be in this position. If the WWE Universe didn’t gravitate towards Lynch in such an overwhelming manner, this match was surely set to be Rousey vs. Charlotte.
Charlotte is the daughter of arguably the greatest performer in wrestling history, and not to mention, is a damn good performer in her own right. Charlotte gets handed opportunity after opportunity without doing much, and it’s because Vince can always count on her to deliver in big matches.
Her undeserved inclusion to the match showed, among others, that she was originally scheduled to face Rousey at WrestleMania, but WWE couldn’t go against the fans' wishes after publicly declaring they wouldn’t turn their backs on the fans anymore to dig themselves out of a rating dive. It also showed that Vince thought he needed to add a little more spice, a little more star power, a little more Flair, if you will, to make this match main event worthy.
Charlotte snapped Asuka’s undefeated streak and completely stole her aura at WrestleMania 34. You don’t book that without bigger things in mind. It was so that she would face Rousey a year later in the main event of the biggest show of the year.
Ronda Rousey has proven her star status over and over again from the moment she stepped foot into the ring. She has been put in prominent positions and has generally carried RAW with all the dysfunction going on with the men’s side of things.
Ronda has been the headlining act for many shows, including the first-ever all women’s PPV Evolution. She is the most mainstream name in the entire company, and whether we admit it or not, Ronda is the biggest star on any wrestling roster.
For all the publicity Lynch has gotten, and all the strides women have made in WWE over the years, Rousey’s global superstar status is the reason that the Women’s Division has been able to take the next step from Revolution to Evolution. Rousey’s presence is the reason that the women are headlining WrestleMania 35.
Unlike her opponents, Becky’s ascension was through pure willpower and a character change that she took and vaulted into the conversation of the division's elite. It’s a beautiful sight when a superstar organically creates an unexpected rise. Lynch earned everything she’s received, and a win over Ronda and Charlotte on 7th, April is the cherry on top of the mountain she climbed to get here.
All of this is to say that, while Becky Lynch winning the majority of fans want to see, the writing is on the wall for her to come up short. Two other babyfaces are challenging the companies other top belts on the card already, and surely Vince won’t have all three win. Becky had a better chance to win before the Smackdown title was added to the equation, making the eventual winner the undisputed women’s champion.
Ronda Rousey raising two belts in the air as WrestleMania comes to a close will ultimately be too juicy of an opportunity for Vince McMahon to pass up. Becky or Charlotte will get major coverage if they win, but Ronda’s publicity would be the headline everywhere. Money talks and the image of Ronda Rousey victorious as our screens fade to black has green written all over it.
