Jack-Hammer
YOU WILL RESPECT MY AUTHORITAH!!!!
Evolution is going to be the first ever all women's show in WWE history. WWE gets a lot of criticism, some deserved and some undeserved, but you can't deny the remarkable turn around in how the main roster uses and treats its women wrestlers. At one time, they were nothing more than cheap filler with no relevance or meaning to the product at all and that's all changed due primarily to the main roster actually looking at what was going on in NXT with its women's division and adopting much of what they saw and giving the main roster actual female stars in matches that matter and contribute.
The flaw in the slaw, however, is that they don't give the credit to Triple H or NXT and that is part of why Evolution won't be perceived in quite the way WWE hopes, at least in my opinion. Rather than coming flat out and saying that female wrestlers didn't mean anything in WWE for the longest time, rather than just flat out say that the company had no desire to utilize their talents, they came up with some corporate bullshit rewriting of history to make it seem like the current state of women's wrestling in WWE is something that "evolved" over an extremely long period of time. That's not what happened and everyone knows it but, as is often the case when actual history doesn't line up with Vince's whitewashing, Vince treats fans who've watched WWE and wrestling in general for decades as if they have the mentality of 5 year olds and pretends that younger fans who may not be familiar with the bad old days of women's wrestling in WWE can't go online and easily look up how bad it used to be.
Then you've got Stephanie McMahon herself, who isn't doing this any real favors when you get right down to it. She's a great heel, no question, and I enjoy her in the role of a heel. However, just like her father a good deal of the time, even when she's not in heel mode comes off as this disingenuous, condescending asshole who does what her father does in that she tries to whitewash history and, even worse, takes credit for things that he doesn't really deserve credit for. It's a huge part of why you so often hear fans say how gag worthy it is when she's out there giving these "historic" announcements concerning the women, and unfairly puts herself squarely in the middle of the spotlight; we saw it happen earlier this year for the women's Royal Rumble match and we saw it concerning the arrival of Ronda Rousey. The one responsible for orchestrating damn near all of WWE's women's movement is Triple H, whether it was intentional or not doesn't really matter as he started treating and using women wrestlers in NXT as though they were...well, wrestlers. He booked them as wrestlers, put together meaningful feuds for them as wrestlers and booked them into meaningful matches as wrestlers. However, Stephanie is the one pushed to the forefront because she happens to be female. Announcements concerning women's wrestling in WWE in particular come off far less nauseating when Triple H does them because he's been in the trenches of wrestling, he's busted his ass, and he isn't someone that's spent the last quarter century in a suit trying to tell wrestlers how to be wrestlers.
Finally, you have WWE constantly harping on Evolution. As we saw on both Raw and SmackDown Live this week, they found a way to squeeze in a mention of Evolution and how wonderful it is and how historic it'll be into almost every segment on each show. If it's mean to be hyping the show and keep it in everyone's mind, as it's still several months away, it comes off more like WWE congratulating itself and jerking itself off on its own grandness and progressive stance. You know, sort of like the whole Be A Star anti-bullying stuff even though they have guys like JBL going around terrorizing guys like Mauro Ranallo as part of some outdated frat boy mentality people like Vince and JBL have.
I have little doubt that the show will be a success but I think WWE will ultimately wind up undermining itself and the show by constantly patting itself on the back while expecting everyone else to do it too.
The flaw in the slaw, however, is that they don't give the credit to Triple H or NXT and that is part of why Evolution won't be perceived in quite the way WWE hopes, at least in my opinion. Rather than coming flat out and saying that female wrestlers didn't mean anything in WWE for the longest time, rather than just flat out say that the company had no desire to utilize their talents, they came up with some corporate bullshit rewriting of history to make it seem like the current state of women's wrestling in WWE is something that "evolved" over an extremely long period of time. That's not what happened and everyone knows it but, as is often the case when actual history doesn't line up with Vince's whitewashing, Vince treats fans who've watched WWE and wrestling in general for decades as if they have the mentality of 5 year olds and pretends that younger fans who may not be familiar with the bad old days of women's wrestling in WWE can't go online and easily look up how bad it used to be.
Then you've got Stephanie McMahon herself, who isn't doing this any real favors when you get right down to it. She's a great heel, no question, and I enjoy her in the role of a heel. However, just like her father a good deal of the time, even when she's not in heel mode comes off as this disingenuous, condescending asshole who does what her father does in that she tries to whitewash history and, even worse, takes credit for things that he doesn't really deserve credit for. It's a huge part of why you so often hear fans say how gag worthy it is when she's out there giving these "historic" announcements concerning the women, and unfairly puts herself squarely in the middle of the spotlight; we saw it happen earlier this year for the women's Royal Rumble match and we saw it concerning the arrival of Ronda Rousey. The one responsible for orchestrating damn near all of WWE's women's movement is Triple H, whether it was intentional or not doesn't really matter as he started treating and using women wrestlers in NXT as though they were...well, wrestlers. He booked them as wrestlers, put together meaningful feuds for them as wrestlers and booked them into meaningful matches as wrestlers. However, Stephanie is the one pushed to the forefront because she happens to be female. Announcements concerning women's wrestling in WWE in particular come off far less nauseating when Triple H does them because he's been in the trenches of wrestling, he's busted his ass, and he isn't someone that's spent the last quarter century in a suit trying to tell wrestlers how to be wrestlers.
Finally, you have WWE constantly harping on Evolution. As we saw on both Raw and SmackDown Live this week, they found a way to squeeze in a mention of Evolution and how wonderful it is and how historic it'll be into almost every segment on each show. If it's mean to be hyping the show and keep it in everyone's mind, as it's still several months away, it comes off more like WWE congratulating itself and jerking itself off on its own grandness and progressive stance. You know, sort of like the whole Be A Star anti-bullying stuff even though they have guys like JBL going around terrorizing guys like Mauro Ranallo as part of some outdated frat boy mentality people like Vince and JBL have.
I have little doubt that the show will be a success but I think WWE will ultimately wind up undermining itself and the show by constantly patting itself on the back while expecting everyone else to do it too.