Thoughts on WWE Evolution

Thoughts on WWE Evolution

This Sunday, the WWE will hold its first ever all-women's show named "WWE Evolution".

The idea is a neat idea, which has been done before by promotions like TNA and other indies. However, it was really doomed from the start.

The event was announced earlier this summer for the fall. I immediately was skeptical of the idea. Why? Well, there's a few reasons.

The first is that for a show which really should be something special, it was clear the WWE did not have enough time to give it the build it needed. 2-3 months is just not enough for what should be a landmark event. This shouldn't be just any old PPV. This should be an event to remember forever, like AJW Big Egg Wrestling Universe or AJW Dreamslam. If I were going to book this event, I would have set the gears in motion for it back in 2017 or at worst in early 2018. Then I would have time to build some feuds up, protect a few wrestlers and set the stage for a big show.

This didn't happen though, and that goes into the second reason of why I was skeptical of this whole event. WWE's Fall 2018 schedule is one of the most loaded schedules in recent memory. Not only would they have this, along with the usual 5 hours of TV, but they also planned Crown Jewel, the Aussie Supershow and the usual PPV's. For someone like myself, that could easily be a years worth of booking, yet it was all crammed into 3 months. I actually think WWE has handled it as well as they could, but it was obvious something was going to have to get lost in the shuffle.

What is really amusing is that two unforeseen issues ended up doing more to hurt WWE Evolution than the booking and the loaded fall schedule. As I talked about here, the Jamal Khashoggi and Roman Reigns situations caused a lot of controversy and through it, WWE Evolution ended up as only the 3rd most interesting story of the week.

I don't have high hopes for WWE Evolution. While I don't watch that much WWE and may not be the best person to gauge the booking, it doesn't look that enticing. This clearly isn't going to be Dreamslam and the only Big Egg we may see here is the one this show ends up laying.

I don't have much interest in Nikki Bella vs Ronda Rousey, and I don't think anyone seriously expects Bella to win. The more the match moves from a squash, the worse it is going to be.

Trish Stratus and Lita vs Mickie James and Alicia Fox has been strange looking from the outside in. Both Trish and Lita already returned at the Royal Rumble, so their return means a lot less than it should. Then whether it was on purpose or by accident, everyone was expecting Trish Stratus vs Alexa Bliss, which supposedly was never the plan and now can't happen as Alexa is injured and Alicia Fox will be taking her place. And all this would be enough of an issue on its own, but that doesn't even bring up that Trish and Lita weren't that great to begin with and this match is likely to be bad.

We've already seen Flair/Lynch and Sane/Bazler. I expect both matches to be good, but neither is anything to get hyped about, especially since we've seen Flair/Lynch multiple times already.

I don't really need to cover the battle royale or the throwaway trios match, do I?

The match I find to be most interesting - Toni Storm vs Io Shirai also has its issues. Neither girl is a WWE product and will only remind people of how unevolved WWE female wrestlers are. But even worse, anyone who doesn't watch NXT or the Mae Young Classic will have no idea who they are, so even if they do put out a good match, there's a good chance the crowd might be completely silent.

But none of it matters. No matter how good or bad this show is, we are will hear about how big of a moment this was for years to come and the truth of the show will be buried in corporate confabulation.