November 12th, the “Smackdown Women’s Champion” Becky Lynch closed the “Monday Night Raw” with a broken face, a severe concussion, and a rupture in the fabric of WWE’s reality.
As a part of her ongoing rivalry with Ronda Rousey, she invaded the rival show WWE Raw. During the chaos that ensued, a wild punch by a fellow wrestler Nia Jax broke Becky’s face and left her with a crimson mask.
Becky, however, continued to perform unperturbed and unhinged. She ended the show with her arms wide open in victory and the WWE universe in her palms.
Later, it was revealed that she has no memory of what transpired after the punch. She functioned purely out of instinct in those era-defining few minutes. Her gusto was an impulse, something that came from years of commitment to the craft and an unadulterated passion for the art. Her instinct and organic ferocity resonated with the fans, showing their ecstatic and awed faces.
The visual at that moment was poetry that eludes words; it can only be experienced. In the grand scheme, however, it marks a pivotal moment that has delivered a definitive blow to the glass ceiling that held back the women of pro wrestling. It captures the moment in which the business — which worshiped “Macho Men” and exploited and even abused its women — surrendered itself to the charisma and the endurance of a woman.
It has been a long and arduous journey for the women of Wrestling, and it has been a tough one for Becky Lynch. And today, in standing at such an elusive cusp, Becky has transcended a few of the most enduring barriers of Wrestling.
It is a story worth telling, and it includes stories worth remembering.
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High in the North in a land called Svithjod, there is a mountain. It is a hundred miles long and a hundred miles high, and once every thousand years, a little bird comes to this mountain to sharpen its beak. When the mountain has thus been worn away, a single day of eternity will have passed. — Hendrik Willem Van Loon, The Story of Mankind
Long before “The Man” Becky Lynch came around, a woman legitimately beat hundreds of male wrestlers.
Her name was Mildred Burke. The mother of women’s Wrestling in both the USA and Japan, she was one of the biggest stars in the ‘Rasslin world in the 1930s.
In the 1950s, Fabulous Moolah was the flagbearer of women’s Wrestling. She held the women’s championship for 20 long years. Moolah trained Wendi Richter. Wendi, a massive star in the ’80s, was also known as “Lady Hogan.”
The early ’90s saw massively popular Alundra Blayze and her storied rivalry with Bull Nakano.
Trish Stratus and Lita emerged at the end of the millennium and main-evented WWE raw in 2001: the first for women of WWE.
In these years and those that followed, WWE was graced with many talented women like Jacqueline, Molly Holly, Chyna, Mickie James, Melina, Victoria, and Gail Kim, to name a few.
In TNA’s Women’s Division, Awesome Kong redefined what it meant to be a woman wrestler. In Indy’s Wrestling, amazing women such as Sara Del Rey, Mercedes Martinez, and MisChief produced many great matches for promotions like Chikara, Shimmer.
The history of women’s Wrestling is a rich vein of mesmerizing and path-breaking performers.
It is a story worth remembering, but so is the story of how the wrestling business and its fans treated them.
I will touch upon three stories: Mildred Burke, Trish Stratus, and Lita.
They are three of the greatest women wrestlers to have ever existed.
When Mildred Burke was working with her husband, Billy Wolfe. He sexually exploited her and other women wrestlers. When Mildred Burke had enough and parted ways with him, National Wrestling Association (NWA) stood with Wolfe and against Mildred. The man’s world sided with a man.
As a part of an on-screen story, Trish Stratus, the flagship woman wrestler of the company in the 2000s, was made to strip down to her lingerie and bark like a leashed dog by the chairman of the company Vince McMahon himself. It was one of the most sickening segments in WWE history.
Lita was a gifted performer. She inspired hundreds of young girls to take up Wrestling, a list that includes AJ Lee — a famous woman wrestler who sparked the current women’s revolution through her role in “Give Divas a Chance” storm on Twitter. Lita is also one of the most unjustly disrespected stars in WWE history. Her personal life was exploited on-screen to slut shame her. She was forced to participate in an infamous “Live Sex Celebration” on Monday Night Raw.
The industry objectified women of Wrestling, but the fans rode along merrily too. That is why “Bra and Panties” matches, “Mud Wrestling” were enormously popular.
Incredibly, the women never gave up.
For years and decades, through every injustice, insult, and tragedy, they kept on performing with passion and vigor. Every woman, whoever wrestled in a squared circle in any arena, delivered a blow to the glass ceiling in her own way.
With the turning tide of social norms, this continuous mistreatment gradually created dissent in fans. It culminated in the “give divas a chance” movement when angry fans forced WWE to mend their ways in 2015.
The same year and incidentally, the very segment lauding the “women’s revolution” saw the WWE main roster debut of Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks, and Becky Lynch.
The world of hyperbole is at Becky’s feet today. Twitter worships her, fans adore her, and the company sees money in her. The hype is electric, and it has sustained for months now.
In such a hoopla, it is easy to forget that Becky has been able to break the glass ceiling because she stands on the shoulders of many women who kept on fighting. It is their sacrifices, struggles, and endurance that paved the way.
Where Becky has transcended her predecessors is how she has overshadowed her male peers. She has topped the boundary that separates superstars and megastars.
She is the first woman to do so.
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It doesn’t matter your gender, your race, your sexuality, whatever it is… we’re all equal… We’ve got to make sure we’re working on ourselves and that we’re making ourselves the best, and let all of the other things be damned. Because it doesn’t matter. We’re all people at the end of the day. — Becky Lynch
The world of WWE is a world of gimmicks, identities, and how they elicit reactions.
WWE has repeatedly created “Heels” (villains) based on foreign origins. They have made fun of characters for their sexuality, mental illness, accents, looks, and sizes. WWE has liked their women blonde and buxom when it comes to women’s Wrestling. They have made a virtue out of “fighting like a man” and weakness out of “crying like a girl.”
To put it simply, WWE characters are generally defined by shallow physical, cultural and social norms.
From this identity-driven world of WWE comes Becky Lynch:
A girl from Ireland with a thick “foreign accent” who dreamt of making it big in Wrestling, and a wrestler who once had to retire from Wrestling in her early 20s due to head injury and depression.
An immensely gifted performer, Becky has always been a popular star. But the company continually ignored her. Fans were increasingly getting exhausted with her mistreatment, and come June 2018, they simply revolted for her.
WWE responded by pushing her to the main event, but also by turning her heel (villain).
She was positioned against Charlotte Flair, the daughter of legendary Ric Flair and an incredible performer.
Her rivalry with Flair featured some excellent mic work by Becky Lynch. The feud ended with her victory in a “Last Woman Standing” match. It is widely considered the greatest women’s match in WWE history.
Every week, the script evolved further into the story of a woman who claimed what was rightfully hers. Her narrative of being a victim of injustice was legitimate, and people rallied behind her. Her claim of being possibly the best performer on the roster was legitimate, and people agreed with her.
The woman who was supposed to be a villain thus became the anti-hero.
In her next program, during the build to “Survivor Series,” where the two brands of WWE — Raw and Smackdown — go to battle with each other, Becky stood against legendary Ronda Rousey.
She bested Rousey in the battle words on TV and on Twitter. Her only physical interaction with Rousey happened in the closing segment of the final “Raw” before Survivor Series on November 12th.
In that chaotic segment, she gained the upper hand over Rousey but had her face broken in a freak accident.
As a result of her injury, she missed out on a match, which would have main evented Survivor Series, one of the big four events of the WWE. It would have been the first instance of a women’s match closing a big four show.
A blessing in disguise, perhaps as her absence from the event and newly acquired box office pull is forcing WWE in ways the company did not foresee a week ago.
Becky Lynch is currently slated to fight Ronda Rousey in the main event of WrestleMania 2019, the Superbowl of pro wrestling.
For the first time, the women will headline the grandest stage of them all.
In the world of WWE, In November 2018, an all-natural Irish woman sits on the top of the mountain. Simply because she is that bloody good.
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Heroes are an impulse, an overwhelming and intense instinct, and an ethereal state of mind.
We, humans, are suckers for heroes. Our heroes lead to the victory of good over evil. Their actions uphold the pristine values of humanity. They inspire something that eludes most of us: the sense of destiny. Two intertwined paths fulfill their destiny: conscious choice and synchronicity.
The heroes who strike the most profound chord with us endure a struggle that we can relate to, and they react in a manner that galvanizes us.
Something in them reflects mortality, and so does something larger than life. They are vulnerable yet defiant. They are at once both a human and an ideal. Such a hero is not necessarily a man or a woman. Heroes are an impulse, an overwhelming and intense instinct, and an ethereal state of mind.
This is when Wrestling found a new hero, and fans’ adoration turned into adulation. A murmur turned into a frenzy, and WWE submitted its corporate machinery to the new paradigm.
