Monday, March 25, 2019

On the Main Event of WrestleMania

Bex made her mark, now pay her
Photo Credit: WWE.com
WWE officially announced today that the RAW Women's Championship Match, a triple-threat match where Champion, transphobe, Sandy Hook truther, and serial "WRESTLING IS FAKE EXCEPT WHEN I DO IT" proclaimer Ronda Rousey will defend against Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch. This match will make history in that it will be the first time women will close the show at Mania. It's also notable that it'll be the first time Roman Reigns hasn't been in the main event since WrestleMania XXX, when Daniel Bryan culminated the YES! Movement against Randy Orton and Batista in New Orleans. The only reason that it's news is because it was formally announced today. It has been a foregone conclusion since Rousey signed with the company that this year would be hers to close. The difference is that folks thought Flair would be the only one in there.

WWE's best laid plans most always are garbage. Maybe the only time they wouldn't have been awful is if Verne Gagne didn't let racist-ass unionbuster Hulk Hogan slip out of his grasp and Vince McMahon stormed nationally with Junkyard Dog as his top guy. From that moment all the way through now, saying every bit of extremely good fortune WWE has ever had was by accident might not be too much of an exaggeration. McMahon originally wanted to name Steve Austin "Chilly McFreeze." He originally slated Bryan against Sheamus AGAIN at Mania XXX before CM Punk stormed out, putting Triple H's match in jeopardy. And now if McMahon and his daughter Stephanie and Paul Levesque had their way, Lynch would have just been a villainous stepping stone on the way for Flair to regain former glory.

Of course, the story of Lynch's parabolic rise has been laid bare for the world to see. The Brooklyn crowd rejected her as a villain and saw through WWE's shallow storytelling to prop her up as the righteous hero she really was. No stock "YOU PEOPLE ARE TO BLAME" promo could dissuade that. And then Nia Jax caved her face and she stood at the top of the staircase sneering down at the RAW women's roster, birthing like a phoenix an unquenchable spirit. Maybe calling her ascent an "accident" is crass. She, like Austin and Bryan, forced her way into the forefront after seeing an opening and seizing it. Maybe the narratives should change. After all, in what business are the best innovations created by capital anyway? Labor drives progress. It always has, and it always will.

Of course, all labor, especially in WWE, is underpaid, but what should it say that the most marginalized of marginalized wrestlers on the main roster in terms of financial compensation are the ones bringing in most of the attention? Both Flair makes $550K, which is the same amount that the former Bludgeon Brothers make. Luke Harper isn't even back on television yet, and Erick Rowan is Bryan's lackey. Lynch is even worse off, as she makes $250K a year, on par with noted comedy wrestler Curtis Axel. Even Rousey, who makes a cool $1.5M, is paid on par with Dolph Ziggler, whereas Brock Lesnar, her most direct analogue, makes $10M. If you want to split hairs and say that Rousey is far from part-time, compare her to Reigns, who makes $5M. If the women are bringing in enough value to headline the biggest event of the year, shouldn't they get the same payment as their male counterparts? The only way you make the argument that Lynch and Axel get paid the same is if you say WWE should be a worker-run collective where all labor split revenue equally, which I'm here for. In the interim of not being able to get rid of capitalism, well, you gotta pay the women more.