At Sunday’s Money in the Bank pay-per-view, the WWE held its first-ever women’s Money in the Bank match. Now the hype surrounding this event was big considering how well the first women’s Hell in a Cell was received. A ladder match has an element of danger, and some were concerned that a women's ladder match could increase that risk.
The match was going well, and it looked like the women held their own in the marquee match until this happened – James Ellsworth, the sidepiece of Carmella, climbed the ladder and took down the briefcase and just handed it to Carmella, making her the first-ever Ms. Money in the Bank. While the result of this match irritated everyone, I saw it as a problem that has been developing over the last few months; the WWE has given up on the Women’s Revolution.
Charlotte and Sasha Banks led the charge for the Women’s Revolution over the summer and through the winter of 2016. Their matches, which featured the Hell in a Cell match and a 30-minute Iron Man match, were intense battles that fans enjoyed. It was the same intensity we saw when Lita and Trish Stratus were tearing up the promotion, as they became the first females to headline the Monday Night Raw in 2004. Lita and Stratus, along with Charlotte and Banks, revealed that women are just as good as the men and not just eye candy.
Since the rivalry between Charlotte and Banks ended in December, the women’s division on both Raw and Smackdown Live has been stagnant. Alexa Bliss was the highlight of both show’s women's division, but with the horrible “This Is Your Life” segment a few weeks ago, Bliss' stock fell a few pegs. Banks has now gone from competing in Match of the Night-type matches to being involved in some odd love triangle thing with Cedric Alexander and Alicia Fox to now competing for the Raw Women’s Championship randomly.
Let’s also look at Smackdown Live’s women division. They have a little more direction on Tuesday nights, but Lana was just given a title match against Naomi (Lana never wrestled one single match on television EVER) and Charlotte seems to be an afterthought on the show. Carmella has not improved and Tamina will either get hurt or hurt someone in the ring.
Now the WWE is trying to make up for the terrible ending to their women’s Money in the Bank by having a re-do Tuesday on Smackdown Live. Rather than make-good for a crappy booking decision for a major PPV, the decision was made more to fix the show’s falling ratings.
It seems that the WWE has put a stop to meaningful roles for the women in their shows. Why? No idea, but it appears that the Women’s Revolution was just a short-term thing because Vince McMahon has the attention span of a five-year-old. When fans are enjoying the women’s matches and not going to the bathroom or getting a hot dog, the next course of action should not be to forget about them and move on to something else. However, this is the WWE under McMahon, and he can’t step aside soon enough.
However, there is still a glimmer of hope for the resurrection of the WWE women’s division. This summer, the company is having the Mae Young Classic, which will be a 32-woman tournament similar to the Cruiserweight Classic that aired last summer. This tournament is the best time for new women to step to the forefront and create a new Women’s Revolution for the company.
The WWE needs to get back to what they had last year, or fans will begin to phase out the women and set the division back for another decade.
