These past several days have been chaotic, to say the least.
What started as a usual pre-Survivor Series brand invasion turned into something that has sent shockwaves throughout the wrestling community.
First, let’s go back to Monday Night RAW. Alexa Bliss had finished choosing the members for her women’s Survivor Series team, with Ruby Riott taking the final spot. Next thing you know, the cameras go to the backstage area, where SmackDown Women’s Champion, Becky Lynch, had RAW Women’s Champion, Ronda Rousey, locked in the Dis-Arm-Her.
Shortly after, Lynch’s music hit and “The Man” made her way to the ring. But she didn’t come alone, as the rest of the SmackDown women’s roster rushed the ring and ambushed Team RAW.
It was a great ending to the go-home RAW before Survivor Series, with Lynch being the main talking point yet again. But it was hard not to notice that shortly after the ambush began, she started to bleed profusely from her face. While it made her look even more badass for continuing to fight despite the blood, everyone wanted to know what the heck happened.
A short time later, a fan at the show posted a video on social media revealing that Nia Jax was the one who busted the champ open. Then rumors started to circulate that Lynch was going to be unable to compete at Survivor Series, being diagnosed with a broken nose and severe concussion.
Unfortunately, this was confirmed Tuesday night on SmackDown Live, with Charlotte Flair now facing Rousey instead of Lynch.
Understandably so, fans were fuming and demanded Jax’s head on a figurative pike. I honestly can’t say I blame them; as much as I like her, she has a history of being a little too rough and has, in some way, shape, or form, injured or almost injured the likes of Bliss, Flair, Bayley, and Zelina Vega, to name a few.
She needs to be punished in some way, such as getting pushed to the back of the line for a title opportunity or something. But she won’t because of who her family is, much to the disdain of many.
Replays of the incident don’t help the former champion either; it looks like she leans in and blasts Lynch with an absolute haymaker. Accident or not, it shouldn’t have happened, especially during a segment where no one was paying that close of attention and when its recipient was the hottest star in the company.
Now just for a second, everyone put down your pitchforks and torches! While Jax is still mainly to blame in this scenario, there is another figure you should be angry at as well: the WWE itself.
Let’s think about this for a minute. Brand invasions are almost always guaranteed to happen before Survivor Series, they’ve been happening for years now. There’s always going to be someone leading the charge, typically the team captain or a bigger name on the opposing show. In this case it was the brand’s women’s champion, and like I mentioned above, the best thing going for the company at the moment.
To a point, the invasion is probably mapped out ahead of time. If WWE knew that Jax had a reputation for putting her opponents in dangerous positions, why didn’t they keep their top star away from her? Instead, they let Lynch go after her and this is what they get: their best match on the Survivor Series card going up in smoke in a matter of minutes.
Why couldn’t Lynch have went after someone like Riott or even Tamina at that point? I get that WWE wanted to play her up as this rebellious badass, but they still could have done it while protecting their money match that was literally six days away.
They didn’t play it safe and now they have to deal with the consequences. Instead of having Rousey and Flair’s first match-up take place at WrestleMania 35—possibly as the main event—it now has to take place five months early at a less important pay-per-view.
Who knows, maybe this guarantees it will be Lynch and Rousey main-eventing the grandest stage of them all. But that remains to be seen, for now WWE has a lot of angry fans on their hands and needs to do some damage control.
Maybe this will serve as a lesson to be a little extra careful with their top talent before a major pay-per-view match. After all, it may only take one punch for things to drastically change, and not in a good way.