Becky Lynch will face Rhea Ripley at WWE's WrestleMania 40 event. (Credit: Alex Bierens de ... [+]
Becky Lynch will challenge Rhea Ripley for the WWE Women’s World Championship at WrestleMania 40, and the blockbuster bout is a potentially monumental one for women’s wrestling.
During an interview with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour (h/t WrestleZone), Lynch was asked when her WWE contract expires and said, “Final two months. You wanted me to be honest.” Lynch added that “nobody’s said nothing to me” about a potential contract renewal, saying “we’ll see” what happens in regards to signing a new deal.
Well, that doesn’t exactly sound promising.
Over the past several years, Lynch has established herself as one of pro wrestling’s biggest stars, and both she and Ripley are entering WrestleMania as two of the hottest acts in WWE, with a strong storyline fans are invested in more so than most. Though that match is for Ripley women’s title, Lynch is looking for more than just a new contract—she wants WWE to improve its storytelling with feuds that don’t involve a championship.
In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Lynch expressed her desire for WWE to book more marquee non-title feuds for its women’s division. “I don’t need a title. The title doesn’t make me–I make the title. I have enough stories that I don’t need the title,” Lynch said. “NXT, that’s a place that does a great job with multiple stories with women that don’t all revolve around a title. That’s what our division needs, more stories that don’t revolve around a title.”
Lynch surprisingly hasn’t held a main roster title in roughly two years but remains a top star on the main roster and proven TV draw. There is, however, plenty of merit to what she says about WWE—and women’s wrestling as a whole—needing to feature more title-less feuds across Raw and SmackDown.
With WrestleMania 40 less than two weeks away, WWE has only officially announced two women’s matches. No surprise here: Both of those bouts involve a world title: Ripley vs. Lynch and Iyo Sky vs. Bayley for the WWE Women’s title.
Even with at least one more women’s match expected to be added to WrestleMania, that has to change in order for women’s wrestling to continue to evolve even beyond the great strides that have been made over the past decade—when women finally main-evented WrestleMania and more consistently headlined other events.
The next step in the evolution of women’s wrestling? Improving the pay structure for women in WWE, AEW and beyond.
After it was recently reported that AEW’s Mercedes Mone—a former rival of Lynch in WWE—signed a contract with AEW that made her the highest-paid woman in wrestling history, Lynch told The Orlando Sentinel (h/t SEScoops) that Mone’s reported deal was a “hugely important” step for women’s wrestling: “I think that’s an important part, getting paid equally for the equal work and the equal position we are at right now. Women’s evolutions and revolutions are fine and well, but making sure that they equate to contracts and financial reward for these things when we are doing equal work, is hugely important.”
Throughout most of its history, pro wrestling has been a male-dominated industry in the way its superstars are pushed, portrayed and paid. However, many of WWE’s most popular and best all-around performers, ranging from Lynch to Bayley to Bianca Belair, are women, and in a way, they are still being underpushed and overlooked in comparison to their male counterparts. Just look at WrestleMania 40, with a two-night card that features seven announced men’s matches in comparison to just two for the women’s division.
It was also telling that WWE reportedly “walked away” from contract negotiations with Mone, who known as Sasha Banks in WWE, because of the contract she was seeking. Mone is one of the most accomplished pro wrestlers on the planet, and yet, WWE apparently wasn’t willing to shatter its outdated pay scale to give Mone a contract she’s more than earned as a widely recognizable and successful star.
Lynch, the face of WWE’s women’s division for the past half decade, continues to use her platform in order to advocate for her fellow women’s wrestlers to cash in like Mone did. And that likely isn’t a coincidence considering that Lynch’s WWE deal is expiring soon and she will be looking to cash in with a potentially historic contract herself.
The type of deal Lynch is able to land, whether from WWE or even AEW, will have huge ramifications on the industry she’s working to improve.
When Helwani asked Lynch if it was “WWE or bust,” Lynch responded, “I just don’t know.”
But if WWE can’t secure a new deal with Lynch and continues to avoid upping the pay scale for its women’s wrestlers and struggling to create compelling non-title storylines, women’s wrestling won’t advance the way it should. Instead, it will simply tread water no matter how much of an impact the women of WWE make.
