WWE: There is No Better Time For Evolution 2 Than Right Now

While WWE tries to offer up reasons for not yet holding the show, right now may have been the best possible time for Evolution 2’s announcement.

In August, WWE Hall of Fame Beth Phoenix asked a simple question on Twitter: “Who wants to see Evolution 2?”

The response was overwhelmingly “Yes” (you can even spot Daily DDT’s Twitter account getting in on the action in the replies). In fact, the real question seemed to be why the heck WWE would wait this long to say anything about the follow-up to their first ever all women’s show?

Initially word around the internet was that WWE was “hesitant” to do another show without Ronda Rousey’s star power to draw in viewers. Which is almost a flash of awareness for the company: you seem to realize you have hindered the growth of your women’s star power to the point you have to bring in an outside ringer to “excuse” an all-women’s PPV, but you don’t see the bigger problem with that fact and how you did this to yourselves.

It also ignores the fact that Becky Lynch has had a star-making year. Lynch has gone on record in an interview with TalkSports’ Alex McCarthy with her belief that Evolution 2 would be a success without Rousey, saying, “I think we have a strong enough women’s division [without Rousey], as long as they tell the stories around us and let us go. And… that’s all I’ll say.”

Now, Triple H has said in an interview with DigitalSpy’s Stephanie Chase that the reason for Evolution’s exclusion from this year’s PPV schedule was because, “this year has been such a transitional year with WWE that in the process of a lot of things happening like the switch to Fox, NXT going to USA, there’s been so many crazy things going on, part of the planning process of those things is us not having the bandwidth to do a few of the things that we would have liked to have done this year.”

While this is understandable to an extent, the “transitional year” has hardly prevented WWE from holding the rest of their long-scheduled shows, including Hell in a Cell which occurred just days after the Smackdown debut on Fox.

The most incredible part is that while WWE tries to offer up reasons for not yet holding the show, right now may have been the best possible time for Evolution 2’s announcement.

It is not exactly a secret that WWE as a company is in competition with AEW as a company. Both shows are attempting to out-do each other, with AEW taking direct shots at WWE on a regular basis.

And while NXT is still on track up quality-wise against AEW Dynamite on Wednesday nights, Raw and Smackdown the past weeks have been alright shows with absolutely dreadful “twist” endings, not to mention the disaster that was the booking at Hell in a Cell.

One of the biggest criticisms so far of AEW, however, has been their handling of their women’s division. While they do have an incredibly talented roster, so far they have failed to do much with it.

Holding only one women’s match per main show, they are doing very little to build feuds or characters, and are definitely not following through on promoting the women at the same level as the men.

They had a star-studded Women’s Battle Royale at the Buy In show for All Out, but did very little with the match. They even had the opportunity to make the crowning of their first every Women’s Champion the main event of their premier broadcast, and instead went with a seemingly random six man tag.

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So far, AEW has not set themselves apart when it comes to women’s wrestling outside of the genuinely powerful move of promoting Nyla Rose.

What does this have to do with Evolution 2? Well, simple: an all women’s show is, right now, one of the best ways for WWE to out-maneuver AEW.

There are plenty of people who want more from women’s wrestling who aren’t getting it from the new competition the way they’d hoped, so WWE has the opportunity to step in and give it to them. Not only with Evolution 2, but also with the Mae Young Classic 3 and more prominent positioning for the women on the shows in general.

In fact, across the board, WWE using their own incredibly deep and talented roster of women would give them a heads up. Women’s wrestling has drawing power right now, to not capitalize on it because of a “good old boys” mentality or belief that only an outstanding media star like Ronda Rousey will spark interest is ludicrous.

And for every sexist who claims they will stop watching because women are given the spotlight, there are plenty of new fans ready to jump in and take their place. Also, c’mon, those guys won’t stop watching. If they were going to, they would have already when you had women main event Wrestlemania.

Besides, and I didn’t want to play this card, but you’ve forced my hand, given that I’ve had to sit through TWO fetish storylines where women are portrayed as cruel harpies out only to humiliate and undermine their men?

You owe me and a lot of other fans Evolution 2, WWE. And you know it.