AEW and NXT Wednesday Night War: 3 winners of night #16

Bianca Belair

Why is Bianca Belair a heel? Unless you’re the type of person who finds the idea of a self-assured black woman exuding confidence in the ring and on the microphone, she hasn’t really done anything to warrant any sort of ire from the crowd. Add in an earworm of an entrance song, a cool look, and a crowd-pleasing moveset, and it’s easy to see why most fans gravitate to her.

We got another example of this on NXT this past Wednesday when Belair verbally jousted with NXT Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley and Women’s Royal Rumble winner Charlotte Flair. The segment served to simultaneously build to Belair vs. Ripley and the inevitable Flair vs. Ripley match at WrestleMania, but Belair apparently didn’t get that memo.

Between her facial expressions when Flair and Ripley respectively brushed her aside, her accurate assertion that Flair “doesn’t even go here”, and the additional trash talk toward Flair and Ripley that we expect from her, Belair established herself as someone who belonged alongside the company’s two darlings; this wasn’t Miz playing the third wheel as WWE Champion to John Cena and The Rock in 2011.

Belair stood out so much, it almost obfuscated WWE baiting and switching on Flair announcing if she would accept Ripley’s challenge.