Becky Lynch is right that women’s wrestling needs more time on television

Becky Lynch had strong words for the time that women’s wrestling gets on TV and she is 100 percent right. 

When the smoke clears, Becky Lynch will be recognized as the best women’s professional wrestler to ever step into the ring. She’s achieved nearly everything there is to do in the WWE, and with her contract coming up in 2024, she may have the opportunity to reach success outside the company as well. When she speaks, Lynch gets attention and she recently spoke to Joseph Staszewski of The New York Post. During this conversation, she said quite a bit about the women’s division in the WWE, but her words ring true not only for this company but for what fans are seeing throughout the major organizations in North American pro wrestling.

“Currently, we are a little light on women with credibility on Raw,” Lynch said during the discussion. “So anyway, I can give these women, who are great, credibility, give them a match, give them an outing, and showcase them in a championship match. I think that only benefits everybody. It benefits the audience because we have more women that we care about and more women that I can beat.”

Lynch won the NXT Women’s Championship on September 12 and has since been a featured piece of the NXT roster. Some tried to complain about this development, but her presence on the show has already had a positive impact on ratings, which shines a light on more performers just as she said. Since winning the title she has been involved in matches with Kiana James, and Lyra Valkyria, and is heading into a defense against Tiffany Stratton at NXT No Mercy. Plus, she gave space for Tegan Nox to kick off her storyline on WWE Raw. That power is already coming through.

Lynch also touched on another point which is the fact that women aren’t getting enough television time.

“I need people to come up,” she said. “I need people on this level. But if nobody’s getting any TV time. If nobody’s getting any story time then they can’t rise up because nobody knows who the hell they are. It’s hard to gain momentum if you don’t get no TV time and it’s hard to get TV time if there is nothing to fight for.”

That perfectly captures the circular narrative about women’s wrestling in both WWE and AEW. The women aren’t given television time, then they are hit with the perception that they aren’t a draw, which then leads to them again getting less television time. But look at the data that speaks the opposite of that. Julia Hart versus Willow Nightingale and Asuka versus IYO Sky were two of the highest-rated segments in professional wrestling last week. The news about Jade Cargill jumping to WWE was the most important wrestling news of the month. There are so many examples that fly in the face of the idea that the women’s divisions aren’t draws, yet the men making the decisions in the back fail to make any adjustments that would benefit the bottom line of their organizations.

AEW’s next PPV, WrestleDream, features only one women’s match on a ten-match card which is par for the course for the promotion as fans continue to call for more ladies’ matches.

Organizations like STARDOM and IMPACT are excellent at promoting women’s wrestling. There’s still a lot of ground that is needed in bigger organizations like WWE and All Elite Wrestling. Becky Lynch is an icon of the industry and her leadership will continue to help that group. She’s once again using her words to elevate the division and it’s time for more to take heed and act.