Anyone who’s anyone in the world of athletic sports health will tell you that prevention is the best way to treat any injury. Yesterday we tackled on the issues of Alexa Bliss and her history with concussions. We spoke about and showed that the WWE has a history of being bad at their job of diagnosis of injuries.
Today we have news that doubles down that argument and exemplifies another issue with the WWE and their product; prevention.
The WWE will have to put Becky Lynch, one of their most popular faces at the moment, on the sidelines for one of their five biggest shows of the year because Nia Jax has again injured someone. She’s been accused of injuring all of the top stars it seems, from Sash Banks, to Charlotte Flair, Bayley, and even her one time best friend, Alexa Bliss. We’ve talked on the show on numerous occasions that Nia Jax was unsafe and mostly it came down to the fact she didn’t know how to move.
This Is How Becky Lynch Was Busted Open! pic.twitter.com/VVPesOawYz
— Brian The Guppie (@briantheguppie) November 13, 2018
She clearly still doesn’t after watching her wallop Lynch in the face. And for those claiming Jax did it in retaliation; first off that doesn’t make her better. In fact it makes her worse. If you intentionally try to hurt someone, you are a piece of shit. So, is Jax a piece of shit or bad at her job? That takes us to two; Lynch at no point can be seen intentionally hitting Jax. Lynch’s hand was on her face, and Lynch was clearly aiming for that spot. As one does. So either Lynch accidentally tattooed Nia and Nia retaliated or Jax was just doing her bit and was careless.
Both are fire-able offenses when you have a history.
The problem isn’t Nia’s relationship with The Rock as to why she hasn’t been fired yet. The two aren’t considered close, as they aren’t even blood relatives. The problem is that the WWE uses people long past their value for their fake and contrived “social progress” stories. Wrestlers like Darren Young, Sonya Deville, Jinder Mahal, Nia Jax, Titus O’Neil and even John Cena are usually at the focal point of a sociological campaign ad. Done for the sake of merely showing social progress.
All of these, by the way, are good for the business, don’t get it twisted. To promote and hold up openly gay athletes, athletes with different types of bodies, being good fathers, being a strong minority and succeeding and giving your free time to children are all righteous things. But not when it’s only done for the sake of publicity. All of these aforementioned names, I believe, do the things they do in earnest. I believe the WWE though only promotes their actions as a way to show they’re “advertiser safe”.
Nia Jax won’t be fired because the WWE has entrenched her in the body positivity discussion and firing Jax would look awfully bad for their brand. Now, I know you’ll point out that Young was let go. Which you are correct. But besides being the only person from that list fired, Young was also the only person on the list to publicly call out the WWE for their decision to start touring in markets that he legally couldn’t enter.
Not too mention that Young also publicly called out the company for blurring the face of his boyfriend on an episode of Swerve, and Stephanie McMahon even going as far to say that Darren Young “the character” isn’t gay. So Young has had a history of going after the company publicly for their false narratives. Why would they keep him around? He’s actively undermining the false narrative the WWE seeks to create.
The fact Titus O’Neil has a job is still surprising and if it wasn’t for the fact that O’Neil is, literally, an award winning father, and a black man in a company not known for it’s history of treating men of his race well; then it’s very possible that O’Neil would of been fired by now too. Hell, he nearly was.
The minute Nia stops being useful to the company publicly is when she’ll be fired. The WWE fired Rikishi, whom the Rock was very close with, and he didn’t do anything then to help him. Why would now be any different?
Nia Jax is a symptom of the problem, that they are putting their image above the talent in the ring. But when has that NOT been the WWE’s M.O.? There is no doubt that Jax is unsafe. There is no doubt the WWE is willing to eat that though, for the sake of being able to send Jax around the world doing “body positivity” promos for the company, despite their still deep seeded issues with women in wrestling.
Lynch’s injury in itself is being swallowed whole by other talking points, but it is worth nothing that she’ll miss a big opportunity to show herself against Ronda Rousey, the biggest name in all of women’s sports right now alongside Serena Williams. This is a huge blow to Lynch and can really derail here, especially of the WWE decides to strip her of the belt.
But it “ain’t ballet”, right? Right? Cus a staged performance should still allow and justify preventable injuries cus “it ain’t ballet”? Becky deserves better than this. The WWE fans deserve better than this.