WWE Wants Its Anchors Again for Girls’s Division to Return to Glory

Purely from an in-ring standpoint, the WWE ladies’s division is deeper than it has ever been. The collective expertise throughout all three manufacturers is unmatched and has ushered in an thrilling period for girls’s wrestling within the firm.

Even nonetheless, there’s a lot work to be achieved in getting the division again to the heights it was as soon as at. However that may’t be completed till Becky Lynch and Charlotte Aptitude are once more within the combine.

Alongside Sasha Banks (now Mercedes Moné in All Elite Wrestling) and Bayley, Lynch and Aptitude have served as two of the anchors of the WWE ladies’s division for the final decade. An excessive amount of the promotion’s development with ladies’s wrestling could be attributed to the success of the 4 Horsewomen.

Their overexposure within the late 2010s and early 2020s resulted in followers demanding extra selection. Rhea Ripley and Bianca Belair had been subsequently referred to as up from NXT and gained important stardom, but the scene isn’t fairly on the stage it must be.

The upcoming returns of Aptitude and Lynch are pivotal to the method of rebuilding and restoring the division to its former glory.

In 2015, WWE was basically compelled into that includes its ladies extra prominently and appropriately on the primary roster after Triple H had achieved so with the ladies’s division in NXT, a burgeoning developmental model on the time.

The preliminary Divas Revolution was hardly something particular, however it did see Charlotte Aptitude, Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch all promoted to the Uncooked roster concurrently after years honing their craft in NXT.

They had been lower than a yr into their primary roster runs earlier than they had been the focus of division, particularly Aptitude and Banks. Lynch did not escape as The Man till 2018, and Bayley’s rise was even slower.

Collectively, although, they dominated the ladies’s ranks on Uncooked and SmackDown for a number of years and gathered numerous championships and accolades.

Their above-average in-ring skills mixed with their natural connection to the group not solely made them family names but additionally opened many doorways for the females of WWE: first-ever gimmick matches, primary occasions, elevated tv time and extra.

Ronda Rousey, Asuka and Alexa Bliss had their respective elements to play within the evolution of girls’s wrestling in WWE, however The 4 Horsewomen had been all the time the appointed measuring sticks for fulfillment.

There was a noticeable shift within the portrayal of the ladies on WWE TV when Lynch, Bayley, Banks and Aptitude both took day off or left the corporate, and issues have not been the identical since.

Banks departed WWE on the finish of 2022 and finally made her strategy to AEW as Mercedes Moné, the place she has reigned as TBS champion for over 180 days.

Bayley missed a yr of in-ring motion with a separated shoulder from 2022 to 2023 and hasn’t been in a position to preserve momentum long-term regardless of profitable the ladies’s Royal Rumble match and the WWE Girls’s Championship earlier this yr.

That has left Aptitude and Lynch as the 2 remaining potential “saviors” of the division, and fortunately, each are anticipated again sooner slightly than later.

Aptitude has been out with a torn ACL, MCL and meniscus since December 2023. She revealed in an Instagram video again in July that she had returned to coaching on the Efficiency Middle, however there have been few updates on her standing apart from a current cryptic X submit:

Lynch, in the meantime, opted to not re-sign with WWE following the expiration of her contract on June 1. Throughout a current interview at Vulture Festival 2024, she made it recognized that getting a cage door slammed in her face by Dominik Mysterio is not how she intends to exit.

Mike Johnson of PWInsider additionally indicated The Man may resurface on Uncooked as early because the Netflix premiere on Jan. 6, which might be a giant enhance to the crimson model’s ladies’s division simply in time for WrestleMania season.

Lynch reporting to Uncooked whereas Aptitude stays on SmackDown would take advantage of sense to make sure each manufacturers profit.

The Uncooked ladies’s division wasn’t precisely firing on all cylinders even when Lynch was round earlier within the yr, however there was a drastic drop-off creatively with the way in which it has been utilized and portrayed on tv since her departure.

Previous to WrestleMania 40, The Man was largely faraway from the title image but remained related in rivalries with Trish Stratus, Xia Li and Nia Jax. She briefly held the NXT Girls’s Championship and elevated Lyra Valkyria by dropping the belt to her at Halloween Havoc 2023.

Though her newest run as ladies’s world champ did not final lengthy, she did move the torch—and the title—to Liv Morgan forward of her exit. Morgan’s rivalry with Rhea Ripley has taken middle stage on Uncooked in Lynch’s absence, however their storyline has slowly misplaced steam and nothing else within the division has been remotely as attention-grabbing.

The Girls’s World Championship itself has taken a backseat to the Ripley-Morgan drama the place Dominik Mysterio has mainly change into the prize value preventing for. With Iyo Sky incomes the subsequent shot on the strap, Morgan vs. Ripley does not seem like on the verge of ending anytime quickly.

Lynch being again would routinely increase the profile of the division and maybe give it some much-needed route as nicely.

Aptitude was treading water lengthy earlier than getting injured in December 2023. She had been embroiled in a tedious feud with Injury CTRL for a lot of months and wanted one other hiatus to clean up her stagnant character.

The one intriguing program on the horizon for her on the time was with Bianca Belair. The EST of WWE has since moved on to teaming with Jade Cargill, however SmackDown would nonetheless be the most effective match for The Queen upon her return.

Not solely is that the place husband Andrade at the moment works, however there are additionally loads of compelling opponents for Aptitude to work with who would give her a clear-cut path to WrestleMania 41 if she’s cleared to compete by then.

There is a ready-made story there with WWE ladies’s champion Nia Jax, who received the 2024 Queen of the Ring event and would take exception to Aptitude calling herself “The Queen.” Jax’s right-hand girl, Tiffany Stratton, is one other ‘Mania-worthy adversary for Aptitude, particularly if the title was on the road.

If Aptitude was reintroduced as a heel, Naomi and Belair can be found choices as nicely. She would not essentially have to be again on the forefront of the championship image, however her simply being round will present large depth to the division.

It is not crucial that The 4 Horsewomen are always competing for championships and shoved down the throats of viewers. They’ve lots extra to supply within the ring earlier than they name it quits, however at this stage of their careers, they’re way more useful in serving to kind the inspiration for the longer term.

Ripley and Belair are prime examples of stars whose shares skyrocketed after working with—and defeating—Aptitude and Lynch. Ripley specifically turned the face of the Uncooked ladies’s division following back-to-back WrestleMania wins over the multi-time champs.

Belair has spent far too lengthy within the tag staff ranks this yr, however in any other case she has cemented her standing as a primary event-caliber competitor.

The identical cannot be stated for the remainder of the roster. The likes of Lyra Valkyria, Michin, Chelsea Inexperienced, Dakota Kai and Candice LeRae all possess the mandatory expertise to interrupt via to the extent however aren’t over sufficient with the viewers as a result of they’re primarily programmed with one another.

They acquire little from beating anybody apart from established commodities similar to Aptitude and Lynch, whose immense credibility permits them to maintain any variety of losses. WWE cannot create a brand new crop of 4 Horsewomen with out first utilizing the modern-day pillars of girls’s wrestling to push the subsequent technology ahead.

Consequently, their presence is paramount.

Graham Mirmina, aka Graham “GSM” Matthews, has specialised in sports activities and leisure writing since 2010. Go to his web site, WrestleRant, and subscribe to his YouTube channel for extra wrestling-related content material.