On a side note, WWE Evolution was surprisingly good considering it came off as a bit of a contrived event to counter the fact that they were doing an all-men event in Saudi-Arabia by law. It was poorly promoted outside of the Mae Young Classic tournament. But when the event was said and done, it ended up with one of the best battle royales that WWE has put on in its history, and Becky Lynch vs Charlotte Flair ended up being one of the greatest last man/woman standing matches in the history of the main roster - and one of the best main roster matches of the entire year.
The battle royale was interesting based on the fact that they told stories with it rather than just having a bunch of people in there until one person wins after 5 or 6 minutes. The star of the match was in the crowd's opinion: Ember Moon. The pop they had when Ember and Asuka engaged was deafening. In spite of the fact that Nia Jax won, the moment felt genuine and special. There has not been a battle royale quite like this one before. It makes me look forward to Royal Rumble.
Charlotte vs. Becky reminded me of something from NXT, not Smackdown. It was an epic performance that put Styles vs. Nakamura to shame. If an all-women's PPV like Evolution is the only place where you can get a platform to see such a performance from the main roster, then I am all for it. Though, I hope if they do it again they don't promote it like some kind of sideshow like Crown Jewel - where all the promotion feels very commercial and disingenuine. Personally, I'd prefer it if the WWE just made some of their regular PPVs more women's centric (like 90 minutes to 2 hours of women's matches with proper storylines) - but I'll take a PPV like Evolution over nothing if it gets more matches like Becky/Charlotte.
Also, after Evolution they did the post-show video highlight reel, which I haven't seen (maybe they normally just don't show it on the WWE network) in at least a decade.
Speaking of the Mae Young Classic - while Io Shirai and Toni Storm were the finalists, the tournament itself was stolen by Meiko Satomura and Tegan Nox. The top 3 matches of the tournament all involved Meiko (or at least 3 of the top 5). Tegan Nox was also one of the stronger performers, but it was her tragic leg break that highlighted how important this tournament was to those involved - apparently it even brought Triple H to tears; what occurred is her leg brace got caught in such a way that she wasn't able to brace the connection from the suicide dive, and she shattered her other knee (the one not in the brace) when it connected with the steel ramp; she tried to continue the match, much like Triple H did when he tore his quad off his knee... the injury happened early, and then it was stopped - and after the match it turns out the extent of the injury was gigantic (Dislocated kneecap, torn MCL, LCL, and ACL, both meniscuses torn, partial bone shatter, and a broken tibia)... how she managed to go 2-3 more minutes before her knee gave out shows the power of adrenaline and determination, she was literally just using the leg as a shaky balancing stick. She did cry afterward, but not from pain, at the disappointment that her body didn't work out for her, and all she worked for was lost all over again.
Japanese women's wrestling was kind of my gateway into pro wrestling, period; but I was unfamiliar with Meiko Satomura until Evolution despite her being around since the 90s. I am pleased to see women's wrestling getting the attention it deserves - Japan proved in the 80s and 90s that it could headline major shows, and I think we're already getting toward that point with women's wrestling in WWE.
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
