Rob: No Explanation Needed For Sasha Banks & Bianca Belair In A WrestleMania Main Event

Do Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair deserve a WrestleMania main event slot? Rob isn’t sure that’s even a question at this point. See why!

This week when the matches for each night of WrestleMania were starting to be announced the hashtag #MainEventBanksandBelair began to take flight, advocating for the Smackdown Women’s Championship match featuring Sasha Banks vs Bianca Belair to be put in the main event spot on the first night.  And of course that brought out the contrarians to ‘well, actually’ the assertion and suggest that no, they should not.  Which has led to a flood of threads and exhortations as to why they deserve it and all that.

I for one am not going to do that here.  Look, it’s real simple.  The Smackdown Women’s Championship is one of the top singles titles in the company, the Royal Rumble Winner chose to challenge for it, and the two ladies in the match are capable of putting on a main event level worthy performance.  That’s it.  If you’re asking for some long, drawn out definitive proof that they deserve to be in the main event……..

Go play in traffic.

Seriously, go play in traffic.  Preferably during rush hour.

This is where I am in 2021.  No one has to come up with some grandiose cosmic justification as to why they want their favorite wrestlers to get a push, win a title, or be in a main event match.  It’s up to the booker to decide who gets what, and it’s frustrating as a fan when they don’t make the choices you hope for.  But you have every right as a fan to ask for whatever you want up until the decision is made.  And you don’t have to explain it to anyone, particularly people who are not arguing in good faith and have no intention of every changing their mind.

If you’re reading this then you’ve probably been on Wrestling Twitter long enough to know when somebody is being deliberately obtuse or trying to stir things up for attention/engagement, or in this case when somebody is dabbling (or jumping with both feet) into the racism.  So at this point mute, block, and otherwise ignore them.  Any engagement is a win for them so don’t give it to them.

Now for those of you level headed individuals, who maybe don’t care one way or the other who main events and are interested in hearing why Sasha and Bianca should main event on night one, here’s what I got.  Other than the reasons I listed above, all I got is that when you have a chance to make some positive history and you are literally in control of the entire situation you should just do it.

Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley is a main event caliber match, but beyond that there isn’t any moral imperative to put it in that slot.  There’s no cultural significance whatsoever should Drew win the title back or Bobby retain it, there is not history being made.  WrestleMania in particular is about memorable moments and they have a chance to make one here, one that they won’t have later.  Doing it at SummerSlam, or God forbid some B show like Backlash, just won’t hit the same.  Do it now because quite frankly we don’t know what the future holds.  Strike while the iron is hot.  And also……..why the hell not?

Now this is part of a bigger issue with wrestling companies and how they book for their customers.  Like most every other entertainment company there’s a real fight being waged over whether to go all in on where the growth potential is (women, people of color, LGBT fans) or to keep hedging their bets so as not to piss off the dudebros who go around spouting off about forced diversity every time some intentional move is made to change things up on that front.

Having two black women who have already passed muster to main event and who are competing for a main event worthy title isn’t some contrived act of tokenism, in this case it’s basic booking 101.  As for the people who are folding their arms and stomping their feet to declare that it just should not be a main event match, or that it doesn’t really matter…….well, it might be a good idea to see if they’ve complained about some of the things that Peacock is editing out of the WWE content that’s migrating over.

If you know, you know.

In closing let me reiterate what I said earlier.  They’re fighting for a main event level championship, the challenger is a Royal Rumble winner, and they’re both more than capable of performing up to the level of a main event level match.  That’s all the logic you need.  If anyone asks, hit em with that and keep it moving.  You don’t owe them any more than that so don’t waste your time giving it to them.