2020 is undoubtedly one of the most noteworthy years in WWE history. With the world cast under the shadow of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and subsequent pandemic, it forced the “essential service” that was WWE to produce its content behind closed doors. With no live audience, no need to tape live, and greater production freedoms, it gifted the promotion an opportunity to experiment more outlandish ideas.
The WWE presented us with the good: the Firefly Fun House match and the Otis/Mandy Rose saga, the bad: the Eye for an Eye match-up and Nia Jax (just generally – yes, that remark is a bit harsh but I do not think without justification), and the ugly: RETRIBUTION. Yet what about the ideas that did not quite stick and are now remnants of an age of obscurity when the world turned upside down? These are 10 forgotten moments from the early WWE lockdown era.
Note: this only includes on-screen moments so we will not be discussing stories such as Vince McMahon’s high praise in Cal Bloom, Kevin Dunn claiming real fans do not wear facemasks, and Triple H’s claim of a strong storyline replacing Roman Reigns at WrestleMania that never came to fruition.
#10. Lacey Evans Turns Heel Over Karaoke
Wrestling in the heatless, eerily silent void of the absent-crowded Performance Center was always going to be a hard watch but that may have never been more apparent than on the July 10th 2020 SmackDown.
An all-round pathetic squeal of a show, the worst segment saw a four-way karaoke segment between the women wrestlers because they are girly, you see – God forbid, they wrestle(!)
In the segment, the four women – Lacey Evans, Dana Brooke, Tamina, and Naomi – all sang but, this being WWE and not wanting to pay for any rights (perhaps rightly for a throwaway segment), made all sing WWE themes. Lacey sang Jeff Jarret’s, Dana sang Honky Tonk Man’s, Tamina sung a few seconds of Triple H’s, and Naomi sang Dusty Rhodes’s.
Naomi was voted the winner by the prop NXT trainee crowd before, a little miffed at losing, Lacey attacked Naomi, in doing so, turning heel; a subsequent match ended in a no contest. Although the Evans face run had long-run stale, it was collectively agreed that this was not the way for “The Lady of WWE” to turn heel.
Now, you may have detected from my tone here that I am slightly ranting here. It is actively damaging to your women’s division to do this whole segment. Not just making them girly singers, but bad ones of that with the professional wrestlers like drunk caricatures of themselves. When the women are show as shallow as this, it really hinders any trustability and investibility when they are so prone as to turn allegiance after not winning a meaningless faux singing contest. Also, no one won the match they had so no one gets over!
This can only be chalked down to a failure of the lockdown era, even if largely forgotten.
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