Wrestling with Your Feelings, with Rachel Bonnetta
FoxSports1’s resident “psychiatrist” is back, and has The Man come around. Becky Lynch joins Rachel for another session since the first one went so well. Rachel’s notes have how Becky said therapy is a crock, and then a bunch of expletives that can’t be repeated. How about they discuss Charlotte? NO. Well, Charlotte was sitting right there on the couch as she called Becky a peasant. Becky moves over to be on the other end of the couch.
Well, given all of Becky’s pent up anger and reluctance to discuss past relationships, Rachel wants to talk about Ronda Rousey. Becky mumbles about “that little weirdo.” Rachel notes how Becky calls herself “The Man.” Is this an identity crisis? No, Becky identifies as “The Man.” Does that make Becky feel more powerful to call herself that? DUH. Because Becky is the best thing in wrestling today. How does Rachel not get that? Does Becky feel like hitting Rachel? Yes, actually. Right now, even.
Rachel suggests Becky use an action figure as a substitute. Becky plays around with the Rachel action figure, and starts pulling on the head! She rips it right off and then goes after other limbs. Well that’s all for the session today. Rachel “taps out” and Becky throws the pieces at the wall. Becky storms out and Rachel says that was great progress.
The panel discusses the Steve-O’s Wild Ride with Ronda Rousey.
Needless to say, her comments on the podcast caused quite the stir. Ronda openly wondered what she’s doing pro-wrestling for if she can’t spend her time and energy on her family and instead must spend it on “a bunch of ****ing ungrateful fans that don’t even appreciate me.” She loves performing, she loves being out there with the other women, but at the end, “**** these fans, dude. My family loves me and they appreciate me, and I want all my energy to go into them.”
To follow up, the #KayfabeKiller had a Twitter rant to add on. “Anyone who is outraged by me calling pr wrestling ‘fake fights for fun’ has never been in a REAL fight. While you all are tip toeing around bruising some pro wrestlers’ huge soft egos – no one is thinking about all the REAL fighters you’re insulting when pretending pro wrestling is somehow on the same level of realism.” Ronda understands wrestling “300 days a year for years on end is incredibly tough on the body and a difficult profession – but do you know what would happen if you got in 300 REAL fights in a year? You would be dead.”
Naturally, there were responses from WWE wrestlers, such as Alexa Bliss. Alongside a gif from her own WWE 365 documentary, Alexa tweets, “Hm. Was out for almost a year. Must have been ‘fake’.” Nia Jax’s response reads, “I can’t wait for Ronda to one day return to WWE. Even if WWE orders me to make Ronda look good in the ring, which is the only way for Ronda to look good in the ring with me, I’ll risk my job to go down in history as the one from this biz that knocked her the **** out! #TestMeBitch”. WOW.
Renee asks CM Punk, who has been in both worlds and should understand both sides. What is Ronda up to? Quarantine crazy or a work? CM Punk says this is her doing her job. He loves this, because this is “pure chaos.” Work, shoot, whatever, it isn’t ending well but it will be fun to watch. It’s great to see a lot of people bite on the bait, it’s great to see people retort. People can bring up how Ronda got knocked out, how she’s gone soft, how she’s not a real fighter, only to also say she’s not a real pro-wrestler. The whole time, she’s got them in the palm of her hand. She says controversial things to push people’s buttons, but blurring the lines is when wrestling at its best.
But where things get messy is when you start saying, “What I do is real, everything else is phony.” That’s not thin ice, you’ve fallen through into ice water. They might have to tread lightly, but Ronda’s got us talking and Punk loves it.
Booker adds that the talk about ungrateful fans, he knows a lot about that. But talking about “fake fighting” and different worlds, Ronda of course was amazing in UFC. The WWE embraced her and put her on a pedestal by making her Raw Women’s Champion and putting her in the WrestleMania 35 main event. That is huge because everyone wants that spot. But Ronda is all but disqualifying herself from returning because she talks about it being fake. No one wants to see Ronda do fake fighting. Booker wants Ronda to go back to real fighting against a Holly Holm or Amanda Nunes. The WWE embraced Ronda even after her “catastrophic losses,” so for her to talk about pro-wrestling like that is disrespectful. Ronda should apologize because she just slapped every woman in that locker room.
Christian says that Ronda is a lightning rod. Even in her UFC career, she was booed by fans. Then the same happened in her WWE run near the end there. Ronda thrives when she feels disliked, but the word that bothers people is “fake.” It was a poor choice of words, perhaps. But as a wrestler, “fake” is the offensive word. We’re all passionate and protective, especially when it feels like someone is attacking. The instinct is to attack back, and we’ve seen that with Conor McGregor recently. Everyone jumps on and reacts, and then that person gets what they really wanted: attention. Booker says the difference is, Conor didn’t come to the WWE and pick up a huge check first. Yet.
Punk says he can sink his teeth into this debate. The genesis of Mixed Martial Arts in Japan was because of pro-wrestling. That became the Pride promotion. So if you’re to pick a side in this debate, the point is trying to disparage pro-wrestling. But Punk feels this could lead us to the long-anticipated Four Horsewomen VS Four Horsewomen. Charlotte, Bayley, Sasha and Becky VS Ronda, Shayna, Marina and Jessamyn. The honor of pro-wrestling against MMA fighters makes for a great story. Christian says they’re using pro-wrestling promos to sell fights, so why not. Punk says it is all entertainment in the end. And the women are still thriving in it all! Renee plugs next week’s WWE programming marathon on FS1! The Best of Becky, Ronda’s WWE 24, then the Best of Charlotte and the Becky WWE 24, all before a new Backstage!
