Charlotte Flair won the Smackdown Women’s Championship at Summerslam. This came after she defeated both Becky Lynch and Carmella. After the match, Charlotte and Becky embraced in the middle of the ring. Becky ended up turning on Charlotte and laying her out with a vicious beat down. This resulted in Becky receiving a major pop from the fans in Brooklyn.
I wanted to pass along a theory about Becky turning on Charlotte and the plans moving forward.
The big topic of conversation after the Smackdown Women’s Championship match was the crowd cheering what looked like a heel turn from Becky. This is obviously not the desired reaction when turning someone heel as the goal is to get boos. While listening to Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer brought up an interesting point. He says that the reaction that Becky received from the crowd was not something that caught WWE by surprise. WWE likely expected the vocal Brooklyn crowd to react the way that they did to Becky’s attack on Charlotte. This got me thinking about Becky’s character moving forward.
It makes sense if you think about it. The entire storyline has been built around Becky earning a Smackdown Women’s Championship match. She defeated several female Superstars on Smackdown Live to earn the chance. Charlotte returned from injury and was added into the Title match after only one match. After Charlotte goes on to win the Title, Becky being frustrated seems like a reasonable reaction. A lot of people have had that friend who gets things handed to them in their lives and Becky’s reaction seems pretty relatable. WWE had to also know that the crowd in Brooklyn would NOT boo a Becky heel turn.
So where do we go from here? A theory would be that Becky will be more of an anti-hero moving forward. She isn’t a traditional heel like some fans are expecting after Summerslam but she also won’t be her usual babyface self. I think that she will find herself somewhere in the middle, which could be interesting moving forward. It should make for a great feud with Charlotte as the crowd seems split on her. Maybe it even eventually leads to Charlotte turning full-blown heel down the road.
To recap, it seems unlikely that WWE expected Becky to get booed at Summerslam. It seems as if she will be moving towards more of an anti-hero role moving forward instead of being a traditional heel.
How would you feel about his direction for Becky moving forward?
On a related note, here is a rumor about another potential Smackdown heel turn that could happen.