It’s WWE’s Fault That Bianca Belair Is Getting Booed, And I’m Really Concerned About The Plan For Her Character

Let’s just admit what we’re all hearing. Bianca Belair is getting booed. It feels harsh to say that so directly about a superstar that’ll go down as one of the greatest women in the history of wrestling, but we need to say it out loud so we can get on the same page and talk out what to do about it. She’s getting booed. It’s now happened with multiple crowds, and unless something changes, it’s just going to continue through WrestleMania 41. Despite being a babyface, WWE fans have decided she’s the villain of the triple threat, and I’d be outraged if it wasn’t so obvious it was going to happen the entire time.

Look: popularity in wrestling is always relative. You can be a super over performer, but if you’re less over than the person you’re working with, you might find yourself in a position to get booed. The crowd can only root for one person, and this Bianca Belair thing is a perfect example of that. Put her in the ring with just about anyone on the roster, and when she fires up, it sounds like the Ultimate Warrior when he would shake the ropes. Unfortunately, she’s been paired with the two specific women on the roster currently more over than her. We’ve got Rhea Ripley, arguably the most popular woman in the history of the wrestling business, and Iyo Sky, probably the best in-ring worker and most loveable underdog in the entire division.

So, in essence, WWE has taken its third most popular woman (sorry, Liv, Jade, Tiffy and Charlotte) and put her in a program with the first and second most popular women. Even worse, on paper, all three of them are babyfaces; so, it’s not like Gunther or John Cena where you can support their brilliance by directly booing them. In theory, all three of Bianca, Rhea and Iyo want cheers. So, WWE has essentially left it up to the crowd to decide.

That choice was never going to go well for Bianca, but the actual beats of the story somehow make it even worse . We could spend 30 minutes going over every detail, but the basic idea here is that Rhea and Bianca see each other as the threats, while Iyo, the actual champion, is seen by the two of them as an inconsequential annoyance. That means we’re getting a lot of segments that involve Rhea and Bianca arguing and Iyo getting pushed out of the way, making her seem like an even more sympathetic underdog, thus making it even more likely fans will cheer for her.

Now, you might be saying to yourself, who cares? Every major star in the history of the wrestling business has been booed at some point. Hulk Hogan quite literally got pelted with trash by fans during his infamous nWo heel turn, but that was the reaction he wanted. In the storyline, he was supposed to get booed. You could say the same thing about John Cena right now or Bret Hart after his Hall of Fame match with Stone Cold Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13.

No, the booing itself isn’t the problem. It’s that she’s being presented as a babyface while getting booed. That makes her appear weak and like she’s less than Rhea and Iyo. That’s the part that’s a big problem, and that’s the part that makes me question what the plan was here to begin with. You always want your top performers to be in control of the crowd and of the reaction they’re getting, and right now, Bianca seems very out of control.

To me, the obvious option here is for Bianca to lean into the boos, and in fairness to Triple H, Bruce Prichard and the rest of the creative staff, maybe that’s been the plan all along. Maybe Bianca will proactively turn on the crowd and dress them down for not supporting her. Or maybe she’ll win at WrestleMania via underhanded/ cheaty tactics and then lean into the boos, which will be even louder after that. If this is where everything is going, then please carry on and stick with the plan. An unscrupulous Bianca willing to do anything to win, who is furious at the fans for supporting Rhea and Iyo instead of her, is a character I desperately want to see. That could be an all-timer.

But I’m just not confident WWE is planning to go there. Bianca Belair has been a straight up babyface and presented as wholesomely as possible for years. It’s like she’s taken the jorts from John Cena, as the person little kids are meant to root for. We all thought she might turn heel during the Jade Cargill injury storyline, and yet, it was Naomi who turned out to be the perpetrator. Instead, she’s back to playing the same character she always has, and while that character works, it’s just not as over as Rhea or Iyo, nor was it as over as Asuka at WrestleMania 39 when she got some boos too.

There are some subtle signs WWE may want Rhea Ripley to be the one to turn heel. She taunted Bianca at ringside and was the first one to act like Iyo doesn’t deserve to be in the match. Her mannerisms and behaviors have definitely been a bit colder the last few weeks, but if WWE wants fans to boo her and cheer Bianca, they need to actually turn her heel. She needs to attack Iyo or beat up someone sympathetic backstage like Maxxine Dupri. She needs to do everything but literally ask the audience to boo her, otherwise they are just going to keep cheering for her, given her overall popularity.

I love Bianca Belair. She’s one of my favorite performers on the entire roster, and I was absolutely stoked to see how fantastic she was in her segments with Naomi and Jade after Elimination Chamber. It was the best character work of her entire career, and I thought the next step in her evolution. Unfortunately, she was pulled away from that program and pushed into this feud with Rhea and Iyo, and just a few weeks later, she’s losing momentum as the fans are making it clear they don’t like her as much as the other two. If those boos are going to be used as cannon fodder to build something new and exciting for her character, I’m all for it. Boo away. But if she’s just going to pretend like they’re not happening and keep coasting along as a babyface, then I can’t help but feel like the writers really let her down. I can’t help but feel like this is all WWE’s fault since it was so obvious from the beginning.