Former WWE writer Chris Dunn discusses that Bianca Belair's rise to the top.
Belair rose to stardom on NXT before she arrived on the main roster in 2020. After an inconsistent run on Raw, she moved to SmackDown, and she feuded with Bayley. "The EST" went on to win the 2021 Women's Royal Rumble Match, and she defeated Sasha Backs to win the SmackDown Women's Championship at WrestleMania 37. Belair has been one of the company's top stars ever since.
Speaking on the Public Enemies Podcast, Dunn, who started with WWE in 2016 and left in 2021, looked back on his time with the company. He highlighted his work throughout Belair's run at the end of 2020 and into 2021. Dunn noted that, coming out of Belair's controversial loss to Bayley, at a time when she was clearly being positioned as a rising star, was controversial, but he noted that it's hard to have unbeatable babyfaces. Dunn then recalled how it didn't seem like Belair was going to win the 2021 Women's Royal Rumble, and when thinking of paths forward, he envisioned putting her in a tag team with Billie Kay.
“She had lost to Bayley, which upset a lot of people, but I think helped her in the long run because I think it’s really hard to have an unbeatable babyface. I think it made the second match better. So I was just like, ‘Listen, you go out there, I don’t give a shit what you say,’ we had this promo. I think I told her, ‘If you say something they don’t like, I will take any heat for it, but you need to cry, you need to be emotional, you need to really feel the moment.’ This is literally the biggest moment of your career. This promo is gonna say a lot. You need to actually feel it. She cried and it was emotional, and it was awesome, and Vince really won her over. But it didn’t look like she was going to win the Royal Rumble. I thought about looking into putting a tag team together with her and Billie Kay, where I thought we could kind of do a modern Rock ‘n’ Sock Connection with them. It would have been awesome," Dunn said.
Dunn then looked back on how he found out that, though the company planned on having Charlotte win the Royal Rumble, Vince McMahon changed his mind. He described how Ryan Ward, a longtime writer, spoke with McMahon and pointed out that, with the planned winners of Edge and Flair, they weren't making any new stars.
"I was in a Tampa hotel room, and we were watching some sort of football game, and an assistant had just left the Royal Rumble night-before meeting, and they changed the finished. Charlotte was gonna go over, and they rehearsed Charlotte going over. Bianca was gonna get eliminated midway through the match, and it got changed to Bianca going over. I think a lot of people voiced it, but this guy, Ryan Ward, he’s been for 14 years. He was Cena’s writer, and for my money, I think [he] had the biggest hand in the women’s revolution. He was lead writer in the golden days of NXT when Kevin and Sami, and the Four Horsewomen, all that stuff. From My understanding, he kind of said to Vince something to the effect, ‘Vince, if you look at the Royal Rumble tomorrow, we have Edge winning and Charlotte winning. We’re not not making any new stars.’ I think that really resonates, and Bianca was on such a roll where it kind of made sense. She also had to again, right after that match, really nail that post-match promo, and she did it, and she was just awesome and great," Dunn said.
Belair recently stated that it would be an honor to face either of the Bella Twins. Check out her comments here.
Charlotte, the reigning SmackDown Women's Champion, recently discussed her return to WWE. Click here to see what she had to say.
At WWE Royal Rumble, Belair will defend the Raw Women's Championship against Alexa Bliss. More information is available here.
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