So, discussing SummerSlam 2024’s WWE Women’s World Championship match between Liv Morgan and Rhea Ripley is complicated. There are layers.
Some of which are subjectively good for many WWE fans. Others are more problematic.
They reveal issues not just in the presentation of WWE’s biggest women’s storyline of the summer, but across the promotion’s treatment of female wrestlers in their booking. There is some good.
So, in the balance of fairness, I’m going to separate this discussion of Morgan vs. Ripley into two articles. This is to allow for a fuller, developed analysis for both sides rather than give you a very long or condensed argument.
This part deals with the serious issues few are talking about. Then part two will discuss the reasons why many can/will overlook these issues in the short term.
The Empresses’ New Clothes
There is so much about this feud I should love. Just like everyone else who is praising WWE, I wanted consistent long-term storytelling and character development for years.
I wanted levels of depth and subplots. This is the top storyline on Raw since WrestleMania and it features two women on top who I believe deserve this position.
Ripley is one of the most talented women’s wrestlers in WWE. Morgan, whose Women’s World Championship victory I described as well deserved (here), has shown as a performer and person growth and dedication to wrestling across her career.
These former tag team partners have earned their place. That’s not debatable.
WWE is finally using a faction to build stars. Damian Priest has become the WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
Finn Balor has been used prominently and has a career resurgence. Dominik Mysterio has become the best heat magnet of the 2020s.
Carlito is cool again. And yet, the pieces are there, but they aren’t joining up for me like they are for many others.
I see so much love for this storyline and its characters on every forum and group across social media apps. There are so many memes and conversations. I see folks repeating the phrase “This is cinema.”
The most apt metaphor I could come up with for my feelings was the story of the Empresses’ (yes, I switched the genders!) new clothes. I’m not claiming to have moral insight or see a layer of truth others are wilfully ignoring.
I believe folks who like this storyline genuinely do. However, this storyline is doing more harm to the women’s division than good on multiple levels.
Ripley and Morgan are not walking around naked. But with all the overt suggestiveness: screenshots, memes, and comment sections, some are actively using their imagination.
Liv Morgan and Rhea Ripley are Cinema?
I get why many WWE fans have repeated this idea of WWE as cinema since The Bloodline storyline. When I discussed Roman Reigns and toxic masculinity (here), I did agree that, at its best, The Bloodline borrowed and replicated the tropes of gangster movies like Goodfellows or prestige TV like Breaking Bad.
Likewise, the innovative and unique camera shots are undeniably cool. But as someone who loves cinema, from trashy so bad it’s good horror/grindhouse flicks to subtitled foreign arthouse films, The Judgement Day saga will never get an Oscars nod.
Its Rotten Tomatoes score would be a chasm between what critics and audiences felt. If anything, it’s not the kind of film that would have been made today because of its problematic aspects.
Hollywood has moved away from this kind of comedy film. Here’s a plot synopsis:
“During Ripley’s absence, Liv Morgan began making overtures towards Dominik Mysterio, attempting to lure him away from his loyalty to the injured Ripley. Morgan’s true intentions remain unclear- was she genuinely interested in Dominik, or was this a calculated move to disrupt the Judgement Day? The tension continued to build as Morgan’s interactions with Dominik became more frequent and intimate.”
This is a story about Mysterio: an arrogant, cowardly, manchild. Mysterio is being tempted by an attractive blonde while his brunette “girlfriend” is away. Can Dom resist temptation?
It reads like a coming-of-age sex comedy from the late 90s/early 2000s. A meme that put the heads of the Judgement Day members and Morgan’s heads on a poster for the 1999 film American Pie is apt.
The storyline about the WWE World Women’s Championship puts a man center stage. Who will he choose?
How will it impact the women? Will Dom sleep with one or both? It’s all about sex.
It’s Not A Budget Adult Film But…
It would be too lazy to compare the Morgan/Ripley/Mysterio storyline to porn. Despite the number of screenshots with a certain logo added to them.
I’ve written about wrestling and misogyny during the Attitude Era and Ruthless Aggression Era (here). If we are directly comparing the presentation of women, there is a clear visible difference in the presentation of women on screen.
Gone are PTSD-inducing (for the “divas”) bikini contests and bra and panties matches. Women get more screen time and prominence. Ripley and Morgan have autonomy.
They are not characters being manipulated by male characters or fought over like in the WWE of old. Journalist Isobel Thompson, who I’ve referenced in discussing Ashley Massaro’s legacy, used the phrase “budget porno” to describe segments involving Vince McMahon interacting with his female employees.
There is somewhat of a subversion. Mysterio isn’t in control.
It’s Morgan and Ripley who are manipulating him. But subversion and the appearance of autonomy and power don’t dismiss the muddied elements of misogyny that remain.
I’ll discuss in part two how some of Ripley’s motivations do not revolve around Mysterio. Instead, he revolves around Ripley.
Yet Morgan, for her plan, revolves around Dom rather than her championship. There is a bigger motivation, yes.
However, at its core, the sex comedy story puts male gratification and male pleasure first. An uncool dorky lead, Mysterio, is somehow able to get multiple attractive women competing for him.
When some of the memes and surface-level fan discord revolve around who Mysterio might have sex with rather than the wrestling match between the two women themselves, it suggests a serious step backward.
Becky Lynch Said It
Becky Lynch, shooting, working or a worked shoot brought such points up on the MMA Hour:
“That just sucks that we’re talking about that. You know, like when I think of the amount of women that were at one stage, fighting against that treatment, like, that was what they were forced to do in two-minute matches. Maybe I’m just like stuffy and and jaded because this is the stuff that I had to fight against. Of course, everybody loves it, and it’s cool and it’s edgy. But if I’m a little girl sitting in the crowd, and if I have my daughter, and she’s seeing that and she’s thinking that that’s what she needs to be if she’s a professional wrestler. And that’s the stuff that’s getting a reaction and if I’m a girl who’s grown up and wants to be a professional wrestler, and I see, oh well that’s the stuff that gets a reaction. And that’s the stuff that people are talking about. And that’s the stuff that we’re posting on social media, and we continue to and even the company does and pushes that, then that is the stuff that gets over and then I’m not taken seriously for what I do in the ring… No, it’s just about my body. It’s about how it looks. And it’s about fulfilling a bunch of men’s fantasies out there in the crowd, and it becomes not about the art it becomes about that. And I’ve fought so long to change that and so I kind of go when I’m talking about that, and when I’m forced to answer about that, I go that just f**king sucks. That just f**king sucks.”
Becky Lynch, quote from Wrestlingnews.co
Meme Fodder
If engagement was measured through memes, this Morgan/Ripley/Mysterio storyline would be the match of the year. Yet, looking closely at the jokes, meanings, and implications of these memes, sex is the primary theme.
Some joke around Mysterio and when/if he is going to give in to temptation. Morgan and/or Ripley are posed seductively.
One I saw this morning had Ripley posed with a black rose dangling in her face and her tongue out to lick it. It’s suggestive and titillating.
She wears a spiked black bikini top reminiscent of Chyna. Next to her, Morgan poses with the Women’s World Championship in a t-shirt tightly clinging to her chest to look like it’s wet.
The caption reads, “Who would you choose?”
I don’t deny these memes share a viewpoint of affection. However, the affection primarily isn’t for these women’s wrestlers wrestling ability.
Although flippant, WhatCulture’s Michael Sidgwick described his experience at WrestleMania XL hearing fans behind him chant “Mami” during their event with the following:
“They don’t care the limb work; they don’t care if there is a potential opportunity for the disarm her or if Rhea Ripley’s strength is going to neutralise Becky’s submission skill… every male voice in my vicinity just wanted Rhea Ripley to sit on their face.”
Michael Sidgwick, WhatCulture
Character Depth – Sexy Can Be Empowering But…
Let’s be clear, women are allowed to express their sexuality, bodies, and appearance how they choose. This sexism in the presentation of Ripley and Morgan is about their characters, not the women themselves.
I’m not going to delve any further into the politics of women’s bodies and appearances because it’s not my place, nor this article’s place. Being sexy can be used as a means of female empowerment, yes.
Ripley displays this as a character more than Morgan. Ripley, like Chyna, is not tethered or dependent on a man.
The Judgement Day needed her recently and not the other way around. Ripley owns Mysterio and not the other way around.
Her alternative appearance and sexuality have been used only in part with Mysterio. Ripley has not been as overtly sexual with Dom. Contrastingly, Morgan has.
Fans have been questioning throughout this storyline if Morgan is playing a game. Is she just playing Mysterio and will probably discard him and work with Balor?
The motivation is revenge. Yet, as a personality trait, it’s hollow.
As I discussed when Morgan won the championship, if her character work is solely defined by her motivation to attract Mysterio and spite Ripley by taking everything from her, it’s all still about Mami.
Jesse Collings at Voice of Wrestling recently wrote about his belief that Morgan’s eagerness and hypersexual presentation overlap with the narrative McMahon is trying to present in dismissing the Janel Grant lawsuit (here). I think it’s coincidence rather than intention.
Morgan has been reduced to the classic/cliché stereotype of the femme fatale. A dangerously sexual, deceptive, manipulative woman. The wrestling Jezebel.
The cliché dangerous woman who is willing to literally give her body to get what she wants. It’s a very reductive view of women.
What’s Hiding in Plain Sight
Taking a step back, since WrestleMania, the story and focus for the WWE World Women’s Championship has been on this match at SummerSlam. Anticipation is driven by whether and how Ripley will regain her championship from Morgan.
There’s been nothing else. No one else has been spotlighted or elevated.
Long-term, I’d question whether Morgan will remain in the main event women’s scene given her stereotypical progression. Morgan has barely defended her championship.
Although there is a storyline that can be used to justify this, it’s just an extended version of the WWE chicken-scared heel champion. Yet, Ripley herself barely defended the championship.
Although Ripley has become a box office attraction, many of her title defenses seemed academic and uninspired. She’s the draw, not the wrestling matches.
Which has created an issue for the rest of Raw’s women’s division. Who is being elevated up the card to challenge either Morgan or Rhea?
There is no structure. No hierarchy of contenders. There is a stagnation. There is a general lack of care for women’s wrestling in WWE.
Increasingly, WWE has reverted to running short women’s matches again. How many women’s matches in recent weeks on WWE TV have played out to crickets?
It’s not new. It’s been an issue with The Paul Levesque Era of WWE since it began.
Although there are prospects, like Tiffany Stratton and Chelsea Green who maximize their minutes, their characters are still stereotypical. Both are playing spoilt and entitled characters.
What happened to Jade Cargill’s push? When I wrote about Cargill’s post-Wrestlemania run, I pointed out that the best way to build her star power would be through displaying her charismatic personality through storytelling.
I wrote then that it’s ironic that WWE, the story-telling company, can’t tell stories for women who aren’t at the top of the card.
There’s Nothing Else or It’s About to Change
The danger is fans of WWE are being re-trained again to not care about women’s wrestling. Once Ripley and Morgan’s feud is over, who’s next?
It will likely be extended for a few more months, but what’s next for Morgan? There’s no pecking order, but rather a cast of women to wrestle against in heatless matches.
Something needs to change and already some WWE fans on social media are calling out the issues. However, what could change might be a return to the old.
Lynch pointed out this approach with Ripley is over. It’s edgy and cool.
If WWE leans into this, especially when they move to Netflix, there seems like potential from Triple H’s words that edgier content will happen. Lynch’s own fears about the women being further reduced to objects of sexual desire might come true.
More From LWOS Pro Wrestling
Header photo – WWE – Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the WWE Network and Peacock.
