How Limerick's Becky Lynch became double champion at Wrestlemania 35

LIMERICK-BORN BECKY Lynch was crowned the unified WWE Raw Women’s Champion and WWE Smackdown Women’s Champion last night at Wrestlemania 35 in New Jersey.

She won the gold after pinning former UFC star Ronda Rousey after the 32-year-old California native attempted her signature Piper’s Pit finishing move, only to be countered by Lynch.

The majority of the 80,000 in attendance and the millions watching at home got the result they wanted, but the ending left a lot to be desired from a purist’s perspective – and the final act was little more than a mirror reflection of the way professional wrestling is being staged in modern times.

A triple threat match is designed to protect one particular wrestler from being beaten, while one wins and other is considered a loser. You don’t have to be pinned in a triple threat match to not win the clash, therefore you save face and your stock isn’t harmed.

Charlotte Flair was very much the one to be protected, here. She was outside the ring when the deciding fall took place, therefore isn’t particularly seen as having lost the match.

But the actual fall - Lynch over Rousey – tells a tale.

Rousey was a big-money acquisition from the UFC and she was set to gain the momentum that belonged to Lynch going into the event. As soon as fans reacted far more for their organic product in Lynch, the script was ripped up.

The ego of a UFC star came into play and WWE Creative needed to protect her from losses, particularly on the grandest stage of them all.

As previous Wrestlemania events have generally failed to inspire, they knew they would have to send the crowd home happy.

Don’t mistake this for achievements being covered up; Lynch won because she worked hardest. But she was chosen as the winner in a revised booking of this particular match, and that’s the problem.

In order to protect the legacy, and to a larger extent, the money spent on Rousey as a commodity, they couldn’t have her lose in a straightforward manner.

Lynch’s roll-up was rushed. It came across as desperate rather than technical and the commentators selling the finish as potentially flawed, as Rousey’s shoulders may have lifted from the mat for a split second, undermines the moment for Lynch.

While they’re protecting their investment, they’re not rewarding their academy graduates, their grassroot bloomers if you will – and that is a company-wide problem.

A further indictment of the way the show went, was that Lynch’s triple threat with Flair and Rousey only last 20 minutes, as that was the time allotted to them by the head honchos in the company.

It was the third-longest match of the night, behind the owner of the company, Vince McMahon’s son-in-law’s meaningless clash with a Hollywood actor and only five minutes longer than McMahon’s actual son Shane got, who isn’t even a professional wrestler to begin with.

In this seven-hour event, they somehow rushed the finish of their supposed main event.

There was no confetti afforded to Lynch, unlike in previous years where the final act was far less enthralling and far less important for the company going forward.

The Limerick-born star may work in a scripted environment, but the politics are real. Her efforts to get her personality worthy of topping the bill are failing to be rewarded, and WWE are in danger of this push for equality becoming a PR stunt.

Lynch may well be just a character in a story, but she’s now centre stage in a battle for both equality among internally-produced stars and for women industry-wide.

Given her new standing, she now has the weight and the attention to go to war over the inequalities.