Injury is a part of life if you’re a professional wrestler. People might call it fake, but the physical feats these athletes put themselves through each and every day couldn’t be more real.

Superstars can be written off for months thanks to real-life injuries, putting careers on hiatus for extended periods of time to have surgery, go through rehab, and hopefully come out the other end fighting fit and ready to do it all over again. In the most drastic cases, titles are to be vacated, even if those in question have held them for years. It isn’t fair, but for women in companies like AEW and WWE, they seem to operate on even less fair standards.

Women’s wrestling has come a long way in the past two decades. I grew up having to withstand Bra & Panty matches, but now superstars like Becky Lynch and Bianca Belair are headlining WrestleMania.

After successfully defending her title earlier this month and cementing herself as one of the faces of WWE, Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley has suffered an injury and been forced to give up the title without an opportunity to defend it. Reports began to emerge ahead of Raw this week, and by the time I woke up this morning, videos were already going viral of Ripley leaving the title in the ring and walking away. She is no longer champion, and that sucks.

I know it isn’t real, and Ripley will eventually recover from her injury and return to take back the title from Liv Morgan or whoever ends up earning it, but the circumstances that forced a relinquishment in the first place doesn’t sit right with me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no doctor, and Ripley’s injury could be far more serious than I could possibly understand and warrants such a decision, but when we’ve seen similar things happen on the men’s side and titles be kept in spite of injury, it feels like Ripley deserves to be cut some slack.

Seth Rollins suffered an injury months before WrestleMania 40, and instead of giving up his title, he was merely sidelined and operated as a compelling mouthpiece to advance many of his storylines. He was an instrumental part of the ongoing narrative, and had to be a part of regular programming, but I’m not so sure if he needed to be champion in order to play such a role. He kept his title and eventually lost it at Mania, but Ripley wasn’t even afforded that.

WWE clearly needs the belt on someone active, so they can promote championship matches at premium live events, because without that, the women’s division is perceived as less valuable. They have fewer athletes, fewer titles, and less prestige than the men’s division, despite all their growth in recent years, and it sucks that a reign as excellent as Ripley’s had to be cut short indefinitely, instead of implementing a more creative solution.

I would have loved to see her keep the title, but perhaps retreat to the safety of Judgment Day to lick her wounds, proclaiming that Mami will be ready to fight when her injuries have healed, but that doesn’t make her any less of a champion. To take away her belt, someone has to earn it, whether she happens to be injured. Why not take it by force and write her off of television that way? Not have her drop the belt in the middle of the ring and walk away with little choice in the matter. Injuries suck, but there was a chance to maintain wrestling’s absurd illusion here without taking the spotlight away from a woman who still deserves it.

She already had a rivalry building with Liv Morgan, whose backstage assault gone wrong was allegedly responsible for Ripley’s title-vacating injuries, so why not play on that more after giving up the title so nonchalantly in a matter of days? It would make for stronger storytelling, not to mention everything Morgan could do to play up her role as the villain in this story. With the new era dawning and guided by Triple-H, I was hoping we’d be tackling real world ramifications like this in a more compelling and respectful way, but it seems we’re already back doing the same old thing.

I wish Ripley the best as she recovers from her injury, and can’t wait for her to return and take back the championship she never truly lost. I know thousands will be standing along with me ready to simp and stan in equal measure when she’s ready to step in the squared circle yet again. I just wish this wasn’t the only way things could be done.

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