Straight from The Man: Becky Lynch hasn’t changed, she’s just smarter

Did you feel like what Becky Lynch did to Bianca Belair at SummerSlam was an underhanded tactic only a heel would utilize to win? Or do you see it more along the lines of a competitor simply employing an effective strategy to score a victory?

Here’s how Lynch herself views it, as told to the NY Daily News:

“I’ve just come back and now I feel like suddenly there’s this conversation that I’m not doing things the right way, but I don’t know what anybody expects me to do. Do you want me to come back and toy with Bianca and give her more of a chance to look like she’s got an opportunity? Or would I come back, knowing that I haven’t done this in a while, and be smart about it and blindside her?

“I just did what an intelligent person would do. If you haven’t been wrestling in a long time, then you’ve been strategizing. You’ve been strategizing because you haven’t been in the ring with this person, so then you are going to do something different. You are going to catch them off guard. And now suddenly I’m the bad guy because I came back even better than ever? I don’t really understand this talk about me being a heel. I haven’t changed. I just got smarter.”

My read on that, and I could be off here, is that WWE very much assumed that booking would be received like it was The Man being The Man and fans would take to it just like they did before. That would require underestimating just how over Bianca Belair has been as a babyface champion on SmackDown, however. I wouldn’t doubt that either.

We’ll get a better sense of all this as time goes on. They’ll be in the ring together for a contract signing on SmackDown this week. Follow along right here.