EVOLUTION II - 7/13/2025

[Dolfan in NYC]

Time for the boys to step aside.... it's LADIES NIGHT~

THE CARD~

FOR THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP - Iyo Sky (c) vs. Rhea Ripley

FOR THE WWE WOMEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP - Tiffany Stratton (c) v Trish Stratus 

FOR THE NXT CHAMPIONSHIP - Jacy Jayne (c) vs. Jordynne Grace

TRIPLE THREAT FOR THE INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP - Becky Lynch (c) vs. Bayley vs. Lyra Valkyria

FATAL 4 WAY MATCH FOR THE TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP - The Judgment Day (Rodriguez / Perez, c) vs. Charlotte Flair / Alexa Bliss vs. The Kabuki Warriors (Asuka / Saine)  vs. Zaria & Sol Ruca

NO HOLDS BARRED MATCH - Jade Cargill v Naomi

BATTLE ROYALE FOR THE #1 CONTENDERSHIP TO A WORLD TITLE AT CLASH AT PARIS

 

[Phantom Lord]

I would like to see someone who hasn't gotten a shot at the Women's title win the battle royal. Those always make for the best story.

[odessasteps]

Why not call it Re-Evolution? 

[Curt McGirt]

AEW might wanna steal this idea

[TheVileOne]

Sean Ross Sapp stated that a lot of women ahead of Evolution aren't feeling positive about how Evolution 2 is being handled:

https://tjrwrestling.net/news/wwe-women-feel-evolution-2-is-a-set-up/

Quote

So a lot of the women that I was speaking to felt…a lot of them felt like it was set up. One, it was put in against All In weekend, across the street from a Beyoncé concert, during MLB All-Star weekend when a lot of the hotels were going to be bought up in the area. They weren’t necessarily thrilled with that, but it was hastily produced.

It does feel like the show is being lost in the shuffle somewhat, coming right after Night of Champions and the same weekend as Saturday Night's Main Event.

[The Natural]

11 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

Sean Ross Sapp stated that a lot of women ahead of Evolution aren't feeling positive about how Evolution 2 is being handled:

https://tjrwrestling.net/news/wwe-women-feel-evolution-2-is-a-set-up/

It does feel like the show is being lost in the shuffle somewhat, coming right after Night of Champions and the same weekend as Saturday Night's Main Event.

Plus the seven years between Evolution and Evolution II. Way too long.

[Eivion]

They are running too many big shows in general, but this one really should have been done later and with much more build. I don't blame any of them for not being happy with how things have gone. They have either been set up to fail or the setup for the show itself has just been handled incompetently. Neither is a good thing regardless.

Edited July 5, 2025 by Eivion

[TheVileOne]

I think the other problem is that the slots on the PLEs are so limited now. It used to be 7-8 matches per card. Now it's down to 5-6. It can be four if there's some big gimmicky matches like Elimination Chamber or Royal Rumble. I think the 5-match special works for TakeOvers, but on a WWE PLE you have the rosters of both Raw and SmackDown, and it means a lot of people aren't wrestling on the bigger shows or having their feuds culminate on bigger shows. You ended up having more title matches on the SmackDown the day before Night of Champions, when the whole theme of Night of Champions is supposed to be title bouts.

[Niners Fan in CT]

They released the ticket sales today.  By they, I mean WrestleTix.  They've sold under 5,000 tickets so far and that's with them being packaged alongside 'Saturday Night's Main Event.'  Might have to do some heavy papering and yeah they pretty much sabotaged the women here to try to get one over on Tony.  It's bullshit. 

[odessasteps]

Cubs said the women’s show in cmll might outdraw the wwe women’s show.

[Phantom Lord]

Yeah it's sad. The women deserve better than being the throw away show on a weekend of counter programming. Also didn't they know they were up against a Beyonce concert across the street when they booked the venue? 

[Niners Fan in CT]

8 minutes ago, Phantom Lord said:

Yeah it's sad. The women deserve better than being the throw away show on a weekend of counter programming. Also didn't they know they were up against a Beyonce concert across the street when they booked the venue? 

They knew and didn't care.  It's not so much that there's a big crossover audience but I imagine hotels being booked and other things like traffic are issues that are also going to hamper the WWE show.  

[Curt McGirt]

If you didn't get booked, Beyonce should comp you free tickets.

[TheVileOne]

Triple H, intentionally or not, set up this show for failure.

[Iron Moose]

7 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

Triple H, intentionally or not, set up this show for failure.

Concur. 

 

Also, added to the card: 

FOR THE WWE WOMEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP - Tiffany Stratton (c) v Trish Stratus 

NO HOLDS BARRED - Jade Cargill v Naomi

Spoiler

(which really seems like it's doing the storyline backwards; shouldn't this happen after Naomi MITBs Jade?)

 

[Troubles]

It's insane to me that we're looking at an all women's WWE PLE that has all the top names (obviously aside from the injured Liv) and yet it feels like such an afterthought. Like mentioned previously, Paul absolutely knew this was a failure spot and pulled the trigger anyways. TKO is so shook by AEW not backing down and not to mention their own woes with creative and such. Rhea vs Iyo will of course deliver, I expect Naomi to carry Jade to a good one, bleh for Tiffy and Trish, and the rest of the card to me is a toss up. 

[Craig H]

AEW got so much better when TK stopped being so reactionary to anything WWE did.

HHH and TKO should do the same. Worry about your own company and stop shooting yourself in the foot.

[Cliff Hanger]

The fucked thing is that this is still the most interesting (to me) WWE "major" of the weekend, followed by the Bash, with SNME only rating "welp, I guess if I really need MORE wrestling Saturday night after All In and the Bash, maybe I'll check reactions to see if there was anything worth checking out." 

I would really like for them to vow not to ever do a non-Mania triple-shot like this again, but I guarantee we will get af least one more before they give up.

[odessasteps]

Hopefully we see Tiffy and Trish do the spider man meme at some point. 

[just drew]

I'm certainly not the only person to share this theory online, or even on this site, but I really don't think TKO wants Evolution to be successful. I don't think they see women's competition in WWE or UFC as a worthwhile investment, and these poor women are being sent out to get creamed, both locally by a concert and on TV by a superior (if less known) product. If Evolution tanks, now TKO and HHH can say "see? We told you this wasn't profitable on its own." Conversely, if they DO manage to siphon off a few hundred buys from All In, HHH and Nick Khan can crow about how they've stymied AEW and uncle Tony again. It is crazy to think about how 18 months ago, TK was melting down regularly over what WWE was doing and now WWE is the entity acting like a jilted lover.

[Niners Fan in CT]

People are going to accuse me of things but so be it.   Mercedes was not advertised for 'Big Business'.  Yes, it was pretty obvious she would show up with the hints but they never outright said it.  The whole show was built around her and 10,000 fans showed up to that arena.   

Here's my point:  this event has Rhea, Becky, Charlotte, Bayley, Alexa, Iyo, Jade, Naomi  Trish,  pretty much all of the stars of the division and it's sitting at 4,800 sold and no buzz.  I don't think it's because they aren't stars,  I think it's because WWE sandbagged them and it's really unfortunate.  

Women's wrestling can be huge when given a proper chance. 

[Casey]

1 hour ago, just drew said:

Conversely, if they DO manage to siphon off a few hundred buys from All In

Evolution is the night after All In, on a service that costs like $6 with ads, and is up for VOD immediately. I don't think their plan is to take away PPV buys. They want to dominate the online conversations. Triple H might say that the internet is bullshit or whatever, but with as much as they flaunt social media impressions (and have for YEARS), he's lying through his teeth. And they absolutely do play to internet fans, Punk is proof positive of that (and others obviously).

I'll watch SNME live because it's after All In, and I'll catch Evolution since it's the next day. I do not give a single fuck about NXT so that's a swing and a miss.

20 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

People are going to accuse me of things but so be it.   Mercedes was not advertised for 'Big Business'.  Yes, it was pretty obvious she would show up with the hints but they never outright said it.  The whole show was built around her and 10,000 fans showed up to that arena.   

Here's my point:  this event has Rhea, Becky, Charlotte, Bayley, Alexa, Iyo, Jade, Naomi  Trish,  pretty much all of the stars of the division and it's sitting at 4,800 sold and no buzz.  I don't think it's because they aren't stars,  I think it's because WWE sandbagged them and it's really unfortunate.  

This is a good point, actually. AEW is getting bent over a barrel online by the anti-AEW contignent because they "only" have sold 20k so far for a stadium show.

All In has sold more tickets than all of the WWE shows this weekend combined.

[Niners Fan in CT]

1 minute ago, Casey said:

This is a good point, actually. AEW is getting bent over a barrel online by the anti-AEW contignent because they "only" have sold 20k so far for a stadium show.

All In has sold more tickets than all of the WWE shows this weekend combined.

Plus, the 'ALL IN' number is going to grow a lot this week while the three WWE shows seem pretty much tapped out.  Think about this, AEW is going to outdraw Goldberg's retirement match,  Seth Rollins, Randy Orton,  Rhea vs. Iyo and the rest of that card and whatever they are doing in NXT.  Combined. 

[odessasteps]

I mean, shouldn’t their marquee show outdraw a bunch of random wwe shows? If this is their Mania (maybe it’s not, watchers can correct me), it should draw. Or is there a narrative about foreign fans not coming to the US for it, like how that’s one of the explanations given for the poor attendances at the club World Cup? 

[Casey]

7 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

I mean, shouldn’t their marquee show outdraw a bunch of random wwe shows? If this is their Mania (maybe it’s not, watchers can correct me), it should draw. Or is there a narrative about foreign fans not coming to the US for it, like how that’s one of the explanations given for the poor attendances at the club World Cup? 

Yes, it should, but people online (and even people here) are under the impression that somehow AEW should be able to sell 40-50k tickets or something just because they did that in England for the previous two shows. Which are starving markets for wrestling, whereas: Texas isn't, tickets are expensive, traveling to America from outside the country is dangerous (not a narrative, it's fact) and AEW just isn't that hot outside of the primary fanbase.

Again, I don't think WWE cares if AEW sold out the entire stadium or does what they're doing right now. These three shows this weekend aren't designed to siphon money away from AEW. The very nature of how easily you can watch all aspects of WWE's product on demand is counterproductive to that. If they wanted to siphon money away from them, they'd be running all of these shows in Texas. This is about controlling the conversation this weekend.

I like both companies. Why would I watch Great American Bash over All In? I can just watch it after, or the next day, or literally whenever I want. Same with SNME (even though it'll be on after All In is over).