I know I’m weeks behind.
That turns out to be an advantage.
By the time you watch a match after the social media discourse has packed up and gone home, the hot takes have already expired. You’re left with the wrestling itself, stripped of the endless declarations that something was either “cinema” or “mid”. It becomes oddly peaceful.
This WWE Raw Women’s Intercontinental Championship match from Paris survives that test comfortably.
The finish arrives in just over ten minutes, but it never feels rushed. It feels like two wrestlers trying to solve different problems.
One wants to fly.
The other wants to stop flying from ever becoming possible.
That usually produces good wrestling.
WWE Raw results: Paris gets exactly what it wanted
The Accor Arena crowd had already decided they liked Sol Ruca before the opening lock-up.
Some wrestlers have to convince an audience.
Others seem to arrive with the crowd already halfway through applauding them.
Ruca belongs to the second category.
This was an interesting face-v-face dynamic because nobody had to waste five minutes pretending to hate somebody. There was no extended jawing, no unnecessary stalling. About ninety per cent of the contest was simply wrestling, which increasingly feels like an oddly revolutionary concept on weekly television.
Lyra Valkyria looked every inch the former champion. Lean, composed and carrying herself like someone who had already lived through championship pressure before.
Then, both women casually hit simultaneous kip-ups.
Sometimes wrestling remembers it’s allowed to be fun.
Poetry against engineering
The match settled into an enjoyable rhythm.
Lyra produced a gorgeous springboard arm drag early before immediately beginning the slower work of grounding the champion. Wrist control. Neck attacks. Timed strikes. Every movement seemed designed to remove another piece of Sol Ruca’s athletic advantage.
Corey Graves mentioned that gymnastics alone wouldn’t prepare Sol for years of punishment on the independent scene.
There was truth in that.
There usually is.
Experience remains one of wrestling’s least glamorous weapons.
Ruca answered with movement that occasionally bordered on absurd. The handstand escape from Valkyria’s attempted tornado DDT looked less like someone avoiding danger and more like the laws of physics briefly forgetting their responsibilities.
Then again, that’s become part of Sol Ruca’s appeal.
She doesn’t wrestle as though gravity is an opponent.
She treats it like an optional suggestion.
One small distraction
I did keep coming back to one completely unnecessary observation.
The jeans.
Isn’t it incredibly awkward wrestling in denim?
Every time Sol Ruca sprinted, jumped or twisted, my brain wandered back to Shawn Michaels wearing jeans during the Unsanctioned Match at SummerSlam 2002 (against Triple H).
It looked cool then.
It still looks slightly uncomfortable now.
Professional wrestlers spend years perfecting movement, only to voluntarily perform it dressed for a barbecue.
Perhaps that’s commitment.
Perhaps it’s fashion defeating practicality yet again. Or maybe it’s a special set of jeans that allow for wrestling.
The little moments that stay with you
Commercial breaks interrupt television.
They don’t interrupt memory.
What sticks afterwards are the sequences.
Lyra is throwing Sol over the ropes and dictating the pace.
Both women collapsed after simultaneous clotheslines.
Trading forearms on the outside.
A German suplex from Sol.
The missile dropkick.
Another effortless kip-up.
The Shining Wizard.
Lyra is blocking the first Sol Snatcher.
The brutal leg drop while Sol hung across the ropes.
Neither wrestler ever felt comfortably in control, despite commentary repeatedly trying to identify who supposedly had the momentum.
Momentum exists mostly because commentators need something to say between near falls.
The wrestlers simply kept solving problems.
One mistake. That’s usually enough.
The finish arrived exactly how good wrestling finishes often arrive.
Not through domination.
Through a mistake.
Lyra attempted the spinning heel kick.
Her foot caught awkwardly in the ropes for barely a second.
Barely.
That tiny pause became everything.
Sol launched.
Sol Snatcher.
One.
Two.
Three.
It happened almost before anyone had properly processed what had gone wrong.
Nobody mentioned it at the time, but wrestling is full of these microscopic moments. Entire championship reigns disappear because somebody’s footing is half an inch off.
The move wasn’t what won the match.
The hesitation did.
WWE Raw results: Everybody left stronger
That’s probably my biggest takeaway.
Lyra Valkyria somehow came out looking better despite losing.
She wrestled like somebody entirely capable of carrying the division again, and I’d happily watch her receive another serious championship push before too long.
As for Sol Ruca, this first title defence felt important.
Not because WWE commentary repeatedly told us it was important.
Because she earned it.
She survived the inaugural champion, adapted throughout the match and found an opening that barely existed.
People often describe rising stars as unstoppable, but that’s rarely how wrestling actually works.
The best prospects usually look beatable.
Then they keep winning anyway.
Sol Ruca feels like she’s entering that category.
Professional wrestling loves announcing the arrival of “the next big thing.”
Usually several times a month.
This one didn’t need the announcement.
The match did the talking.
And, for once, that was more than enough.
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