For those who don’t know, I’m a big wrestling person. I enjoy the serialized week-to-week storytelling, along with Fightin’, which is the best type of soap opera. And Soap is what it is, and it’s something that has survived the changing nature of television over the years and even become a more influential factor in our society over time as other Soap Operas have slowly fallen out of favor in lieu of Reality Shows. WWE has done an intelligent thing over the years by making reality shows for its Superstars. Over the years, I haven’t been that interested in the Total Divas, Total Bellas, and not even Miz & Mrs. since The Miz started his public life on The Real World. It’s just not my bag to watch them just do domestic adventures in between the life of matches. Yet when I first saw the ad for Love & WWE: Bianca & Montez, I was super interested. The couple of Bianca Belair and Montez Ford (part of the tag team The Street Profits) has been cute to watch in that blurry way that sports entertainment works with reality, aka KAYFABE.
So Kayfabe, the quick and dirty is that Kayfabe is a methodology in wrestling where they don’t break character when in the world where the fans can see, you never really see the real person; you only see who they are in the ring all the time. Yet, in the 90s, things changed as the idea of the character had to become more like who the performer actually was. No more cartoonish two-dimensional characters and more complex ones. Now, what does all that have to do with this show? Well, you know that reality TV isn’t really reality and how they craft stories through editing and reshooting and basically acting in scenes; you know who started that type of TV – SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT. So here we have this wonderful young couple of Bianca and Montez in early 2023 as they begin the Road to Wrestlemania. Bianca’s story is that if she can figure out if she wants to put her career on pause while she’s at the top to have a child, and Montez is, can he figure out a way to make an impact to become a solo superstar possibly?
For the most part, I’d say the show is just cute; the two together are amazingly charismatic; at times, the show feels like a sitcom, something like Mad About You or Dharma and Greg, but with these two very pretty Black people. They do well to bring in Bianca’s parents and Montez’s mom. It helps to bring a well-roundedness to their home life, especially for those viewers who watch WWE shows regularly, as we know the outcomes of the show stuff they are dealing with. I think this show feels a bit more like a nice introduction to the world of WWE to newcomers than saw just throwing them in feet first to an episode of Monday Night Raw. The series is only eight episodes and keeps a good pace with relatable storylines like introducing our couple, work aspirations, personal inspirations, and what they each need to figure out.
I feel the thread of Bianca working through her ambitions and her want for a child, along with seeing examples from friends and co-workers on possibilities of, I guess, having it all. Montez’s worries about getting lost in the roster are portrayed well, as he is not jealous of his wife but is expanding his ambitions and being inspired by her. It’s real good stuff. What I like about this is that it works so well with the other WWE weekly shows. The whole nature of it being both real and “fake” makes it so much more endearing. It expands the WWE universe story-wise and hopefully fanbase-wise.
Score: B+
