Mishal explores WWE superstar Lana, how she is booked by the company and perceived by the fans. In short…what even is Lana?

For the last month or so, I’ve lacked the focus I normally have on professional wrestling.

Admittedly my own fault, sometimes setting into new phases in life, drastic changes or a new chapter takes time away from someone who loves this industry like I do. As a result, my attention on the world of professional wrestling hasn’t been what it usually is, that doesn’t however, mean I’ve not being paying attention. It’s hard to be a hardcore fan of the business & simply switch off you interest on cue, so thankfully the internet partnered with some massive developments has kept me in the loop.

A lot has been happening lately, across the industry as a whole, in fact. Big debuts, a plethora of fantastic matches I could dissect, numerous storyline changes & an idea of what the landscape will look like come 2021. But there has been one thing, one storyline, one character that has caught my eye, for all the wrong reasons.

That singular entity, has been the former manager of ”The Bulgarian Brute” Rusev, ‘wife’ of ”The Almighty” Bobby Lashley, star of E Network’s Total Divas & the WWE’s current top babyface (for some reason) in none other, than Lana.

Lana has been a puzzle I simply cannot solve. She’s a character written like no other I can remember after close to 20 years of watching professional wrestling, which isn’t an exaggeration. At a time where odd is the norm in entertainment in general, Lana stands out as an almost abnormal figure compared to those around her.

Before going on, I’ll acknowledge that 2020 as a whole has been packed to the brim with blunders, from every side of the aisle. While a lot of criticism is levied at WWE all too frequently, maybe even from myself due to the kind of product it currently presents, we should never forget how its competition is certainly not innocent of failing to live up to the potential it had at points. Whether it be AEW’s sometimes overstuffed product which tends to juggle far beyond its capabilities, Impact Wrestling’s ”Wrestle House” or some of their current creative direction, NJPW’s fairly inconsistent year in regards to its booking decisions & even WWE’s other abomination of a storyline involving RETRIBUTION, something about Lana’s direction stands out as particularly mishandled.

And upon reflection I think I’ve figured out why Lana as a character is arguably the biggest blunder wrestling in 2020 has offered.

With a division as jam packed with talent as the current WWE women’s roster, it’s hard to even find a specific talent that is truly superior to the rest. Both the main roster & NXT have a plethora of talent so surreal that it blows my mind when the competition surrounding WWE is still struggling to muster something that comes even close. Names like Sasha Banks, Asuka, Bayley, Bianca Belair, Shayna Baszler, Io Shirai, Rhea Ripley, Natalya, Candice LeRae, Dakota Kai, Ember Moon & Toni Storm aren’t just talented, they cement WWE as the ruling king of women’s wrestling at this current moment. In all that, lies the problem, the expectations that need to be met to compete with the level of talent on offer.

Not to take away from the abilities or hard work that someone like Lana has put in to get to where she is, but to suggest her talents or character are anywhere near the level of the aforementioned women is a tough sell for anyone who has an eye on the product. Lana, to me, feels very much a creation of a product from a decade ago, a talent that certainly carries the image to be appealing on-screen, just lacks what makes the current crop of talent so unique. The product & landscape of the business for women has shifted drastically over the last decade, and sadly it feels like Lana is somewhat of an oddball.

Understandably they’ve written the character to be just that, an oddball. The issue here lies with what kind of oddball character we’re dealing with…

• Is this supposed to be the kind of oddball with a distinct personality & move set that makes her a threat to the division around her?
• Is this supposed to be the kind of oddball that is your resident underdog that struggles in the face of adversity or a challenge larger than herself?

The answer is none of the above, in fact not even a blueprint for the type of babyface or oddball character used over the last number of years in professional wrestling. Lana is portrayed as a weak, unskilled worker who’s scared of two much larger ladies currently in Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler, your resident nerd vs high school bully scenario. Where this all falls apart for me, is that Lana just never grows as a performer, whether that be in the ring or as a character.
Lana in short, is portrayed as a child. One that constantly moans, cries and then pulls off ‘‘upset’’ victories after all the hard work has been accomplished for her, much like some of wrestling’s greatest all-time heels (i.e., Randy Orton, Edge, Chris Jericho, Brock Lesnar, etc.). Nothing about Lana is the kind of character that garners support due to her fighting a much larger opponents or tackling gigantic hurdles despite a disadvantage, she’s to put it harshly, a goof who only succeeds because nobody takes her seriously. Never on her own ability, never because of her mindset, never because of a unique character trait, never because she faces a challenge head-on, but because she poses no threat to anyone on the roster.

This kind of writing wouldn’t be the worst thing if it was done in the context of a basic heel, and even then, it delivers a character with few desirable traits for an audience to invest in, placing this model onto a babyface though, has been a disaster. There’s nothing about the Lana character that is in the slightest bit empathetic now that we’ve seen the direction this story is headed. She’s a weak & whiny character that doesn’t possess the prowess that others do, as a result even dragging down those she associates with.

Her reaction to every setback is similar, just cry. It’s always the same, under every circumstance. Her team not taking her seriously at Survivor Series, her being placed through a table 16,211 times by Nia Jax, her not being able to wrestle, her failing her tag team partner in Natalya or even her own ‘husband’ divorcing her, Lana just bawls like an 8-year-old who didn’t get what they wanted for Christmas.

Clearly the handling of the character is a complete misstep from the creative heads of the company, producing a babyface who isn’t even a babyface, she feels more like a nuisance every week she’s on TV.

Understandably molding every character after a certain formula isn’t always desirable, as sometimes drifting away from that formula gives off incredible results, yet with Lana we see no element of a normal ‘‘good guy’’ on display. Her character lacks that ‘‘babyface fire’’, a likeable personality, in-ring ability or even the willingness to do anything that makes her peers such standouts in a crowded division. The only distinct ability Lana as a character holds is to re-affirm the simple message; ‘‘No matter how useless you may be someone else will always do the leg work for you’’.
As a babyface of any kind, this just isn’t the vibe a character should give off. Simply put.

A babyface, a star who is in anyway worthy of support from an audience needs to have a quality that is either admirable or relatable to those you’re trying to bring onboard. Sadly, Lana possesses basically no quality that makes her likeable to any fan of the WWE product. How this storyline is translating to anyone is baffling to me, because it feels like your resident ‘nerd vs bully’ storyline just without any real incentive to root for either side of the spectrum. If anything, I find myself rooting more for the bully, the very opposite of what a story like this should accomplish.
I understand that all of this comes across fairly harsh, as it’s somewhat intended to.

But all of this brings me back to the title of this article: What is Lana?

That question, I’m still waiting on an answer from.

It’s entirely unclear what Lana is as of this writing, to myself at least. We’re constantly beaten over the head with the fact that Lana is this gigantic ‘‘underdog’’ who is being pushed around by two women larger than her, but what reason do we have to back Lana up beyond the size comparison?

With WWE currently writing many of the wrongs that started off their year with some genuinely fantastic storytelling (e.g., Virtually everything involving Roman Reigns, Drew McIntyre becoming a top guy, Sasha Banks and Carmella’s feud, etc.) this is a story that sticks out in the worst way possible. Acting as a complete betrayal of the kind of stories that have the genuine potential to establish new stars at a time when we need as many as we can get. And that’s what I find the most insulting, the sheer obliviousness to how terrible this story has been to this point.

As we draw closer to the return of live audiences it’s a mystery to know just how they’ll react once a story like this unfolds outside the setting of staged crowd noises or screens with faces on them. For the sake of RAW’s ladies, I hope the pain of this storyline takes a turn sooner rather than later because it desperately needs it.