{"id":14843,"date":"2025-08-07T03:07:31","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T20:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/?p=14843"},"modified":"2025-08-07T03:07:31","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T20:07:31","slug":"bianca-belair-breaks-down-wwe-unreal-on-netflix-and-why-wrestling-is-more-than-just-muscle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/?p=14843","title":{"rendered":"Bianca Belair Breaks Down &#8216;WWE: Unreal&#8217; on Netflix\u2014and Why Wrestling Is More Than Just Muscle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Netflix\u2019s new docuseries, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.netflix.com\/title\/81928921\">WWE: Unrea<\/a>l<\/em> has created a debate among critics and fans as to whether it is a good idea to \u201cpull back the curtain\u201d and reveal the creative process behind the world\u2019s biggest wrestling promotion. But for many, the show has served to illustrate why WWE Superstars are among the best athletes on television. In Episode 3 of this five-part series, Bianca Belair is featured as she tries to balance her in-ring performance with an emotional storyline. She tells M&amp;F why this is the most challenging part of her job.<\/p>\n<p>Bianca Belair was a top track and field athlete and gymnast before transitioning to CrossFit and powerlifting. \u201cI didn\u2019t really grow up watching wrestling,\u201d she explains. But having signed with WWE in 2016, Belair has developed into one of the most seasoned professional wrestlers in the game, becoming a triple crown champion by winning the SmackDown, Raw, and the Tag Team championship along with Jade Cargill.<\/p>\n<p>In Episode 3 of <em>WWE: Unreal,<\/em>\u00a0her requirement to be athletic is made even more difficult, as WWE producers wanted to tell an emotional story where the \u201cEST\u201d of pro wrestling was forced to watch Cargill get attacked by her former partner, Naomi while trapped inside the pod of the Elimination Chamber match.<\/p>\n<p>What <em>WWE: Unreal<\/em> has successfully exposed is just how many demands are put on WWE Superstars to create most memorable moments. Yes, pro wrestlers need to be athletic, but they also need to hit their marks for the perfect camera shot and somehow make it all look natural at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cComing into WWE, I really just thought you\u2019re an athlete, you go in there and you do moves but there\u2019s so much more to it,\u201d Belair tells M&amp;F. \u201cSo, when you see me at Elimination Chamber (2025) and I\u2019m inside that pod, and I\u2019m screaming, and I\u2019m yelling and I\u2019m crying, it\u2019s because those are my two best friends fighting, and I have to portray that to the audience. I have to let them know how much this affects me as a character.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She adds: \u201cBut as a performer you get lost in it. I was so lost in that moment of crying and screaming and yelling, and then my pod opened, and I remembered, \u2018Oh, now I have to go be the athlete!\u2019 I\u2019m still exhausted from crying and screaming, and some people don\u2019t realize how you must multitask to make it perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Bianca Belair Says That Mixing Athleticism With Emotion is the Toughest Part of WWE<\/h2>\n<p>While Bianca Belair is rightfully recognized as one of the greatest WWE performers of all time, learning to mix the muscle with the emotion has been her toughest learning curve. \u201cThe easy part was the athletic,\u201d she shares. \u201cSix weeks into WWE, I was able to climb to the top rope and do a 450-splash because to me, in my mind, that\u2019s just my gymnastics background. You just do a somersault, and you lay out. \u2018Got it!\u2019 But how can you draw them in? You\u2019re not just wrestling to the live crowd; you\u2019re wrestling to a camera where there\u2019s millions of people watching. You must connect with them too. That was the part, for me, that I had to learn to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For many viewers of WWE: Unreal, lifting the curtain has far from devalued the business of pro wrestling. If anything, it has shown just how complex the art of pro wrestling really is.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re trying to change the misconceptions of wrestling because some people just think it\u2019s fake and they immediately write it off,\u201d says Belair. \u201cIf people really understood what goes into it, what goes into a storyline, what goes into it behind the scenes, what goes into it when things don\u2019t go right in the ring. There are so many moving parts. It\u2019s not just about going out there and hitting the moves. It is about connecting with the audience. It\u2019s about telling the story. It\u2019s the psychology of a match. I think that if people really saw the skill and the art of it, and how it all comes together from start to finish, then it really is us creating magic out there, and I think that people will develop a lot more respect for what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-caption \">\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:55.36519386835%;\" class=\"ratio-based-placeholder\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.muscleandfitness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Female-wrester-for-the-WWE-Bianca-Belair-in-a-wrestling-match.jpg?quality=86&amp;strip=all\" srcset=\"\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" alt=\"Female wrester for the WWE Bianca Belair in a wrestling match\" width=\"1109\" height=\"614\" data-fallback-img=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.muscleandfitness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Female-wrester-for-the-WWE-Bianca-Belair-in-a-wrestling-match.jpg?quality=86&amp;strip=all\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"credit\">WWE<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It\u2019s not just fans and wrestling observers that appreciate the complexity of being an athlete and a storyteller at the same time. WWE:Unreal\u2019s director, Chris Weaver, whose credits include the NFL documentary series All or Nothing, developed a deep level of respect for what pro wrestlers put themselves through. \u201cThey don\u2019t take three months off, they\u2019re on to the next night,\u201d Weaver tells M&amp;F. \u201cI mean, they don\u2019t even have 24-hours to process what happened and then move on. They\u2019ve got to produce the next episode of this dramatic television show. And so, I hope we capture how hard the work is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Weaver says that of all the athletes he\u2019s worked with in his career, WWE Superstars are \u201cprobably the most fit\u201d people that he\u2019s ever been around. \u201cThe acting is sort of another variable that they have to be good at, or you\u2019re not going to make it,\u201d he concludes. \u201cAt least not to the level of WWE.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>To step into the WWE writer\u2019s room and hang outside the ring with your favorite WWE Superstars, where the drama is just as intense offstage as it is under the spotlight, you can now watch all episodes of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.netflix.com\/wweunreal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WWE: Unreal on Netflix\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.muscleandfitness.com\/athletes-celebrities\/interviews\/bianca-belair-breaks-down-wwe-unreal-on-netflix-and-why-wrestling-is-more-than-just-muscle\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Netflix\u2019s new docuseries, WWE: Unreal has created a debate among critics and fans as to whether it is a good idea to \u201cpull back the curtain\u201d and reveal the creative process behind the world\u2019s biggest wrestling promotion. But for many, the show has served to illustrate why WWE Superstars are among the best athletes on &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fitness"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loudhdtv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}