The rise of Becky Lynch as The Man has completely changed the game in the WWE over the past few months, but her impact has gone leaps and bounds beyond just the makeup of the WWE.

Becky Lynch may be dripping cool, but many would say the WWE hasn’t been cool since the Attitude Era some 20 years ago. While that’s probably ludicrous to most wrestling fans, others might actually agree with that statement. The WWE was breaking records and setting the sports and entertainment world on fire during the Attitude Era to the point where everyone knew they were witnessing something special.

The names of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and The Rock were not only top stars in the wrestling industry, but they were household names across the world. They transcended the WWE and helped create a legacy that will likely never be topped. Those names are still beloved by wrestling fans today and even fans that haven’t watched wrestling in years.

So much so that many would claim outside of John Cena, nobody has truly transcended the business since Austin and The Rock. There have been flashes of it since then with names like Randy Orton, Daniel Bryan, Brock Lesnar, and CM Punk. However, most would agree their impacts never reached what Austin, Rock, or even Cena did. And in Lesnar’s case, he made a bigger name for himself after his initial WWE run.

That notion is starting to change a bit with The Man, who is doing more for the women’s evolution and the wrestling industry than most would truly grasp. While she still has a long way to go if she wants to reach the Austin or Rock level, Becky Lynch has had a rise the likes of which the WWE hasn’t seen in a long time, especially for a women’s superstar.

For the first time since the rise of The Yes Movement in 2014, the WWE feels cool again and relevant to outsiders, and much of that can be attributed to The Man. Lynch has been one of the most talented performers in the world for years now, but the WWE wasn’t giving her a fair shot at capitalizing on her talent. That all changed at SummerSlam 2018 when she turned heel and attacked her former best friend Charlotte Flair.

From that point on, Becky Lynch and Charlotte had what could be argued as the best rivalry in the WWE in 2018 and a rivalry that will be looked back on for years to come. The two had several standout matches, but the one that stood out the most was the Last Woman Standing match at the first-ever all-women’s pay-per-view, Evolution. The Man and The Queen tore the house down in arguably the best match of the year in the WWE in 2018.

They continued the momentum with another match of the year candidate at TLC back in December in a Triple Threat Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match also featuring Asuka. Even with Becky Lynch losing her SmackDown Women’s Championship to Asuka in this match, she didn’t lose a hint of her momentum and it has carried over into 2019.

The Man did lose her opportunity to get back the title at the Royal Rumble against Asuka, but she turned a disappointing loss into a women’s Royal Rumble match win and she will go on to WrestleMania 35 for the most anticipated match in the WWE. Becky Lynch has had an action-packed recent history with Ronda Rousey, the Raw Women’s Champion. That history will come to a head at WrestleMania 35 when Rousey defends her title against Lynch.

Not only is this the most anticipated match of the card, but it could be argued as the most anticipated women’s wrestling match of all-time in the WWE. It only furthers what Lynch has done lately for the WWE and the wrestling business as a whole. The women’s evolution has been a smash hit for the WWE over the past few years, but it has reached a fevered pitch lately with The Man.

Becky Lynch is undeniably the most popular superstar in the WWE right now, and considering that title has always gone to a man, it shows just how important she has been over the past few months. She has helped take the women’s evolution to another level and there’s been chatter that the main event of WrestleMania 35 will be Rousey vs. Lynch, which it absolutely should be.

No other match will get fans as interested in WrestleMania as this one, and that says it all. A women’s match main eventing the biggest wrestling show of the year will be the perfect pinnacle for the women’s evolution, and the biggest draw of the biggest show of the year will be courtesy of The Man. Yes, Rousey is a big star in her own right and she has been absolutely tremendous in her first year in the WWE.

But the reaction from the crowd on the post-Royal Rumble Raw says it all in terms of who the fans are behind, and that’s Lynch. She has helped make women’s wrestling the coolest it has ever been and has helped make the WWE the coolest it has been in years. When people look back at the biggest rises in the WWE over the past decade, CM Punk’s rise in 2011 comes to mind, Bryan’s rise in 2013-14 comes to mind, and now Lynch’s rise is right there with them.

Lynch has done just as much for the perception of women in wrestling as well. That has been on the uprising in general over the past few years, but she has helped take it to another level. She calls herself The Man, for crying out loud. She is empowering women everywhere that even in a man’s world, so to speak, women can steal the show and be the center of attention.

Just look around the live crowds at every WWE event and you will see an abundance of The Man shirts and signs, more so than any other superstar. Her impact is being felt more than any women’s superstar has been able to accomplish possibly in WWE history. It should be fun to see what the future holds and what else she can accomplish in this current run.

The women’s evolution is getting even bigger, women are being empowered everywhere, women are about to main event WrestleMania for the first time, and the WWE is the coolest it has been in a long time. It’s safe to say The Man has done her job and done it well.