Many WWE superstars would kill to get the kind of push that Lacey Evans has gotten since reaching the main roster. Evans made main roster debut at the 2019 Women's Royal Rumble, when she came out in the number one spot and lasted nearly a half hour before Charlotte Flair finally took her down. After WrestleMania 35, she was launched into a title program with Becky Lynch that culminated in her first big singles match against "The Man" at Money in the Bank 2019 for the Raw Women's Championship.
But then, she lost her title rematch opportunity to Lynch the next month at Stomping Grounds. The following month, Lacey and Baron Corbin lost a championship Last Chance Winners Take All mixed tag match to Becky and Seth Rollins. After getting drafted to Smackdown in October 2019, she lost a title match against Bayley for the Smackdown Women's Championship at the 2020 Royal Rumble. Finally, this past weekend at WrestleMania 36, she came up just short against Bayley once again, this time thanks to some interference from Sasha Banks, in a Fatal Five Way match. WWE wasted years of Braun Strowman's career booking him as a high level jobber good enough to compete for championships but not good enough to win -- and now it looks like it's making the same mistake with Lacey Evans.
After starting his main roster run as a member of the Wyatt family, Braun Strowman was split off as a singles competitor following the 2016 WWE Draft. Strowman wreaked havoc during his first few months on Raw, laying waste to the roster and being rewarded by Raw G.M. Mick Foley with his first title opportunity against Kevin Owens. Strowman was awarded the win, but not the title, after Roman Reigns interfered which led the match to get called off. Strowman embarked on a singles program with Reigns that didn't involve a title before taking some time off for injury. After returning in mid-2017, Strowman went on a championship losing streak for the ages. He lost a fatal four-way match for the Universal Championship to Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam 2017 -- and a singles match against Lesnar for the title at No Mercy -- and a triple threat match against Lesnar and Kane for the title at the Royal Rumble -- and failed to cash in his Money in the Bank contract against Roman Reigns successfully at Hell in a Cell -- and lost to Brock Lesnar yet again at Crown Jewel in 2018. By the time Strowman lost yet another Universal Championship match to Seth Rollins at Clash of Champions 2019, he'd long since lost any credibility he'd once had as a legitimate singles threat, and had been reduced to feuding with Saturday Night Live hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che at the previous WrestleMania.
Unfortunately for Lacey Evans, it appears that the WWE has fallen into the same booking trap with her that it did with Strowman a few years earlier. Evans has looked strong in all of her losses, has been given plentiful screen time, and has earned high-profile non-championship opportunities like wrestling Natalya in the first-ever women's match to take place in Saudi Arabia at Crown Jewel 2019. But like Strowman before her, the more championship opportunities she's booked to look good losing in, the more her reputation as a credible main event level performer dwindles.
Luckily for Evans, if Braun Strowman was able to escape his role as "jobber to the stars," she can too. After not winning his first singles title until a brief run as Intercontinental Champion earlier this year, Strowman exploded onto the main event scene at WrestleMania 36 last weekend, finally winning the Universal Championship from Goldberg after replacing Roman Reigns in the match at the last second. It only takes one win to turn a perennial also-ran into a credible champion, so there's still hope for Lacey Evans' career yet. But if the WWE is serious about turning Lacey Evans into a main event caliber performer, it needs to start treating her like one, and not waste years of her main roster run the same way it did for Strowman's.