Netflix’s new docuseries, WWE: Unreal has created a debate among critics and fans as to whether it is a good idea to “pull back the curtain” and reveal the creative process behind the world’s 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&F why this is the most challenging part of her job.
Bianca Belair was a top track and field athlete and gymnast before transitioning to CrossFit and powerlifting. “I didn’t really grow up watching wrestling,” 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.
In Episode 3 of WWE: Unreal, her requirement to be athletic is made even more difficult, as WWE producers wanted to tell an emotional story where the “EST” 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.
What WWE: Unreal 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.
“Coming into WWE, I really just thought you’re an athlete, you go in there and you do moves but there’s so much more to it,” Belair tells M&F. “So, when you see me at Elimination Chamber (2025) and I’m inside that pod, and I’m screaming, and I’m yelling and I’m crying, it’s 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.”
She adds: “But 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, ‘Oh, now I have to go be the athlete!’ I’m still exhausted from crying and screaming, and some people don’t realize how you must multitask to make it perfect.”
Bianca Belair Says That Mixing Athleticism With Emotion is the Toughest Part of WWE
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. “The easy part was the athletic,” she shares. “Six weeks into WWE, I was able to climb to the top rope and do a 450-splash because to me, in my mind, that’s just my gymnastics background. You just do a somersault, and you lay out. ‘Got it!’ But how can you draw them in? You’re not just wrestling to the live crowd; you’re wrestling to a camera where there’s millions of people watching. You must connect with them too. That was the part, for me, that I had to learn to understand.”
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.
“We’re trying to change the misconceptions of wrestling because some people just think it’s fake and they immediately write it off,” says Belair. “If 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’t go right in the ring. There are so many moving parts. It’s not just about going out there and hitting the moves. It is about connecting with the audience. It’s about telling the story. It’s 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.”
It’s not just fans and wrestling observers that appreciate the complexity of being an athlete and a storyteller at the same time. WWE:Unreal’s 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. “They don’t take three months off, they’re on to the next night,” Weaver tells M&F. “I mean, they don’t even have 24-hours to process what happened and then move on. They’ve got to produce the next episode of this dramatic television show. And so, I hope we capture how hard the work is.”
In fact, Weaver says that of all the athletes he’s worked with in his career, WWE Superstars are “probably the most fit” people that he’s ever been around. “The acting is sort of another variable that they have to be good at, or you’re not going to make it,” he concludes. “At least not to the level of WWE.”
To step into the WWE writer’s 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 WWE: Unreal on Netflix
