The road to WrestleMania for Bianca Belair and Montez Ford begins.
I headed into the Love & WWE: Bianca & Montez pilot episode knowing precisely zero about the current doings of professional wrestling, so it was quite helpful to learn up front that Bianca is the current Raw Women’s Champion and that Montez “is in a tag team,” also known as The Street Profits.
We also learn that Bianca Belair and Montez Ford are a couple, so things click quickly into place that Love & WWE is a reality TV docuseries that’s going to follow their lives and other doings, perhaps.
It’s also immediately clear that there’s going to be some comedy inherent in the dynamic between the couple. For example, there’s playful riffing going on in the kitchen right from the jump about who ate all the Apple Jack’s and then didn’t buy more.
“I pay for a fourth of the bills around here!” Montez jokes, but that’s also a clue for yours truly and those like me who don’t know where the two stand respectively within the WWE universe: evidently, Bianca’s the bigger star and therefore brings home something like four times the amount of Montez’s paycheck.
We also learn that “our life is non-stop and there’s no off-season… but you know what, it’s so much fun.” And on top of that, all roads lead to WrestleMania, “the Super Bowl of the WWE.”
The format of this episode is very standard from a reality TV perspective at first as we see some action, comedy, and drama that’s coming in the season, followed by a “Ten Weeks Earlier” title card that cuts from the clear main event of WrestleMania that we’re headed toward.
But then things take a major left turn when fans of the performers ask a question from some outdoor locale, and then Bianca and Montez respond to it from their living room. It’s obviously not a live question and response-style situation, but instead it’s cut together as part of our introduction to this show. Quite unusual. In any event, we learn more about the duo, in this case how they met.
We then move to the couple getting ready for Royal Rumble, and side note that I have the same pajama pants that Montez does, so nice style shout out there.
But I also must mention that my internal red flag aised a few times in the first few minutes of this series alone in that there are multiple things said of this sort: “If Montez wins Royal Rumble, that would be great for his career.”
“If.”
As if… implying that these performers don’t know the outcome of their upcoming matches.
Their professional wrestling matches.
You’re following me here, right?
The action moves to San Antonio, where we meet Travonda and Leonard, Bianca’s parents, and Dara, Montez’s mom. We learn that the parents are always around, and the reason for this gathering is the Royal Rumble event.
All the parents are pushing the young couple to have a kid. “I’m not ready to share my chicken nuggets,” Bianca notes.
Montez also has a very full beard here, which makes him look super different than his goatee that he has during the interview/confessional part of the show, which is slightly jarring.
Bianca’s kind of signature style move is twirling her super long ponytail around, and in fact we see someone wearing a shirt featuring Bianca with a ponytail hanging off of it at some point. Branding is a big deal for all celebrities and performers these days for sure.
Bianca’s solo match at Royal Rumble is with Alexa Bliss, and we see some highlights of her (and Alexa’s) impressive moves. Montez participates in the Royal Rumble itself, which is a “30-person match,” with new people joining the melee every two minutes. “The goal is to be the last person standing,” with the requirement to toss your opponents over the top rope.
So, even though we hear a lot about how important the competition is for both of them, we as viewers only get a very vague and scattered view of what actually goes down in their respective competitions. Montez gets eliminated at some point during the Royal Rumble, and that’s about it.
We then move to a “60 Days to WrestleMania” title card, and it’s time to hit the WWE Performance Center. Montez meets up with his tag team partner, Angelo Dawkins, though Montez notes that his overarching goal is to be the champion – which is inherently a solo act. And meanwhile, Bianca meets up with fellow WWE performer Liv Morgan, who she is close friends with.
Bianca mentions that she’ll have a featured solo match at WrestleMania, but she doesn’t yet know who her opponent is yet. Because Rhea Ripley won the women’s Royal Rumble, apparently she gets to pick* her next match. Liv asks Bianca if Montez is “low key jelly” of Bianca, which is pretty funny.
* We’re just gonna let this one go for the moment.
Onward to Tulsa, Oklahoma, with 48 days out to WrestleMania. Rhea Ripley, who has a serious goth motif going on and is a Brit to boot, is to make her selection. To Bianca’s surprise, Rhea picks Charlotte Flair instead of Bianca. Bianca’s reaction is anxiety over her own career prospects.
Nobody said that the world wrestling entertainment business was going to be easy, I guess.
Some stats and info about Love & WWE: Bianca & Montez, “Love & WWE”
TV SHOW – Love & WWE
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1, Episode 1
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Hulu
RELEASE DATE – February 2nd, 2024
GENRE – Reality TV, Docuseries
STARRING – Bianca Belair, Montez Ford