WWE reintroduced King Of The Ring earlier this year. Even better, on paper at least, was the announcement of the first-ever Queen's Crown tournament. Another step forward for the company's female performers after the women's revolution had grown somewhat stagnant. Eight Superstars were given the chance to become WWE's first-ever Queen of the Ring. The matches sadly weren't given much time, but the good news is it happened, and WWE now has its very own queen.
No offense to Charlotte Flair, but the even better news was she didn't win, nor was she even involved in the Queen's Crown tournament. Even before the tournament was officially announced, many fans had decided Flair would win it should it eventually happen. That honor went to Zelina Vega instead. Somewhat surprising since prior to competing for the crown, Vega had lost every single match since her unexpected WWE return.
Queens Are From England
Vega's luck has been far better since her tournament win at Crown Jewel. She has even picked up her first-ever title as a WWE Superstar, becoming a Tag Team Champion alongside Carmella. However, Vega has also picked up an accent along the way. Even though various countries around the world still have monarchies in place, WWE associates kings and queens with England. Hence the few times Vega is given mic time, she has been speaking with a pretty terrible English accent.
Suddenly Flair not being a part of the tournament makes sense. While The Queen would have loved a crown, I can just imagine her telling WWE where to stick their English accent. It's also now a relief that the likes of Liv Morgan and Toni Storm were eliminated early. That being said, having to speak with an accent might be preferable to getting pied in the face by Flair. Plus, Storm is Australian, so odds are her English accent would be maredly better than Vega's.
Kofi Kingston And Apollo Crews
This isn't the first time someone backstage (almost definitely Vince McMahon) thought it would be amusing to have a Superstar speak with a terrible accent on-screen. Perhaps the most infamous example is Kofi Kingston. Many of you will know Kingston is from Ghana. Sadly, many of you will also know when he debuted in WWE, he was billed as Jamaican. That went hand-in-hand with a fake Jamaican accent. One day, presumably when WWE realized Kingston was someone worth keeping around, the accent disappeared. Triple H even joked about it on TV, asking the former WWE Champion where it had gone.
Fast forward 13 years and WWE still hasn't learned its lesson. Apollo Crews now has an accent that isn't his own. In one way it's not quite as bad as the Kingston situation, but in another, it is so much worse. As far as I know, Crews has actual ties to Nigeria, unlike Kingston and Jamaica. However, Crews was an established character on WWE TV when the brass decided he needed to change his voice. At least in Kingston's case, very few fans had heard his voice before so might not have known he didn't actually have a Jamaican accent.
How Very European
The examples continue to mount up. Lana, who was released by WWE earlier this year, was also the victim of a disappearing accent. Introduced to the WWE Universe as Rusev's valet, The Ravishing Russian naturally needed to sound Eastern European. Well, she didn't, but WWE believed that she did. Thankfully, Lana spent a large chunk of her childhood in Latvia so nailed the Russian accent. However, as was the case with Kingston, one day her real voice shone through and her accent disappeared.
Staying in Europe, let's move on to Santino Marella. Marella's main roster debut was somewhat unique. When Raw aired live from Milan, Italy, Marella was plucked from the crowd, masquerading as a fan, to take on Umaga for the Intercontinenal Title. Marella shocked the world and won and would hold the title for three months. Since he was framed as an Italian fan, Marella needed to sport what was a pretty terrible Italian accent. Terrible because Marella is from nowhere near Milan. He's actually from Canada.
Even Triple H, the very same Triple H who mocked Kingston for his dropped Jamaican accent, has been subjected to wrestling's penchant for fake accents. Before he was Triple H, The Game portrayed an aristocrat character who was supposed to hail from France. An idea born from the fact his real last name is Levesque. Needless to say, the fake French accent didn't last long. Perhaps behind the scenes Triple H poking fun at Kingston was his way of relating to the situation. Anyway, if anyone from WWE is reading this, let Vega talk in her regular voice. Americans can be queens too. Have you never heard of Beyonce?