State of the Divas Address

[percymania]

After watching the 6 diva tag match last night on Raw, I felt really good about the Divas division here in 2011. It wasn't a bring-the-house down match, but it was good. You had six beatiful women, all using professional wrestling moves while having a nice clean match. Even the Bellas did their switcharoo spot appropriately. As this was the first Divas match of 2011, I thought the match was slightly symbolic, and showed the fans that the immediate future for the Divas division is strong. We have women that can wrestle. Maybe not long matches, but they can do some real moves at least. I thought back to years past when a match of this nature would certainly have been a botch-fest and a laughable nightmare. Not this year. Congrats to Maryse, Alicia Fox, Melina, Eve, Natalya, the Bellas and everyone else involved for making me feel good about the current state of the Divas division. They've all worked hard and it shows. That's 7 ladies who can all play their part, plus we still have others like Layla, Michelle McCool, Beth Phoenix, Tamina, and now Awesome Kong on the horizon. It's quite possible 2011 might be the best year in women's wrestling in, well... possibly ever.

[Deleted]

Well, I am still pessimistic about that, but the good thing about being pessimistic is when it turns out good, the joy is that much sweeter.

I sure would like for the Divas to have a breakout year in 2011.

[The Tank]

Get Alicia Fox out of WWE and keep the Bella Props out of the ring and I'll sign this list.

The Bellas are just not that good in the ring, and the switch thing is clearly cheating. Faces shouldn't be cheating. Is sensible booking too much to ask?

And Alicia Fox is going to badly hurt someone in the ring eventually, and that's the best possible outcome of that flailing they claim is her wrestling. She can't work at all.

[Metalheadbanger Man]

The Bellas are both far superior to Maryse as wrestlers. Maryse should just be an exceptionally good looking valet, and leave it at that.

[N E O G E O B O Y S]

Jan 5, 2011 14:01:17 GMT -5 The Tank said:

Get Alicia Fox out of WWE and keep the Bella Props out of the ring and I'll sign this list.

The Bellas are just not that good in the ring, and the switch thing is clearly cheating. Faces shouldn't be cheating. Is sensible booking too much to ask?

And Alicia Fox is going to badly hurt someone in the ring eventually, and that's the best possible outcome of that flailing they claim is her wrestling. She can't work at all.

I think is part of their gimmick like eddie ''cheating, lying and stealing'' sometimes using those tricks is justified

[Deleted]

I'm not giving the Divas a pass yet. It's been so bad for so long and while it's definitely improved I'm not convinced they're gonna keep improving yet.

The Bellas switch was just odd because after they switched the replacement Bella just ended up selling the previous' Bella's injury anyways.

I get the feeling the crowd's gonna be dead as usual when Melina/Natalya happens because there's no character development in that feud. Melina basically turned heel for the sake of turning heel, with no inclination from WWE to have her explain why she slapped Natalya or why she's tagging up with people she hated a couple weeks ago. It's still mostly the same divas division to me.

[Deleted]

Jan 5, 2011 14:17:34 GMT -5 @nichotine said:

I get the feeling the crowd's gonna be dead as usual when Melina/Natalya happens because there's no character development in that feud. Melina basically turned heel for the sake of turning heel, with no inclination from WWE to have her explain why she slapped Natalya or why she's tagging up with people she hated a couple weeks ago. It's still mostly the same divas division to me.

It's been booked horrifically. Melina's supposed to be a heel and got cheered on Raw during her entrance, and it's not surprising as to why. She was the most over face diva that they had, and they decided to turn her heel with no speaking role as of yet. Unless she's supposed to win this feud and they're going to explain this character better, later on, there's really been no point in this whole angle. If she IS going to win, they need to cement this whole thing, because she's passed the popularity threshold for divas where there's hardly anything left for her to do that will actually draw boos from the audience.

[YAKMAN is ICHIBAN]

Heel Melina = needs to not do the splits. She should act like she is about to, then stop and get into the ring normally.

[Andrew is Good]

There are still come kinks to be worked out, and again, the Bellas still aren't that good, neither is Alicia Fox, Eve is halfway decent, and Maryse, as someone said before, would make a good valet. She would, like, her character works as someone a heel could use. She's no good by herself, as she's one of the girls who generates no reaction. But then again, it may not be her fault.

I was thinking about this, but it was incredibly retarded to get rid of Mickie James. Nattie is starting to get over, but my god, what an over babyface she was.

[percymania]

Does anyone else see Awesome Kong being the next serious contender for the Divas title? Perhaps Kong wins the title, which sets up the Glamazon to be the one to take her down. There's your next few months of booking right there. My prediction is that Awesome Kong will win the Divas title at Wrestlemania. Beth Phoenix will win the championship from Kong later on down the road. If it happens, well you heard it here first.

[Thaal Sinestro]

One segment and we'z saying all this?

[Deleted]

Jan 5, 2011 15:16:00 GMT -5 Andrew is Good said:

I was thinking about this, but it was incredibly retarded to get rid of Mickie James. Nattie is starting to get over, but my god, what an over babyface she was.

That can be said, but maybe they had a legitimate reason? I won't take the dirtsheets at face value because I doubt that's the end of the story (if what they said really did contribute to Mickie's release in any significant way), but unless the wrestler personally comes out and says why they got canned, can we be so sure that the reasons for her firing were good or bad?

[Deleted]

I really think they're planning on taking the Women's Division more seriously. Since it's PG now and they've cut out all of the gimmicks (Bra and Panties Matches, Matches in Liquid, etc.) and even toned down the stuff that's supposed to be sexy (Wearing one pieces in that swimsuit match last year), they have to do something with them. I mean....Beth and Nattie are the two top face divas right now. That's definitely saying something. Plus they had the really solid Tables Match. And now they're bringing in Awesome Kong, and she's certainly not a model.

So I'm thinking WWE is about to do some serious stuff with the divas.

[dlg3000]

Jan 5, 2011 14:07:10 GMT -5 Metalheadbanger Man said:

The Bellas are both far superior to Maryse as wrestlers. Maryse should just be an exceptionally good looking valet, and leave it at that.

Amen.

[Andrew is Good]

Jan 5, 2011 15:24:42 GMT -5 @mightykretzler said:

Jan 5, 2011 15:16:00 GMT -5 Andrew is Good said:

I was thinking about this, but it was incredibly retarded to get rid of Mickie James. Nattie is starting to get over, but my god, what an over babyface she was.

That can be said, but maybe they had a legitimate reason? I won't take the dirtsheets at face value because I doubt that's the end of the story (if what they said really did contribute to Mickie's release in any significant way), but unless the wrestler personally comes out and says why they got canned, can we be so sure that the reasons for her firing were good or bad?[/quote

It depends on the reasoning, I mean, if it was drug related, or she was causing a lot of problems, I can see her being let go. But, it did seem strange to let go someone who was incredibly over.

[JACK]

Just keep Maryse outta the f***ing ring. She has no desire to improve what so ever. The chick doesn't give a rats ass about how s***ty she looks when she tries to wrestle.

[Citizen Zero]

At least they're actually wrestling now and not engaging in obnoxious bra-and-panty matches.

[Deleted]

I don't see how one decent tag match on Raw is an indicator that the division will suddenly improve in the next year. I mean, lets look at the fundamental problems in the division:

1) Little to no character development: Apart from Lay-Cool, none of the diva's get any mic time to interact with the audience and give them a reason to cheer or boo then. As stated before, Melina's heel turn is incredibly pointless and meaningless at this point because she hasn't actually explained why she did what she did. So the audience isn't buying it. Another example of this is Kaitlyn, since winning NXT Season 3 she's appeared on TV for all of about 45 seconds in backstage segments.

2) Lack of screen time: Linked to my first point, diva's matches still barely go 3 minutes, and on Raw nearly every diva match is a tag match instead of a one on one. On Smackdown we've been seeing the same matches over and over again with nothing on the line. Even valets like Maryse and The Bella's are literally on screen for maybe less than a minute each week.

3) Hiring models instead of legitimate wrestlers: You can make the point that Kong is coming to the WWE, but a rebuttal for her is Kaitlyn, who is now on the roster despite barely knowing 3 moves. Add to the fact that Kelly Kelly, The Bella Twins and Maryse are still wrestling and you still have a division filled with weak wrestlers.

[Thaal Sinestro]

Jan 5, 2011 16:17:18 GMT -5 @burngun said:

I don't see how one decent tag match on Raw is an indicator that the division will suddenly improve in the next year. I mean, lets look at the fundamental problems in the division:

1) Little to no character development: Apart from Lay-Cool, none of the diva's get any mic time to interact with the audience and give them a reason to cheer or boo then. As stated before, Melina's heel turn is incredibly pointless and meaningless at this point because she hasn't actually explained why she did what she did. So the audience isn't buying it. Another example of this is Kaitlyn, since winning NXT Season 3 she's appeared on TV for all of about 45 seconds in backstage segments.

2) Lack of screen time: Linked to my first point, diva's matches still barely go 3 minutes, and on Raw nearly every diva match is a tag match instead of a one on one. On Smackdown we've been seeing the same matches over and over again with nothing on the line. Even valets like Maryse and The Bella's are literally on screen for maybe less than a minute each week.

3) Hiring models instead of legitimate wrestlers: You can make the point that Kong is coming to the WWE, but a rebuttal for her is Kaitlyn, who is now on the roster despite barely knowing 3 moves. Add to the fact that Kelly Kelly, The Bella Twins and Maryse are still wrestling and you still have a division filled with weak wrestlers.

Smart man.

[________ has left the building]

WWE could fire all the "models" and hire the Shimmer roster yet still get no respect from some fans.