Zelina Deserves Better

[Matt]

Poor Zelina is such a going nowhere loser, at least she gets a cool theme out of it.

[mistery]

Zelina's biggest problem is her peak was Puerto Rico, where she was probably the fourth most over woman that night (out of both womens matches). It doesn't help that she's associated with the LWO who are pretty much giant losers at this point. And things aren't going to get better for Zelina because she's almost certainly putting over Elektra Lopez as well, despite Elektra having a pretty hard ceiling herself, because she is not good at all in the ring.

[EoE: Well There's Your Problem]

At whose expense though? Who in that SmackDown division that is getting pushed right now should be cycled out to give Vega that time instead? All the women they’re currently pushing are talented, most of them are over and none of them are shitting the bed badly enough to warrant being dropped, so I don’t know where you can fit Vega in right now as a regular competitor and not an ancillary piece of the LWO/Legado feud.

Even just giving her wins without a storyline only gets you so far, because then we end up making these exact threads about Michin or Alba Fyre or Isla Dawn instead (and I’m honestly surprised we haven’t with the latter two yet).

[Ben Wyatt]

Feb 21, 2024 9:49:05 GMT -5 EoE: Well There's Your Problem said:

At whose expense though? Who in that SmackDown division that is getting pushed right now should be cycled out to give Vega that time instead? All the women they’re currently pushing are talented, most of them are over and none of them are shitting the bed badly enough to warrant being dropped, so I don’t know where you can fit Vega in right now as a regular competitor and not an ancillary piece of the LWO/Legado feud.

Even just giving her wins without a storyline only gets you so far, because then we end up making these exact threads about Michin or Alba Fyre or Isla Dawn instead (and I’m honestly surprised we haven’t with the latter two yet).

Right.  The problem is (and it's not a terrible problem to have) that the Women's division, especially on Smackdown is stacked to a degree that we haven't seen in a while.  And while I like Vega,  I can't justify her getting pushed ahead of anyone at the moment as a singles competitor. HOWEVER, if you wanna talk about her in a tag team just to give that division some meat to it, then an argument might be made there

[The Summer of Muskrat XVII]

She's just not that good compared to most women on the roster. I could probably run down 90% the entire women's main roster and pretty much immediately identify why I would push wrestler X over Zelina. Personally, I think her calling is to be a manager not a wrestler.

[EoE: Well There's Your Problem]

Feb 21, 2024 9:54:25 GMT -5 Ben Wyatt said:

Feb 21, 2024 9:49:05 GMT -5 EoE: Well There's Your Problem said:

At whose expense though? Who in that SmackDown division that is getting pushed right now should be cycled out to give Vega that time instead? All the women they’re currently pushing are talented, most of them are over and none of them are shitting the bed badly enough to warrant being dropped, so I don’t know where you can fit Vega in right now as a regular competitor and not an ancillary piece of the LWO/Legado feud.

Even just giving her wins without a storyline only gets you so far, because then we end up making these exact threads about Michin or Alba Fyre or Isla Dawn instead (and I’m honestly surprised we haven’t with the latter two yet).

Right.  The problem is (and it's not a terrible problem to have) that the Women's division, especially on Smackdown is stacked to a degree that we haven't seen in a while.  And while I like Vega,  I can't justify her getting pushed ahead of anyone at the moment as a singles competitor. HOWEVER, if you wanna talk about her in a tag team just to give that division some meat to it, then an argument might be made there

I should note, I don’t say what I say to be like “Don’t ever want better for your favourites”. We’re all fans at the end of the day, we all want our favourite wrestlers to win all the time. I’m just being practical. You can’t push literally EVERYONE. And this isn’t a WWE-only issue anymore where you used to be able to pin it on a shitty lead booker/writer and leave it at that. Look at the big thread in the AEW section, even they in a system much more open and wrestler-friendly still have talents not being able to hit max potential and falling through the cracks just because there’s so much talent and not enough time to spotlight them all.

[Ben Wyatt]

Feb 21, 2024 10:21:04 GMT -5 EoE: Well There's Your Problem said:

Feb 21, 2024 9:54:25 GMT -5 Ben Wyatt said:

Right.  The problem is (and it's not a terrible problem to have) that the Women's division, especially on Smackdown is stacked to a degree that we haven't seen in a while.  And while I like Vega,  I can't justify her getting pushed ahead of anyone at the moment as a singles competitor. HOWEVER, if you wanna talk about her in a tag team just to give that division some meat to it, then an argument might be made there

I should note, I don’t say what I say to be like “Don’t ever want better for your favourites”. We’re all fans at the end of the day, we all want our favourite wrestlers to win all the time. I’m just being practical. You can’t push literally EVERYONE. And this isn’t a WWE-only issue anymore where you used to be able to pin it on a shitty lead booker/writer and leave it at that. Look at the big thread in the AEW section, even they in a system much more open and wrestler-friendly still have talents not being able to hit max potential and falling through the cracks just because there’s so much talent and not enough time to spotlight them all.

With rosters so stacked, people (and I certainly include myself here) need to understand that their favorites aren't always going to be pushed to be Roman, Sami, Cody or Becky, Bianca Rhea and that there are other roles to be had. Sometimes injury and circumstances WILL give others chances to shine as things ebb and flow

[Deleted]

Feb 21, 2024 10:18:51 GMT -5 The Summer of Muskrat XVII said:

She's just not that good compared to most women on the roster. I could probably run down 90% the entire women's main roster and pretty much immediately identify why I would push wrestler X over Zelina. Personally, I think her calling is to be a manager not a wrestler.

That is where I am at with her.,,she is a great talker and has a great charisma

I like her enough but there is just too much talent ahead of that would need to be eased aside (and surely they would have no issue with it) for her to not only get that chance but dedicate enouugh screentime for her to get built up and generate a connection to the audience that would justify not just the push but a title reign.

Now there could be a way to get around this and that is give her the MITB but IMO they would have to turn her heel becuase I do not see the crowd caring about her having it as a babyface.

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

[Squirrel Master]

Zelina looked great at Backlash in P.R. She was so proud!

[clc]

No time for Zelina? We can find some time.

Switch her over to Raw and give her a match every other week. One week we get Ivar vs Alpha Academy, the next week we get Zelina Vega in her underwear and/or some cosplay that Cole can not recognize.

Maybe she can wrestle during Roman Reigns entrances? Roman's music hits, he starts walking toward the ring, the camera pans over and there is a Zelina Vega match going on. Zelina picks up a win. The camera pans back, and Roman is halfway there.

Next time someone in creative says, "Lets have JD McDonaugh..." you put your hand over their mouth and say, "Zelina Vega it is!"

[floundertime]

It’s odd how different she is from her husband. Zelina will do the job, Malaki allegedly refuses to do the job.

[Woo]

She's excellent. She's constantly entertaining in everything she does and needs a big push.

[KingPooper]

I wish she would have gotten the match on the anniversary of 9/11 in New York. That sucks it was pulled.

Other than that I don't think I've said "I wish Vega was getting this push". I do find her lot more interesting than most of the womens roster and she's a better wrestler than she is given credit for. I think she's placed around the right spot on the card. I can see her having a decent thank-you title run in NXT down the line.

[Doo Doo Dickhead]

I guess it'd be nice to see her and LWO win a little more, but I do feel she's in a better position than a lot of the other women. I do hope they keep her as a face, because while I really enjoyed her work as a heel manager, I think she's a way better wrestler as one.

[kevin]

The women need a midcard belt so non main event single wrestlers have something to aim for.

[Mozenrath]

Feb 22, 2024 18:31:19 GMT -5 kevin said:

The women need a midcard belt so non main event single wrestlers have something to aim for.

That's what the tag belts were supposed to be for, and WWE were astonishingly lazy about consistently using them for that.

[Non Banjoble Tokens]

I agree. Malakai isn't good enough for her.

[PKO]

I think her calling is as a manager. She was so, so, so good with Andrade in NXT. Wrestling has a long history of putting women on the arm of a man to be a pretty face, and Zelina (while still a pretty face) was also a fierce mouthpiece.

I think her and Raquel could be a fun team down the line too. Raquel desperately needs something, and a mouthy heel Zelina would be fun.

[TOK Hehe'd Around & Found Out]

Feb 21, 2024 9:44:26 GMT -5 mistery said:

Zelina's biggest problem is her peak was Puerto Rico, where she was probably the fourth most over woman that night (out of both womens matches). It doesn't help that she's associated with the LWO who are pretty much giant losers at this point. And things aren't going to get better for Zelina because she's almost certainly putting over Elektra Lopez as well, despite Elektra having a pretty hard ceiling herself, because she is not good at all in the ring.

I really like Zelina (since her TNA days) but having her be the hometown hero in PR was uhhh kinda tone-deaf. I get it meant a lot for her, but Puerto Ricans (from the island) don't exactly have the best views of Nuyoricans who take on a Puerto Rican identity. She was still over and had a great performance but that's why she didn't get the hero's welcome they anticipated.