|
Post by Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby on Aug 11, 2020 0:13:44 GMT -5
Well looking at the deadly draw, they could sign - Rachael Ellering - Tay Conti - Ivelisse - Diamante - Nicole Savoy - Rache Chanel And they'd all be good signings and really beef this division up. Conti might already be signed which is positive, and I'm hoping more follow. Beefing up the division is the key thing they need to do right now, and Shida's open challenges might help that AEW done a nice job bringing in some of the best FA woman available. But it can't end here. They need to end up signing Rachel Ellering, Tay Conti, Ivelisse, Diamante and or Nicole Savoy. They can't allow these woman go elsewhere like Mercedes Martinez or Deonna Purrazzo. If you add those 4 or 5 woman. To Nyla Rose, Shia, Baker, Big Swole, Penelope Ford, Abandon, Anna Jay and Kris Statlander when she comes back. All of the sudden woman roster looks a lot better. Especially if you start getting a few of international woman back like Bea Priestley, Riho, Shanna etc. Pretty much. The additions from the tournament, plus hopefully a few open challenge singles debuts, shore up the division in the short term but also open more doors to grow in the long term. After all, an AEW with the Swole Family and Diamante & Ivelisse has more things to do with the Twisted Sisterz or the Sea Stars; Vickie Guerrero has more reason to recruit a tag team to manage alongside Nyla Rose as her singles star if there are tag teams to compete against; the Broad Warrior Heidi Howitzer could have a natural angle of some stripe with Rachael Ellering; Rache Chanel and Dasha allow for more variety of known jobbers that new hires can start against; Davienne could come in and get that hoss fight build with Ellering that AEW did so well with Wardlow and Luchasaurus; Leyla Hirsch could have a style based feud with Tay Conti or a series with Lil Swole instead of zooming up to the title picture for lack of what else to do. The more they have, the more they can easily gain.
|
|
|
Post by darbus alan on Aug 11, 2020 0:17:59 GMT -5
They have the building blocks of a solid division here. Now they just need to sign the talent and do the work developing angles and giving more time to the women on Dynamite, Dark, and PPV cards. While I'm not under any impressions that the division will be on par with NXT's or Impact's, I think they have the ability to be a respectable division on their own merits.
|
|
Talent Name
Ozymandius
Got fined anyway. Possibly a Moose
James Franco is the white Donald Glover
Posts: 63,760
Member is Online
|
Post by Talent Name on Aug 11, 2020 8:27:59 GMT -5
They could sign everyone but until even the current women have meaningful story lines and are featured for longer than 5 minutes its moot. Feel like Raw took a shot at this by having three women's segments back to back to back tonight
|
|
|
Post by moxfan1 on Aug 11, 2020 16:04:41 GMT -5
They could sign everyone but until even the current women have meaningful story lines and are featured for longer than 5 minutes its moot. Feel like Raw took a shot at this by having three women's segments back to back to back tonight To be fair Britt Baker/Big Swole feud has gotten a lot of build up. Plus Raw 3 hour show vs two. Plus Raw doesn't have two major tag feuds and trying to push 3 new talent in Orange Cassidy, Darby and Sammy Guevara. Around the World and TNT title feuds. So you spend more time on woman it takes time away from tag or pushing new talent. But when they get extra hour of tv it will allow woman to get more time.
|
|
Talent Name
Ozymandius
Got fined anyway. Possibly a Moose
James Franco is the white Donald Glover
Posts: 63,760
Member is Online
|
Post by Talent Name on Aug 11, 2020 16:17:17 GMT -5
They could sign everyone but until even the current women have meaningful story lines and are featured for longer than 5 minutes its moot. Feel like Raw took a shot at this by having three women's segments back to back to back tonight To be fair Britt Baker/Big Swole feud has gotten a lot of build up. Plus Raw 3 hour show vs two. Plus Raw doesn't have two major tag feuds and trying to push 3 new talent in Orange Cassidy, Darby and Sammy Guevara. Around the World and TNT title feuds. So you spend more time on woman it takes time away from tag or pushing new talent. But when they get extra hour of tv it will allow woman to get more time. Smackdown even has a more interesting feud and also has two separate women's feuds in two hours and is still pushing new talents as well. If Omega didn't speak his mind this may not be as big an issue as other things like minority presence on the shows
|
|
Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]
FANatic
Writer, Lover of all things Wrestling. Analytical, Critical, Lovable (hopefully). Lets all have fun!
Posts: 245,236
|
Post by Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-] on Aug 11, 2020 16:31:22 GMT -5
To be fair Britt Baker/Big Swole feud has gotten a lot of build up. Plus Raw 3 hour show vs two. Plus Raw doesn't have two major tag feuds and trying to push 3 new talent in Orange Cassidy, Darby and Sammy Guevara. Around the World and TNT title feuds. So you spend more time on woman it takes time away from tag or pushing new talent. But when they get extra hour of tv it will allow woman to get more time. Smackdown even has a more interesting feud and also has two separate women's feuds in two hours and is still pushing new talents as well. If Omega didn't speak his mind this may not be as big an issue as other things like minority presence on the shows I honestly don't agree that Smackdown's girls are in compelling feuds and are pushing new talent. Naomi's angle is weird, the Two Women Power Trip has beyond run stale, and then when we see something new it is NATALYA, LANA, AND MICKIE JAMES. It's nice to see more girls doing something, but frankly the only main roster girls that feel like they're worth a shit right now outside of The Two Woman Power Trip is Rose and Deville. AEW's women's division doesn't have to do much to get things rolling, I just hope they do soon.
|
|
Talent Name
Ozymandius
Got fined anyway. Possibly a Moose
James Franco is the white Donald Glover
Posts: 63,760
Member is Online
|
Post by Talent Name on Aug 11, 2020 19:42:34 GMT -5
Smackdown even has a more interesting feud and also has two separate women's feuds in two hours and is still pushing new talents as well. If Omega didn't speak his mind this may not be as big an issue as other things like minority presence on the shows I honestly don't agree that Smackdown's girls are in compelling feuds and are pushing new talent. Naomi's angle is weird, the Two Women Power Trip has beyond run stale, and then when we see something new it is NATALYA, LANA, AND MICKIE JAMES. It's nice to see more girls doing something, but frankly the only main roster girls that feel like they're worth a shit right now outside of The Two Woman Power Trip is Rose and Deville. AEW's women's division doesn't have to do much to get things rolling, I just hope they do soon. Alex Bliss in the Bray Wyatt feud, the tease of her and Cross breaking up as well, Deville and Rose as well. While on Raw Shayna is being built back up, Lana is actually doing something this time and Askua is taking on Sasha. That's not even mentioning whats going on in NXT so it is possible to have more than a one woman feud actually on air. It's sad that some of the best women's wrestlers are relegated to an internet show while even Impact is doing things with their knockout division. AEW is barely above ROH in regard to women's wrestling
|
|
|
Post by polarbearpete on Aug 11, 2020 19:59:10 GMT -5
Yeah it’s not even a question which of the two major companies showcases the women more than the other. It’s WWE’s shows by a landslide. And that goes for each of their 3 shows.
|
|
|
Post by moxfan1 on Aug 11, 2020 20:17:38 GMT -5
To be fair Britt Baker/Big Swole feud has gotten a lot of build up. Plus Raw 3 hour show vs two. Plus Raw doesn't have two major tag feuds and trying to push 3 new talent in Orange Cassidy, Darby and Sammy Guevara. Around the World and TNT title feuds. So you spend more time on woman it takes time away from tag or pushing new talent. But when they get extra hour of tv it will allow woman to get more time. Smackdown even has a more interesting feud and also has two separate women's feuds in two hours and is still pushing new talents as well. If Omega didn't speak his mind this may not be as big an issue as other things like minority presence on the shows Ehh and Smackdown tag division is awful with basically two teams in it at the moment. New stars is only Riddle and I guess Big E for a week. Which is exactly my point. They put all woman stuff on there which is fine. But kills other divisions. Right now Omega/Page, Young Bucks, FTR and Dark Order are involved in something. You also got Best Friends and Santana and Ortiz feud. While pushing Darby in feud with Cage, Sammy in feud with Matt Hardy and Orange Cassidy and Jericho. Not to mention MJF is in title picture. So AEW is doing a lot better pushing new talent and showcasing tag division. Yes Smackdown better at woman title feud and secondary feud. But Baker/Swole been feuding for months and I'm sure they will start up Nyla Rose/Shida feud again soon. Yes AEW could probably spend little less time on tag or push some less new talent. But let's also not pretend that Shida or Nyla have personality combined to pull off Sasha/Bayley type stuff. That is why Baker/Swole is getting more of a build. That's probably why they put Vickie Guererro with Nyla. So they can do more then beatdown feuds with her.
|
|
|
Post by darbus alan on Aug 11, 2020 20:19:27 GMT -5
Personally speaking, outside of NXT, I think of WWE as a case of quantity more than quality (and Alexa Bliss being the damsel in distress in a feud between two men isn't even something I'd consider representative of the women's division). I also think "barely better than Women of Honor" is a hot take polluted by recency bias. AEW's got problems in how it's handling its women's division with last week's Dynamite being a really egregious example, but on the whole it's way better than ROH.
Also it's weird saying "even Impact" when talking about their Knockouts like their women's division is somehow a lesser product. Impact's generally considered to have one of the best women's divisions in American wrestling along with NXT.
|
|
Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]
FANatic
Writer, Lover of all things Wrestling. Analytical, Critical, Lovable (hopefully). Lets all have fun!
Posts: 245,236
|
Post by Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-] on Aug 11, 2020 20:33:11 GMT -5
After watching the Deadly Draw and DARK the last two days if they don't sign Ellering I think they're damn crazy.
|
|
|
Post by moxfan1 on Aug 11, 2020 20:34:18 GMT -5
Personally speaking, outside of NXT, I think of WWE as a case of quantity more than quality (and Alexa Bliss being the damsel in distress in a feud between two men isn't even something I'd consider representative of the women's division). I also think "barely better than Women of Honor" is a hot take polluted by recency bias. AEW's got problems in how it's handling its women's division with last week's Dynamite being a really egregious example, but on the whole it's way better than ROH.
Also it's weird saying "even Impact" when talking about their Knockouts like their women's division is somehow a lesser product. Impact's generally considered to have one of the best women's divisions in American wrestling along with NXT.
The fact AEW woman division is basically... Shida Nyla Rose Big Swole Penelope Ford Hurt Britt Baker Well that kinda limits what they can do and use them week after week. Brandi/Allie are more managers and not good in the ring. Yes they have Anna Jay and Abandon. But both are more projects then ready be in big storyline on weekly tv. This is why they need to sign more woman. It will give them more options and more to do. To keep this fresh. For example Nyla/Shida wrestled at Double or Nothing already. They didn't need more then a 4 week build to their rematch. Other wise it wouldn't feel fresh.
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby on Aug 11, 2020 21:13:59 GMT -5
After watching the Deadly Draw and DARK the last two days if they don't sign Ellering I think they're damn crazy. Co-signed. She's quite good and has a lot of story potential just by virtue of being a big power wrestler with a legacy that she seems not unwilling to play off of. Establishing her off the bat as Dasha's friend also gives her some hooks, since, as Luchasaurus has shown, nothing gets a big hoss babyface over like having someone to protect who is easy to pick on.
|
|
|
Post by Oh Cry Me a Screwball on Aug 11, 2020 22:10:50 GMT -5
Yeah it’s not even a question which of the two major companies showcases the women more than the other. It’s WWE’s shows by a landslide. And that goes for each of their 3 shows. I will say this though, NXT's women's division was honestly just as bad as AEW's for the longest time, to the point where Io Shirai's heel turn on Candice LeRae was the first time a secondary women's feud was worth a damn in years. It really is as simple as signing good talents and putting them in angles that don't revolve around the title. If they remembered Hikaru Shida exists and can have matches while not forgetting about the Baker/Swole angle, they will close the gap more than people realize.
|
|
|
Post by moxfan1 on Aug 11, 2020 23:01:23 GMT -5
Yeah it’s not even a question which of the two major companies showcases the women more than the other. It’s WWE’s shows by a landslide. And that goes for each of their 3 shows. Yes but it comes at a cost. Raw has 3 hours and has a tag division 3 teams and spending very little time building new stars. Since it features the woman so much and still needs to feature McIntyre, Orton, Owens, Rollins, Hurt Business and Mysterio family. If you aren't one of those guys or Street Profits, Viking Raiders or Andrae&Angel Garza. Well you are total after thought on the show and wasted. Maybe if they didn't do as many woman storylines or feuds. They would have time to use guys like Aleister Black or Ricochet better. Same goes for Smackdown. Their tag division is Nakumara&Cesaro and Lucha House Party right now lol. I know New Day just got hurt but still that's sad. Again it's basically Braun, Bray, AJ, Daniel Bryan, Sheamus, Jeff Hardy, Matt Riddle and Baron Corbin. With I guess Otis in comedy skits or tag matches. If you aren't one of those guys you are basically after thought mid card guys. Or they toss you in tag division like Miz&Morrison or how they did Nakamura&Cesaro. So again it's easy to feature more girls. If your story only features 10 male wrestlers consistently and three teams. NXT on the other hand does opposite of Raw and Smackdown. They do spend time building new talent and give woman a lot of time to build as well. Since besides destroying AEW and to draw some ratings. The purpose of the show is to build talent for main rostet. But again it's only two hour show. So if you are going to feature woman so much and build new talent. Well they sacrifice putting top stars on the show every week. NXT will to weeks sometimes without having Undisputed era, Balor, Gargano on the show at all. Even Karron Kross has many weeks where he's barely on the show. While Ciampa and Dream been gone since last Takeover. So it's great they try to build up new guys and give woman their time. But that could also why their ratings aren't better. Because people watch the show to see their stars and they often aren't on. I know AEW fans would be pissed if Jericho, Cody, Omega etc went 2 plus weeks at a time without appearing on the show sometimes? What AEW trying to do is feature their top stars every week. But they also are trying to have the best tag division in wrestling and continue to try to build new talent. While having a good woman's division. So when half the woman's division is either hurt or stuck out of the country. It's really easy cut into woman's division time. Since they only really feature 4 healthy woman right now. With injured Britt Baker getting the most air time out of All of them. That's why it's easy to give them 5 to 10 minutes on Dynamite with division so small right now. This is why they need to sign more talent ASAP. It's a lot easier to come up with stuff and need to put them on air. If you got a lot of talent to use. Since they can have Shida wrestle every two weeks or do. Do quick Nyla/Vickie promos and Big Swole/Baker segments without it taking up much time that they need for other things .
|
|
|
Post by polarbearpete on Aug 12, 2020 5:30:55 GMT -5
Yeah it’s not even a question which of the two major companies showcases the women more than the other. It’s WWE’s shows by a landslide. And that goes for each of their 3 shows. Yes but it comes at a cost. Raw has 3 hours and has a tag division 3 teams and spending very little time building new stars. Since it features the woman so much and still needs to feature McIntyre, Orton, Owens, Rollins, Hurt Business and Mysterio family. If you aren't one of those guys or Street Profits, Viking Raiders or Andrae&Angel Garza. Well you are total after thought on the show and wasted. Maybe if they didn't do as many woman storylines or feuds. They would have time to use guys like Aleister Black or Ricochet better. . . [ Sure, but tag teams are not a protected category of previously underrepresented people in wrestling as far as I’m aware. AEW was championed as a “progressive” company when it came to women, including women’s pay (remember that equal pay talk when they first started?). I don’t think giving them 5-10 minutes a show and saying we can’t give more because tag teams! is really a good look.
|
|
|
Post by kingoftheindies on Aug 12, 2020 6:43:46 GMT -5
Personally speaking, outside of NXT, I think of WWE as a case of quantity more than quality (and Alexa Bliss being the damsel in distress in a feud between two men isn't even something I'd consider representative of the women's division). I also think "barely better than Women of Honor" is a hot take polluted by recency bias. AEW's got problems in how it's handling its women's division with last week's Dynamite being a really egregious example, but on the whole it's way better than ROH. Also it's weird saying "even Impact" when talking about their Knockouts like their women's division is somehow a lesser product. Impact's generally considered to have one of the best women's divisions in American wrestling along with NXT.
The fact AEW woman division is basically... Shida Nyla Rose Big Swole Penelope Ford Hurt Britt Baker Well that kinda limits what they can do and use them week after week. Brandi/Allie are more managers and not good in the ring. Yes they have Anna Jay and Abandon. But both are more projects then ready be in big storyline on weekly tv. This is why they need to sign more woman. It will give them more options and more to do. To keep this fresh. For example Nyla/Shida wrestled at Double or Nothing already. They didn't need more then a 4 week build to their rematch. Other wise it wouldn't feel fresh. Good point. I have also pointed this out, if you want to give AEW crap for wanting the backbone of the division based on international stars? That's a conversation to have. Not even because of covid but because those women had a lot of commitments that prevented use... even when they made Riho the first champ they couldn't use her every week. So there shod have been more of a priority for domestic talent
|
|
|
Post by HMARK Center on Aug 12, 2020 8:00:29 GMT -5
I think the overall conversation people are having about this whole thing also lacks a bit in context. We have to acknowledge some realities when putting together what's going on, here:
-AEW is a startup...albeit one with money behind it, but it's still on its first year of TV. It also, however, wants to be a promotion that can compete with WWE, which is evident in the size of the stage AEW has, the budget it operates with, etc. Given how big AEW intends to be, it's tough to make time on Dynamite for people or acts who aren't "ready for primetime", so to speak; smaller promotions can allow some people to develop in front of their biggest audiences, but AEW can't fully afford that. -Women's wrestling in the US has long been neglected or outright mistreated. This has led to decades of damage that have only really begun to be undone in pretty recent years, starting with things like TNA's early Knockout Division and WWE's improvements since 2014 or so. -Now, combine the two issues: historic mistreatment of women's wrestling in the US means we're still far from parity between men and women in the wrestling industry, which leaves a smaller pool of women to sign compared with men, and we've only really recently arrived in the era where there are more women who are ready to walk into a major promotion on AEW's scale and perform at the highest level from day one.
One more ingredient in there: things like the Mae Young Classic and the post-Horsewomen scene in NXT means that WWE signed up a whole lot of the top female indy and international talent that was out there just a couple of years before AEW got going. It's kind of similar to AEW not having a lot of upper card African American men from the get-go, given how many of the top guys were signed to NXT/WWE around a year before Dynamite was a thing.
This doesn't explain every issue people have had with how AEW's handled their women's division early on, but it does mean that there wasn't really going to be a huge division on the first day of operations; going by how they've handled things particularly since the pandemic it seems more like this was a project, given the whole "sign younger people and train them up" strategy, a project that's very much needed now given how their numbers were hurt by the travel restrictions and injuries. In the meantime, though, it wasn't as if there was no effort being put into establishing the women they had as stars; we've said it in this thread before, but Shida, Nyla, Riho, Statlander, Swole, heel Britt? They're over. They've gotten spotlighted matches, were popular with audiences before the pandemic, aren't treated as afterthoughts, etc. Even now, with the reduced roster, there are multiple storylines in the women's division.
Again, that doesn't make it a good look when the division only gets a few minutes on last week's Dynamite, and that doesn't explain away all reasonable critiques that have been brought up here and elsewhere before, but again, the conversation needs to be grounded in context and reality to get at what can and should really be done about it.
EDIT: Reading through again, I think I'll simplify and echo the way Onyx put it - there's questions of quantity and quality. In AEW's position, they don't seem to want to risk throwing anybody out there and potentially not having their work be up to snuff on Dynamite due to lack of experience or needing some refinement on their gimmick. They tried it with Nightmare Collective, and that was their big "whoops, didn't work" to date. Like, Mel went out there early on and showed she wasn't ready, which doesn't help the company and doesn't help her as a wrestler looking to get over, either; the pulled her, and she's been training more since. Going by her last couple of appearances she looks better in there, though obviously the people there would know how much better much more than I would.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2020 20:41:04 GMT -5
I think them making absolutely no moves to increase the amount of time the women got on this week's show, even just in some kind of token way, says a lot about how valid they think the criticism they've been getting is.
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Bolty, Disaster Enby on Aug 12, 2020 20:45:04 GMT -5
If they give Heather Monroe a more extended look, that's at least something. But man, she is good enough to have gotten a full match instead of getting jobber'ed.
EDIT: Like seriously, she came all the way out from California for that? This was not a QT student or local wrestler thing.
|
|