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"Divas" Wrestling thread
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27-02-2015 3:57am#1Given the bit of controversy over the state of women's wrestling in the WWE as of late, I'm beginning to think a totally separate show is the only real way forward for them at the moment. Some may cry 'segregation', and I suppose it is of a sort, but given that the WWE clearly has no interest in giving much more time to the women on the main roster, wouldn't their own hour long show (no, not Total Divas.) where they could actually use their skills, have longer more interesting matches and carve out their own brand be preferable to the current state of under utilisation and near tokenism?
Obviously, an even better thing would be for them to get more time on the main roster, but that just hasn't happened.1
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Given the bit of controversy over the state of women's wrestling in the WWE as of late, I'm beginning to think a totally separate show is the only real way forward for them at the moment. Some may cry 'segregation', and I suppose it is of a sort, but given that the WWE clearly has no interest in giving much more time to the women on the main roster, wouldn't their own hour long show (no, not Total Divas.) where they could actually use their skills, have longer more interesting matches and carve out their own brand be preferable to the current state of under utilisation and near tokenism?
Obviously, an even better thing would be for them to get more time on the main roster, but that just hasn't happened.
I don't think the Diva roster is good enough to carry a one hour show. They could promote the NXT Divas, but there isn't that many of them really. After a couple of weeks, it would either be the same under card matches week after week, or even worse, Eva Marie and Rosa Mendes and whatnot would be wrestling on a regular basis. Giving the Divas their own show would just make things worse in the long run.
They have about 3 hours 15 minutes of TV every Monday night (plus another four over the rest of the week). No reason they can't give them 10-15 minutes a week on Raw. NXT manage to give the Divas a good 10 minutes (often more, sometimes less) every week and they have less than one hour with a pretty big roster. No excuse at all for the embarrassing lack of time they currently get.0 -
I think it'd be doable in place of Superstars or Main Event, but the current roster is too thin and you'd have to gut the NXT roster to fill it out. You could do an hour a week if you mixed wrestling and reality TV-style storylines.0
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I don't think the Diva roster is good enough to carry a one hour show. They could promote the NXT Divas, but there isn't that many of them really. After a couple of weeks, it would either be the same under card matches week after week, or even worse, Eva Marie and Rosa Mendes and whatnot would be wrestling on a regular basis. Giving the Divas their own show would just make things worse in the long run.
They have about 3 hours 15 minutes of TV every Monday night (plus another four over the rest of the week). No reason they can't give them 10-15 minutes a week on Raw. NXT manage to give the Divas a good 10 minutes (often more, sometimes less) every week and they have less than one hour with a pretty big roster. No excuse at all for the embarrassing lack of time they currently get.
I think the belief that the Divas aren't good enough is, in a nutshell, their predicament right now, and I suppose has been for a long time. No one in an official capacity with WWE would ever admit to this, but the lack of faith in them is pretty telling when they get maybe one match per PPV and only 10 - 15 minutes on the big weekly shows. Like, they use the top five and the rest become almost non-entities. It's a vicious cycle, basically. If WWE won't take a punt on giving them more time in the main shows, to wrestle longer matches, how exactly are they supposed to get better? Or connect with audiences more? And if they can't get better, WWE is tacitly justified in not including them more.
Their own wrestling show would at least remedy the Divas/Women not getting enough match time in front of crowds. If there aren't enough, then hire a few more. Surely a roster of 10-15 can easily cover an hourly show per week with 10 to 15 minute matches plus promos and ads. An advantage of a women's show is there might just be room for your Awesome Kong type wrestler, who never really stood a chance as she didn't fit the WWE mold of what a prime-time women's wrestler should look like. On a women's show wrestlers like her would fill the monster role, which is a spot sorely missing in WWE women's wrestling.0 -
I think the belief that the Divas aren't good enough is, in a nutshell, their predicament right now, and I suppose has been for a long time. No one in an official capacity with WWE would ever admit to this, but the lack of faith in them is pretty telling when they get maybe one match per PPV and only 10 - 15 minutes on the big weekly shows. Like, they use the top five and the rest become almost non-entities. It's a vicious cycle, basically. If WWE won't take a punt on giving them more time in the main shows, to wrestle longer matches, how exactly are they supposed to get better? Or connect with audiences more? And if they can't get better, WWE is tacitly justified in not including them more.
Their own wrestling show would at least remedy the Divas/Women not getting enough match time in front of crowds. If there aren't enough, then hire a few more. Surely a roster of 10-15 can easily cover an hourly show per week with 10 to 15 minute matches plus promos and ads. An advantage of a women's show is there might just be room for your Awesome Kong type wrestler, who never really stood a chance as she didn't fit the WWE mold of what a prime-time women's wrestler should look like. On a women's show wrestlers like her would fill the monster role, which is a spot sorely missing in WWE women's wrestling.
Off the top of my head, Paige, Natayla, Emma and at a push the Bella's can have decent at worst matches (AJ excluded because I don't expect her back). It's the rest of the roster that is the problem. The likes of Naomi and Layla can hold their own but Summer, Rosa, Cameron etc are dreadful from what I've seen of them. For an hour long show they should be looking at somewhere around 25 Divas. Only having 10-15 would result in the same matches being repeated every couple of weeks due to a lack of options. WWE currently have 13 plus AJ, and another seven (including Dana Brooke who seems to only work dark matches, suggesting she is dreadful) in NXT, making 20 but completely gutting NXT. Unfortunately, the majority are not very good either. The main event scene would be strong, but the rest of the card would be fairly awful and likely kill the show before it even got a chance to show what it could be.
I'd like an all Diva wrestling show, but WWE would need to put some serious time into improving the roster first. Something I don't think they care enough to do.0 -
Don't think a regular women-only show would work. Women's wrestling has always been viewed as a novelty in the US. Its great for adding a bit of diversity to a card, but over-saturation would see that novelty value die off pretty quickly.
I know TNA have in the past done one-off women-only shows. WWE could do something similar with Superstars or Smackdown.0 -
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Don't think a regular women-only show would work. Women's wrestling has always been viewed as a novelty in the US. Its great for adding a bit of diversity to a card, but over-saturation would see that novelty value die off pretty quickly.
Also by my own understanding there isn't a woman on the Creative team.
Besides Stephanie I think there's only been two Jennifer Bloodsworth and someone else.0 -
Here's my random though and I fear it could be unpopular. I don't give a rats about divas wrestling. Some of the intense interest on here baffles me.
When women are allowed to wrestle like the men instead of hiring models and basing their place on the cards by their looks, they can easily outshine the men in terms of what they do.
The older I get the more I find myself enjoying womens matches more and more. They can bring a certain level of intensity to the ring and it seems like they can pull off moves that I've never seen a man do. The likes of Shimmer and Shine always put on great shows because of this. I honestly don't think I have watched a single Shimmer show and thought "M'eh, that was alright."
I always have a few matches that I recommend people check out to show that womens wrestling can be incredible, but my absolute go to is this (And in my 5 favourites matches of all time): Manami Toyota vs Aja Kong, November 20th 1994
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sees a conversation about the Divas in the random thoughts thread... blurts out:
They should fire Cameron, she is Shoite!
on topic, a Divas show should not happen imo but they should be showcased on Raw and Smackdown like they have been on NXT. I get that Raw etc can't be like NXT because NXT is catering to non casual fans and therefore maybe you can justify a few more divas who are there solely because of say their looks (Rosa, Eva) but with Raw being 3 hrs I dont think itd be hard for 15mins of it to be given over to womens wrestling.
Paige, AJ (I know she isn't long for the division), Natalya, Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch, Charlotte, Bailey, Emma, Layla, Alicia Fox, The Bella twins, Alexa Bliss (admittidly I havent seen enough of her in ring but her image and thus potential character would suit such a division)
If let wrestle, they could def pull off decent matches imo and you could always add in a "Veteran returning" storyline or have one where the woman who trains the Divas wants to herself fight for the title with say Victoria or Sara Del Rey. The occasional Steph story and match would be good too
Obviously you could have say Lana & Naomi to manage Rusev / THe Usos too.
What highlighted the way the WWE saw the women the most for me in the past was Gail Kim in and out of the WWE.0 -
plenty of discussion on this and tis in the news atm so thought id give it it's own thread0
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Naming the thread the Divas thread is part of the problem /SJW0
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Off the top of my head, Paige, Natayla, Emma and at a push the Bella's can have decent at worst matches (AJ excluded because I don't expect her back). It's the rest of the roster that is the problem. The likes of Naomi and Layla can hold their own but Summer, Rosa, Cameron etc are dreadful from what I've seen of them. For an hour long show they should be looking at somewhere around 25 Divas. Only having 10-15 would result in the same matches being repeated every couple of weeks due to a lack of options. WWE currently have 13 plus AJ, and another seven (including Dana Brooke who seems to only work dark matches, suggesting she is dreadful) in NXT, making 20 but completely gutting NXT. Unfortunately, the majority are not very good either. The main event scene would be strong, but the rest of the card would be fairly awful and likely kill the show before it even got a chance to show what it could be.
I'd like an all Diva wrestling show, but WWE would need to put some serious time into improving the roster first. Something I don't think they care enough to do.
See, I don't see that much serious time needing to be invested. It's a three step plan, as I see it.
Step 1. Hire women (in addition to some already there) who can perform on the mic and in the ring, and are not there because Hollywood didn't quite work out as they hoped, and future endeavour the dead wood.
Step 2. Give them an hour of TV to perform in.
Step 3. Let them perform. Give the show about six months to a year of runway.
So much of the problem with the women in WWE is that being conventionally beautiful is so much more important than whether you can entertain. It's a problem even for the men but the women have it so much worse. I get that it's showbiz and looks do count for something but looks are not necessarily beauty. Looks is eye-catching, too. Like Luna had a great look - yes, she looked and talked like a psychotic road warrior queen, but that's exactly what made her so compelling. It's the conventional mindset that the Divas need to be hot that needs to change and that could take time. Give me an average to plain looking one who can f*cking GO in the ring any day. As far as I'm concerned, in wrestling and just about any show, being entertaining is the bottom line. There's no shortage of great women wrestlers working around the world who would be delighted to work for WWE, particularly a WWE where the women aren't latently viewed as trinkets to decorate the show, but where they're taken seriously.0 -
Naming the thread the Divas thread is part of the problem /SJW
Thats what female wrestlers are called in the WWE and we have only been discussing WWE. You could cite NXT and how generally they aren't called Divas there but nobody is really disputing how the women are being used on NXT and are instead disputing how the women on the main roster, where they have a Divas title not a womens title, are being used0 -
I think the joshi action from Japan in the 90s showed that women can perform just as well as the men when given a chance.
I don't think a female-only show is the way forward as I'm not sure the depth of talent is there right now but I do think they need to start treating women's wrestling more seriously. Sadly I'd say there's fat chance of that when women's wrestling right now in WWE seems to revolve around Total Divas. I think they just need to condition the viewers into appreciating the athleticism of the women, rather than sex appeal.
I watched a match the other day from about 2002 or 2003 and it was Trish vs Jazz. The first thing Lawler blurted out when Trish's music hit was, 'Woo! Puppies! Puppies, J.R.!' and then during a spot where Jazz had her foot on the back of Trish, the camera zoomed in leading Lawler to declare, 'Oooh I love that shot, J.R.' The depressing thing was this was a good match and much better than you'd see nowadays, but the viewers were being told that the match quality was secondary to how the women looked.
If they really wanted to make a woman's division work they could target signings based on pure wrestling ability rather than look, and up this criteria to about 50% of all hired women. I can't see it happening though. Personally I'd rather watch two average-looking women put on a high quality match than watch two models stink up the joint, flopping about like salmon.'It is better to walk alone in the right direction than follow the herd walking in the wrong direction.'
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It's possible that Lawler set back womens wrestling in North America a number of years, he really was an amazingly detrimental factor.
Nobody seems to care about the divas division in WWE. The fans don't care, the creative don't care, their ppvs matches are usually throw-away short affairs designed to be a buffer between featured matches.
You have to give the people a reason to care, characters that are relatable and that you can get behind and focus, you have to actually focus on creating stories for these characters rather than having a bunch of interchangeable women. If you were to put the focus on athleticism, action and strong characters then there's a lot of tripe that would need to be cut from the current division.0 -
Rousey being such a big draw for UFC should have been a wakeup call for them. No reason they can't have their own Ronda Rousey. To be fair to Stephanie, with regard to what AJ said, her husband has been a big supporter in NXT. Unfortunately Vince and Kevin Dunn are still stuck in the 1950's.0
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To be fair, you have to consider that AJ is married to the man who has perhaps the biggest victim's complex in the history of wrestling. So, while there's merit to what she said, when you consider that no matter what the Brooks' will find a way to have a problem with and moan about ANYTHING in wrestling, it undermines her point somewhat.0
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The thing is that most of the girls can go to some extent. The only ones who definitely can't are Eva Marie and Rosa Mendes. Eva has the excuse of being green and she's rarely used as more than a jobber when they don't have anyone else. Cameron is borderline. She's green but she IS improving and she does perform decently on Superstars and Main Event - plus she is very good with her character and knows how to work a crowd. She still has several obvious slip ups whenever she wrestles live - but she's coming along in the right direction. And like Eva, she's never used as anything besides a jobber. She's only ever won two singles matches since she debuted. She has definite potential and being given more matches regularly will help her improve. Tamina Snuka is another borderline case. She was called up too soon and shows obvious issues with her work. She plays her character well but she's very hit and miss
AJ Lee and Paige are two curious ones. I personally think AJ is better in the ring than she's given credit for; she shows great awareness of psychology, better than a lot of the others. Her main problem though is that sometimes she's on and a lot of the time she's off. When she wants to she can put on great matches. She's just not very well suited to being a babyface, despite her size. Paige is another one who plays her character nicely and has a few moves she does well - but her bumps always look off and she doesn't sell very well. She's always been a rather average worker but she looks the part and makes up for it with personality
Out of the other Divas (besides the obvious good workers like Natalya, Emma, Becky, Sasha, Naomi) Layla is actually pretty underrated. When she returned in 2012 she was something else. During her face run she was mostly wrestling on Superstars but she was putting on very good matches. She helped carry Eve through a lot when she was still adjusting to wrestling as a heel. Layla is a lot more suited to being a face in the ring, mostly because she has a tendency to overcompensate with comedy spots when she's heel. She's often a comedy spot monkey - throwing spots into the match with no real reason. But when she's face, she's playful but inevitably has to get serious. That being said, her work in the Slayers with Summer Rae was surprisingly good. They made for a good tag team. Bellas have evolved into very good workers, though Brie continues to have issues with her character and how she presents herself. Nikki has always been the more solid of the two, able to lead a match and work with newer girls where Brie can't0 -
Actually I don't think it is at all fair to discount what AJ has to say simply because she's married to CM Punk. As far as I am aware, AJ hasn't to date been publicly critical about WWE, so to dismiss it as just another whinge from the Brooks household is a cop out.To be fair, you have to consider that AJ is married to the man who has perhaps the biggest victim's complex in the history of wrestling. So, while there's merit to what she said, when you consider that no matter what the Brooks' will find a way to have a problem with and moan about ANYTHING in wrestling, it undermines her point somewhat.0 -
A lot of divas don't look like they can actually fight which is a draw back.
Recently the better matches among the main roster girls tend to feature Paige, Nattie and Alicia.
If they stopped using the women for throw away, light relief aka piss breaks they could add serious value. The problem is how they have conditioned fans to see them as completely unimportant. It would be a big ask to recondition fans if they stick with traditional diva types.
They really need new blood, booked like wrestlers and not divas. If they booked them like the men you could add some high quality superstars. With a highly prized championship. Even if they don't take it that serious they could still stumble across the next rock or Cena who can go onto chatshows etc, sell lots of merchandise to kids, young adults. At a time where young women are encouraged to stay fit and healthy it would be a very good time to have positive role models in women.0 -
They really need new blood, booked like wrestlers and not divas. If they booked them like the men you could add some high quality superstars. With a highly prized championship. Even if they don't take it that serious they could still stumble across the next rock or Cena who can go onto chatshows etc, sell lots of merchandise to kids, young adults. At a time where young women are encouraged to stay fit and healthy it would be a very good time to have positive role models in women.
Well I think WWE's women have the fit and healthy bit covered, it's the other stuff that's a concern. They're still portraying the women as 3rd rate compared to the men. They're made to act weak/mawkish/bitchy/vain and with a general shallowness of character. I don't know if it's because someone high up in WWE thinks little of the women or if it's just an unspoken societal thing, but whatever it is needs to be removed. That's why I hope there's more pressure put on WWE to give the women an equal chance.
The WWE keeps a pretty clean facade but ever more it seems like an awful lot is not right on the inside.0 -
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Actually I don't think it is at all fair to discount what AJ has to say simply because she's married to CM Punk. As far as I am aware, AJ hasn't to date been publicly critical about WWE, so to dismiss it as just another whinge from the Brooks household is a cop out.
It'd be naive to assume that a wife wouldn't talk to her husband about work (especially when he used to work there too) and that her calling out her bosses publicly and trying to catch them with their pants down in a loose effort to enact some kind of 'change' was purely of her own accord, given that it's the exact thing her husband is now known for.
Again, not saying that it makes her any less right in what she said. Punk had some good points too. But it makes her look like she's drinking his kool aid and is more likely to get eyes rolling than to enforce any meaningful change. If she genuinely wanted to do something, it's probably the wrong way to go about it.
I don't even think fans are genuinely crying out for divas to be a central part of the programming though. Fair enough if there was a Rousey-like phenom that had eyeballs glued to the screen who was being held down, but there's not right now that I can see. There's not even a Trish Stratus with crossover appeal, movie star looks and in-ring chops. They have some talent, but not one genuine superstar on the roster right now, much less a Ronda Rousey (who's possibly as impressive as any man to compete in UFC history). An equivalent of Rousey would be bumping Cena promos and the likes off the show. Paige is at that level, is she? Come on. And no, that's not WWE's fault either. Superstars don't need an 'opportunity', they make it for themselves. Rousey, for example, was once told she'd never compete in UFC until it became stupid for them not to use her.
Making the likes of Superstars a Divas show would be a decent idea, but that's because Superstars doesn't particularly matter and the move could boost ratings for an already poorly-watched show. That's about all they're really due in a business sense. It's probably the most thin Divas roster in years, minus the NXT girls (and even then that's just raw talent succeeding in a small pond).0 -
Dismissing a Women's Wrestling show is a bit silly tbh, I don't think at present it could work because obviously the roster doesn't have enough depth, in numbers and in talent but it could potentially work given the right circumstances I mean all you have to do is look at the likes of Shimmer (Also where Emma came from) and you can see people enjoy it.
Women have maybe 2 mins promo time a week on Raw and Smackdown? How is that supposed to build characters or make people interested? It's not. The "Divas" are models trained how to wrestle with the purpose of them being to take up a few minutes on every show so feminists don't complain(Probably not accurate but you know what I mean), they're models so the Men don't completely dismiss them.
Don't get me wrong I mean Trish was "just a model" trained in and turned out great but look at the main roster Divas past Paige Natayla and Emma, not a lot of wrestling talent there...If they separate Women from the main roster and NXT, pick their best 10-15 add a few from Shimmer and DWOW and there you have a strong womens roster for an hour long weekly show, do promo's, build feuds, put on great matches and I think people would be interested.
As for the one's who can't wrestle, just let them accompany people to the ring and play the "manager" role on the main roster. Alternatively and more realistically give the Women 20-30 minutes a week on Smackdown. A sad state of affairs right now for sure.0 -
Wasn't going to post about it on Boards but I just saw this made the WorldStarHipHop website. A site that puts up "Fail" videos as well as people fighting in ghettos in America.
Below is totally an angle to get the male wrestler over and all the videos put out about it have all been from the Wrestling promotion themselves which is called Beyond Wrestling. First raw camera phone footage on their Facebook and then yesterday lunchtime a HD quality video from three different angles. It is the latest Twitter controversy in Wrestling.
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Wincing at that chair shot. Ouch. Her hand being up didn't seem to help much.0
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The issue I have with that is how reckless that chair shot was, regardless of the sex of the person taking it. That was too unsafe and he put her health at major risk. The follow up crucifix powerbomb was just as reckless, as her weight should have been taken into account for the move. She naturally would have gone further than the bigger male wrestlers that would have taken the move, and it's clear he didn't plan for it, resulting into another too dangerous spot.
I've no problem with working stiff or pulling off dangerous looking spots, but an actual dangerous spot done sloppy like this has no place in wrestling.0 -
Madness for something like that to happen in the post-Benoit era. We now know the risks associated with unprotected chair shots and there can be no justification for them.
She's an idiot for consenting to it, and he's a waste of space for not objecting to it.'It is better to walk alone in the right direction than follow the herd walking in the wrong direction.'
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Dull interview from Nikki, someone has had a word with her. :P
http://www.diva-dirt.com/108057/nikki-bella-talks-givedivasachance-explains-booking-of-30-second-match/Divas Champion Nikki Bella recently spoke to Mark Madden from 105.9 in Pittsburgh, PA, discussing AJ Lee‘s WWE complaints, the infamous 30 second match that sparked #GiveDivasAChance and more.
While she agreed that Divas deserve more time on TV, she didn’t appear to share AJ’s criticisms towards WWE’s pay disparity:
“We’re all here because we’re living our dreams. Whether it’s two minutes or twenty minutes on TV, I’m beyond grateful for that, because there are millions of people that wish they could get two minutes in that ring, and they can’t, so I’m not going to be one to bitch about it. But do I think Divas should definitely get more time on TV? 100%. But do I think pay is different? No.”
Nikki argues that Divas don’t have the star power to make the money of top men like John Cena, Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar:
“Let me put it this way: if a Diva was to headline a show, would those seats sell out like it does when John Cena’s headlining? Roman Reigns? Brock Lesnar? Absolutely not. We’re not there yet. We’re trying to get there, but we’re not there yet. As far as merch goes, we all get the same percentage, so I don’t know why anyone’s crying about it. We all make the exact same percentage, so it’s like, sell more merch if you wanna be like the guys. At the end of the day, we’re in a man’s world. People show up to watch men wrestle, and they look at us the ‘pretty things on the side’, but I think slowly, we’re changing people’s minds about that. It’s not gonna happen overnight, but eventually we’re gonna get there. We just need patience and time.”
She went on to explain what went on in the infamous 30 second Divas match that sparked the #GiveDivasAChance fan movement, claiming that it was an idea conceived by herself, Brie, Paige and Emma with the aim of telling a story:
“What’s funny about that is we were given about three minutes. Three to four minutes. And we – us four girls who were in the match – we put our heads together and said look: we can either give them a two minute match, or we can give them nothing and get Brie and I so much heat and tell a great story…We’re not gonna give people three minutes of BS, and it ended up being a big chance. It ended up turning into #GiveDivasAChance trending worldwide for two days. I mean, we could’ve gone out there, done a few moves and called it a day, but we were like, ‘How do we tell a great story?’ and at the end of the day, that’s what we did. Brie and I got good heat at the end of it, we got trended for two days straight, and it was like, ‘Whoa. We’re storytelling now.’ And that’s what puts the Divas on the next level. Instead of just going out there and doing moves, we storytell. ‘Cause that’s what the boys do, and that’s what we need to do.”0 -
Yeah, because it took Ronda so many fights after her UFC debut to become a headling draw...0
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I would be a firm believer that the women who have headlined in the past got there themselves.0
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Thought AJ and Brie on Smackdown was pretty solid. They got almost 10 minutes too :eek:0
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