Grimmas

You would take Miz over Charlotte when building a company?

What cost? Time, so you take 5 minutes away from a midcard act he doesn't care about and give it to the divas. Effort? Sure, the effort of going from treating women like a bathroom break to treating them like a viable part of their roster. What is the risk? Will people really turn off, if matches like the ones on the NXT specials are on the WWE specials and are taking up that much time? Will people turn off a 3 hour Raw if the women's match is treated with more respect and gives the women a chance to have good matches? What is the real risk of the WWE main show treating women like the way NXT treats their women?

Getting women who watch films but who don't tend to watch action films is one thing, getting women who watch TV but aren't really into sports period let alone wrestling is an entirely different proposition. Then asking them to sit around for 2 hours while they wait for the one woman they are cheering for to come on. THEN wanting them to pay money for a ticket to a live show or sign up to the network. It's a huge ask. I think Mad Max: Fury Road is a better example. Hunger Games had Jennifer Lawrence who is beloved by all, a love story and stems from a young adult series which is beloved. Girls seeing that is not a big leap. However, Mad Max: Fury Road's success is amazing. Here we have a movie based on a 30 year old Australian movie series that is pure action. The former star is insane and hated by most and it's essentially a 2 hour long car chase movie. However, it's being billed as feminist movement and has a lot of those tones. What has happened? Major success. If my wife will go and see a Mad Max movie and then will want to see it again, then anything is possible.

This is only a starting point though. You are then faced with the problem of how to try to get fans of Hunger Games or Jennifer Lawrence who aren't wrestling fans to become interested enough in wrestling to the point where they are willing to spend money. Which is a very difficult proposition. Then you look at the time and effort required to do that and you look at the projected extra revenue that would come in if it pays off. Then you do a cost-benefit analysis and work out whether it is worth trying to make a wrestling-version of a Jennifer Lawrence. If you are Vince, do you go for it? Doesn't seem that compelling to me. Hunger Games got girls who weren't fans of action movies to see them. It's not about getting hunger games fans, it's about giving women someone to cheer for.

In the Women in the WWE thread, Badlittlekitten keeps stating that all divas are worst than The Miz (except Sasha). What does everybody else think?

My take is tag teams are risk, however if you draft Afa I can't imagine somebody is going to take Sika from you in the next round. Depends on if you have someone I want and think I can trade you Sika for him Strategy!

My take is tag teams are risk, however if you draft Afa I can't imagine somebody is going to take Sika from you in the next round.

As showed by the Batista push last year. And the Roman Reigns push this year. As shown by him being easily the most successful promoter of all time and running a half-billion-dollar revenue company that draws all over the world on a scale never seen before in wrestling before, yes. I mean, if you want to go down the route of pointing to track record. I'd rather not turn this into another Vince thread, but the company is still drawing. Even if the Network has lost money. Reigns has headlined three 10,000+ gates this year already. It's not like the gates plummetted during Reigns's run. Recent losses are solely down to the Network, nothing to do with Reigns. My point was only that putting a woman's match on top even for a single PPV is asking the promoter to make a risk where he needs to take none. It's not like the demand for women in the main event is so high that it would actually be worth doing. Nobody is saying do it on a whim. What people are saying is that if women in the WWE are treated in the way they are treated in NXT then you would be in a position where you could headline a b-show with women. I don't think anybody would complain if a NXT special is headlined by women at this point.

It doesn't matter if the women drew in NXT, because NXT is the draw not the wrestlers. The fact they can run a house show with women on top, or have the women as the semi-main on every show proves that it can work. If NXT is a success than women can be featured in prominent roles and it be successful. If NXT is the draw as you initially stated, how are the women -- or anything other than the NXT brand -- successful? Can't have it both ways. NXT is the draw. NXT puts women in prominent places and is known for that.

It doesn't matter if the women drew in NXT, because NXT is the draw not the wrestlers. The fact they can run a house show with women on top, or have the women as the semi-main on every show proves that it can work. If NXT is a success than women can be featured in prominent roles and it be successful.

The tapings they are using for the first few episodes were awewsome! There will be a great start to the show, for sure! Can't wait to hear what others think of Nakamura-Strong.

Using the fact the divas now lose viewers, when they are treated as a joke is weak. Evidence it might work, NXT, UFC and TNA.

The point of the thread is, why wouldn't they try to push women the way they do in NXT. Bringing up minis, Mildred Burke and trying to wonder if Rhonda Rousey only draws the current viewers (bullshit, her McMann fight was the 3rd highest buyrate of the year) is irrelevant. Nobody is saying put the divas in the main event of the next ppv. What people are saying is ride on the coat tails of the awesome Sasha Banks and Charlotte matches and have the main roster treat the women the same way NXT does and see what happens. I believe they would be in a position to headline b-ppvs if you tried over time. Agree or disagree?

That's not what he said. He said Bayley is a jailbait retarded character. Every wrestler (except Sasha) can't lace The Miz's boots and that AJ was just there to get creeps to watch. What in those statements treats men and women equally? If his opinion was as you stated there would be no problem. I would disagree, but it wouldn't be a sexist attitude. BTW, El Torito is on my list for GWE.

It's not what I think, that's the WWEs attitude and portrayal of women and has been forever. I don't think Charlotte, Bayley, Brie, Fox, Emma etc. are any where near as good as the Miz on any level. That doesn't mean I hate women. Fact is I want women's wrestling to do well. I'm a fan of any wrestling that's good. I watched the majority of the Shimmer catalogue and found it fun for the most part. Outside of a handful (Sara, Mellissa, Serena, Madison Eagles) the work wasn't particularly good. I don't know if that is on training, the talent pool or opportunities but putting your blinders on, covering your ears and shouting'sexist!' is the easier answer I guess. But Shimmer had other positives- distinctive characters, logical booking, simple effective storytelling . . things that WWE aren't capable of outside of NXT. Sub par wrestlers in pointless paper thin programs isn't something I want to see. You are trying to argue things I am not saying. Yes, as a whole, there is a lot more better men wrestlers than women. Yes, the WWE has treated women like shit. I'm not going to sit here and debate Miz vs Charlotte, Bayley, Emma, because all three of them have had better matches than the Miz and it's pointless to the conversation. So, should they try to push Sasha Banks into a featured role in the company? How could everyone of her NXT special matches not fit into the semi-main slot of the WWE ppvs? Where does Sasha-Becky fit into your WWE/NXT MOTY's? What are you arguing here? That the WWE should never try? No women can be on par with the upper midcard WWE guys? Do you feel the women's division should always be treated like the minis? What does the UFC and NXT's portrayal of women tell us? Nothing?

If the new booking terretorial thing doesn't happen then I will go back to WCCW.

I say that's up to the individual person on how they want to do it. If they have the person on their roster that has that title and want to keep them as champion, then so be it. If they want them vacated or want different titles then so be it.

To bring it back to the real topic: If you make a real plan to treat women in the WWE, the way they are treated in NXT, would a division built around Sasha, Charlotte, Paige, Emma, Bayley and Becky, be good enough? Would that be worth trying?

No you are sexist, because you think they are jailbait, retarded and all of them (except Sasha) are worse than the Miz. See now you are veering into sexist talk. I would put Sasha on the level of all, if not the majority of WWE midcarders. Charlotte has as much potential as any WWE midcarder, probably more. Bayley has the potential to be more over than anyone in the WWE midcard. Becky, we will see. Yes, we would all love the WWE to care about things that aren't in the main event. However, saying the divas are lesser wrestlers sometimes borders on sexist behaviour. Is he necessarily though? Is saying that women wrestlers currently – as a collective group – are less ready to fill important roles on WWE television automatically a (sexist) indictment of their talent or merely a comment on the current landscape? Now and again when discussing baseball with my mom, she’ll say she doesn’t understand why women are not and/or could not play in the major leagues. She doesn’t understand why they can’t find some talented girls and groom them. My response is that women certainly could in the sense that there is not this talent or skill gulf between women and men that would make that impossible. Realistically, however, it is a long way off from happening. Boys are playing tee ball by the time they are five, little league at eight, competitive high school programs, and sometimes college baseball. A young girl is far more likely to be funneled into softball not long after little league age and almost always by high school. Of all the males that play baseball seriously through high school, only a fraction reach the major leagues and even fewer are what we would define as successful players. There are very, very few women lucky enough to even play baseball in high school. The structure/learning system is completely unbalanced and until that is fixed – which would take several generations to bear fruit under the most optimistic scenario – its very, very unlikely a a female baseball player would be able to reach the majors (even if through no fault of her own). Wrestling is obviously a bit different but the same ideas still apply. The pool of women pro wrestlers is larger than amateur female baseball players but still a fraction of the pool of male pro wrestlers. A women wrestler on the indies is going to have far fewer quality opponents to work against and learn from than her male counterparts. Out of the X-amount of male pro wrestlers, how many actually become legitimately great? There are far fewer women wrestlers which means the odds are even slimmer that several all become legitimately great at one time. I am not sure all of the high quality NXT-type programs in the world are going to change that until there is simply a high volume of women becoming wrestling fans, become wrestlers and getting the opportunities to work with quality opponents in different environments. Women can certainly main event and be top quality wrestlers from pure talent/skill standpoints. I think it might be a bit idealistic to expect that to happen overnight and to say that the pool of quality female wrestlers is significantly smaller than male wrestlers at this point in time isn’t sexist. It’s probably just the reality. Nobody is saying that SummerSlam should be headlined by women. The pool of women is smaller, nobody is arguing that. All that anybody is trying to say is that there is women out there right now who can be developed into draws and should, probably, be given that chance. Nothing you said, Stomper, I have any issue with.

Being aimed at children, does not mean you are jailbait. Being aimed for children does not mean you are retarded. AJ was aimed at perverts? I'm a pervert, because I think the talented women on the roster should get a chance to be showcased?

See now you are veering into sexist talk. I would put Sasha on the level of all, if not the majority of WWE midcarders. Charlotte has as much potential as any WWE midcarder, probably more. Bayley has the potential to be more over than anyone in the WWE midcard. Becky, we will see. Yes, we would all love the WWE to care about things that aren't in the main event. However, saying the divas are lesser wrestlers sometimes borders on sexist behaviour. Depends on if we're now treating #givedivasachance as a shoot or simply a marketing tag. They can be utilized 1000% better than they currently are on Raw/Smackdown/PPVs. There is nothing to suggest they can draw and grow the business in a meaningful way. In UFC women draw. In NXT women draw. Those are the only two promotions that have treated men and women with equal respect. Does that mean it would work in the WWE, obviously not. Does that mean we dismiss the idea, obviously not. If you believe no other diva on the rest is in the same league as The Miz, than I don't know what to tell you. Also, way to hammer home the point that you don't feel women are at men's level but throwing around terms like jailbait and retardation to describe a character. There is nothing mentally challenged or jailbaitesue about Bayley's character. To propose such an idea, shows how little you think of women.

We could do a weekly results post, like the PWI used to do in one thread?

At work now, but I bet I could find 25 nominees who I think are clearly worse. I forgot about Davey Richards and some others that are nominated. 25 might be a stretch, but there is an amount for sure.

Worst candidate yet? He is highly charismatic and can be real fun to watch. My favourite match would be against Sabu at House Party '98, but I'd only go 4 stars on that.