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Fixing the Diva's Division


Mad Dog

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I think that a focus on longer singles matches and individual development (with the creation of a hierarchy) really is key. Paige & Sasha had a very good 14 minute match on RAW last month. Nikki & Paige had a strong 12 minute match in January. That's not a difficult level for them to achieve and maintain at all.

 

Get away, away, away from the sprint mentality.

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The characters all seem to be derived from a template of jealous, mentally unstable, catty chicks who despise all other females. The way they act on the shows is so far removed from real women it's ridiculous.

Sounds like the writers did a good job then...that is literally how they were told to write/book the girls under Vince/Dunn.

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This entire Divas Revolution has no real substance. Its all just a big wink and nudge aimed at the "hipster' wrestling fan (NXT viewers) and the vocal minority that started the #givedivasachance stuff. All of this was mis-read by WWE yet again. WWE viewed the Full Sail, on-the-road, and online crowds praise of Lynch, Charlotte, Sasha, and Bailey's work as - HEY PEOPLE WANT TO SEE MORE DIVA ACTION~! Instead of realizing that no one is calling for more Brie Bella matches, but an actual complete elimination of the status quo. If WWE were to have a roster split today and send The Bellas, Alicia Fox, Rosa, Eva Marie, Cameron, and Summer Rae to Smackdown down and put Sasha, Becky, Charlotte, Kanna, Bailey, Natalie, Paige, and Namoai on Raw fighting for the title...I am sure everything (well the majority of the current 'problems' ) will fix itself.

 

For the longest time the fans have told WWE that they do not care for olives. And what does WWE do? Instead of removing the olives from the salad, the company decides to toss in cheese, onions, and othwer ingredients while not removing the main reason for people dis-likning the dish. Its all self-congratulatory. Everytime I see Becky Lynch walk to the ring she has a smug "I had a MOTYC" look on her face. Charlotte is the same coupled in with her being Flair's daughter and Paige has the same look of self-importance as a random person hanging around a bunch of celebrities. Its a bit too meta for me while being completely out-of-touch. How WWE manages that duality on a weekly basis while keeping a straight face is beyond me.

 

The whole reason Paige wanted 'change' is because she wanted Nikki dethoned. Since the new girls came in the title has NOT been the focus at all. For some reason teaming up with each other is more important. What is the end goal? For WWE this is a lame duck session to keep the title on Nikki for as long as they can in order to break AJs record. For the fans, this is a non-sensical affair where no one cares for the fucking title. Why would Sasha, Becky, and Charlotte leave NXT if they don't want to become Divas champion? They can still be friends with Paige and tag with her here-and-there, but they should be going after the gold and going over the veteran divas like Fox and Cameron to slowly start establishing the new pecking order. Its just all really bullshit.

 

The whole 'wins and losses doesn't matter' stuff from Nikki was really the shit icing on a turd cake.

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I mentioned this last week but thinking that "getting rid of the Bellas" will fix everything is completely unrealistic. As long as Total Divas is on the air and Nikki is with Cena they will have a spot for as long as they want one. Even when Nikki loses the title they won't all of a sudden be buried and off TV.

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The division needs to be built around Sasha. And that doesn't mean that she needs to be champ, but the visible top of the division. The heel champ who the face challenger chases, the non-champ heel who the new babyface has to get through to get to the champ, the top star who the champ has to beat to prove they are legitimate, etc.

 

They need to establish clear heel/face dynamics. Sasha, Emma, Alicia, and Nikki are all fine heels. Charlotte, Nattie, Becky, and then eventually Bayley can function fine as the faces. Paige and Naomi seem like they could easily pull off the heel who doesn't know they're a heel sort of approach.

 

Those women need to be the division, then maybe work in Kana, Alexa Bliss, and Dana Brooke when they are more ready. Summer Rae, Brie, Lana, Cameron, Tamina, etc. need to be kept out of wrestling roles. Valets, or enforcer for Tamina, should be their roles.

 

Keep the division as the women's division and build feuds that are about the women as characters and not as bitchy Vince ideals.

I think adding Charlotte to non-wrestling role would be a better fit than active wrestler, but I agree in general with this post. She's a great example of Dave's point about the NXT women's matches being super rehearsed. Every time she's given the spotlight on the main roster, she's fumbled rather badly.

 

veteran divas like Fox and Cameron

That's so sad when you think about it. Baffling that people complain about Nikki who is perfectly fine in ring while praising Alicia who just recently almost killed that Tough Enough chick with a side slam.

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You will not be able to stay home, brother
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag
And skip out for bathroom breaks during heatless matches put in the death spot
Because the Divas Revolution will not be televised

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The division needs to be built around Sasha. And that doesn't mean that she needs to be champ, but the visible top of the division. The heel champ who the face challenger chases, the non-champ heel who the new babyface has to get through to get to the champ, the top star who the champ has to beat to prove they are legitimate, etc.

 

They need to establish clear heel/face dynamics. Sasha, Emma, Alicia, and Nikki are all fine heels. Charlotte, Nattie, Becky, and then eventually Bayley can function fine as the faces. Paige and Naomi seem like they could easily pull off the heel who doesn't know they're a heel sort of approach.

 

Those women need to be the division, then maybe work in Kana, Alexa Bliss, and Dana Brooke when they are more ready. Summer Rae, Brie, Lana, Cameron, Tamina, etc. need to be kept out of wrestling roles. Valets, or enforcer for Tamina, should be their roles.

 

Keep the division as the women's division and build feuds that are about the women as characters and not as bitchy Vince ideals.

I think adding Charlotte to non-wrestling role would be a better fit than active wrestler, but I agree in general with this post. She's a great example of Dave's point about the NXT women's matches being super rehearsed. Every time she's given the spotlight on the main roster, she's fumbled rather badly.

 

veteran divas like Fox and Cameron

That's so sad when you think about it. Baffling that people complain about Nikki who is perfectly fine in ring while praising Alicia who just recently almost killed that Tough Enough chick with a side slam.

 

 

Yeah Nikki isn't really bad in the ring for the most part. The shit she is feed to say/comes up with during promos really negates everything she has done.

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It's been touched on above, but this 3-way faction war has caused the Bellas's face/heel positioning to be all over the place. It's hard to build heat on characters who're face when facing Team BAD and heel when facing anyone else. The Bellas should always be heels in this "war" - not only is Nikki the Divas champion, but the Bellas are blessed with the most annoying voices on the planet. Give Nikki some mic time (but not on commentary....awful) and you could stick any Divas out there against her for a face pop.

 

Has there actually been a Divas title match since this "revolution" started? Winning a 3-way tag match at Summerslam doesn't mean much if no-one seems interested in becoming champion. No-one has even hinted at wanting a title match, they just want to "save the division from the Bellas", which doesn't seem to really mean anything.

 

As regards Tamina, I don't think she's as bad as people say. She's got great presence, throws a mean superkick and has been in some good matches. I remember a PPV match vs Beth Phoenix that was booked as a hoss match, and was really fun. She should be booked as the female gatekeeper, like Meng in WCW, but I can't remember the last time I saw her win a singles match.

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It's been said earlier, I don't know if WWE people realize that in their WWEUNIVERSEBRAND bubble, but the term "diva" when you talk about a woman (hell, or a man), is a pretty negative, derogatory term. Makes all these woman sound like they are some big-headed obnoxious annoying bitches. That's what a diva is, unless you're working in the classical lyrical realm.

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It's been said earlier, I don't know if WWE people realize that in their WWEUNIVERSEBRAND bubble, but the term "diva" when you talk about a woman (hell, or a man), is a pretty negative, derogatory term. Makes all these woman sound like they are some big-headed obnoxious annoying bitches. That's what a diva is, unless you're working in the classical lyrical realm.

You know they just don't care.

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Dave's point on the Raw Recap was an apt one: they never told you on NXT that the women were revolutionising women's wrestling! From the start, it's been ham-fisted. But, I mean the thing to bear in mind with the Bellas is, they're not going to be around for that much longer. Nor, for the reasons above, could WWE have threw them under the bus. Sasha's ten years younger than them, and to my knowledge there's only Becky (was it a concussion? or a neck injury?) of the NXT girls with any mileage on her. Bryan stumbled around for his first, what, eighteen months in the company? Punk was around for a few years (admittedly with a high upper-mid-card profile) before they pushed him into a main event position. Dolph winning the title in NJ was several years into his run with the company. I mean if there's one thing somewhat-positive about the stagnancy of the product it's that guys can tread water for longer than they could've in the past before they're truly relegated into "mid carders for life".

 

What hasn't been mentioned is, whilst I'd like the girls to rebuff some of the material they're given, and whereas a guy with sufficient name and talent has the ability to make a good living outside the WWE (AJ Styles is a good example), the girls don't have that option; their egg shells are that bit more brittle.

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A lot of the major issues have been addressed. The groups hurt it. All lip service. No great singles matches.

 

Sasha as top heel champ I like, but there are holes in her game too. She's not the best promo, so bring in more of the UFC style video soundbites packages they used in NXT. Also, as minor and stupid as this is, she needs to portray that heel attitude more. She smiles a lot, and it's a nice smile, an endearing one. Stop that.

 

They have a real luxury in that PPV crowds are predominantly hardcore fans nowadays, so it's actually easier than ever to deliver the big matches on the big stage and create the perception this thing is working. The issue is TV, and the comedy is that, if the Divas' revolution was supposed to get them the same treatment as the guys, their TV booking for the guys is completely ineffective at creating stars, casts everybody as a midcarder, and does a generally average to poor job of creating anything of real interest outside the top two matches for the next PPV. Obviously we are all hoping and striving for more out of what they do, but it's not just a female mould they have to break to get over in a major way, it's a WWE mould, and the girls complaining on Twitter makes me think they're completely oblivious to that.

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Everything you can say about fixing the product overall can be applied to the women.

 

-Establish heroes and villains and reasons for them being so

-Have reasons for feuds/rivalries beyond the superficial

-Show us what motivates the talent to be here and not working a 9-5 desk job

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With Vince around it will never be fixed. They have already let the new fans know it is not a revolution. The NXT girls coming out to Paige's music doesn't sound like one to most people. Also that segment on Raw with Miz was brutal and killed it with the most hardcore fanbase (the ones there and whoever was watching after SS). Charlotte didn't even get the expected easy pop by referencing the Horsemen.

 

The one that may have a chance if she can wrestle (never seen her) is Alexa Bliss because her looks meet the Vince/Dunn criteria.

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I'd keep Nikki heel and have her actually start defending the title on most shows and actually gets wins over most of the women coming up from NXT, except for whoever the hand picked person was to dethrone her. Make it a selling point that she is actually doing this, heck subtly bring out the Cena connection to really tick off the fans as much as possible. Make her losing the title a huge epic moment, build a division that seems to be going somewhere These random pointless tag matches have to go, Bellas vs. AJ/Paige was more logically booked than this stuff has been.

 

I think Nikki should probably finish out the year as top heel, feuding with Charlotte or whoever goes over on her, while building Sasha as the next big heel once the Bellas leave their spot. People who want this done ASAP are forgetting they tried that with Paige and it blew up in their faces. Whether that was Dunn tampering or the difference between how NXT matches work and how WWE works on the road night in and night out, it failed and trying the same thing with Charlotte or Sasha will produce the same results.

 

But as said, with Total Divas on the air, the Bellas are here for the next few years, though I wonder if at some point Brie will have enough. She needs to be kept out of the ring, I would have her challenge whoever is going to beat Nikki to a loser leaves WWE match to send her to NXT. You make a story of Nikki being toast without her sister for backup, and then Nikki actually starts winning matches on her own for the title makes the title change after Night of Champions mean a lot more.

 

But none of this would happen until Vince is in the grave.

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I just watched this week NXT, and there were two women's match on it. And I ask myself this question, how many of these girls are really that good ? Because honestly, Carmella vs Eva Marie was awful. Eva Marie is drop dead gorgeous, but she's no worker. Carmella, no idea. She wasn't as over as when she comes out alongside Enzo & Cas (is she still with them ?).
And then there was a four way match between Charlotte, Becky Lynch, Emma & Dana Brooks. Not impressed by Dana. Charlotte, not a big fan either especially because her entire gimmick nowadays is being Ric's daughter. The Wooo, the strut, the chops, the figure 8 (?), the kneedrop. Way too much referential gimmicky too me, it's not doing her any favour, and doesn't put over her athlecisism. Ok, Becky's good, and I like what I saw of Emma too. The ending was odd though, Emma seemed surprised to have won, and the annoying "for the win" of the announcers, followed by an awkward reaction tells me that there was some screw up there. If not, well, that was pretty odd.
Anyway, my question for the regular NXT followers, what is the consensus on all the girls ?

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