Fixing the Diva's Division

[Loss]

When wrestling is great, it's a lot like Heathers.

[Jingus]

I'd say wrestling at its worst is a whole lot like Heathers. Homophobia, fat-shaming, slut-shaming, bad jokes, people being judged in a shallow manner on their perceived popularity rather than any serious weighing of their individual merit, and especially the general atmosphere which implies that everyone absolutely hates everyone else and that a fistfight is the inevitable result of saying "hello" to one of your peers. And oh yeah, tons of people dying way too young.

[goodhelmet]

OUCH.... Jingus sort of nailed it.

[Jingus]

(I must admit for the record that I fucking hate Heathers and personally find it to be an obnoxious, smug, nihilistic film without an ounce of real humor or human warmth within its entire running time.)

[Loss]

I get that, and sometimes I wish it was more sensible too, but both are a satirical take on cultural excess. The biggest difference is that people in wrestling are in on the joke far less than they are blissfully unaware that they are parodying themselves.

[donsem43]

The Bellas vs. B.A.D. from Main Event was interesting. Both teams worked heel, but the Bellas had a noticeable face reaction from the women in the crowd. If they keep going with this they'll have 7 heels and 3 faces, with Natalya back. I don't know if this means they'll start cutting down the number of women that they feature or what. I really hope they don't break up B.A.D. since all 3 seem to really enjoy working together and its done a lot for Naomi's in-ring work.

 

Coincidental fun fact: before getting into wrestling, Kana/Asuka was working in the video game industry, both as a designer and a magazine writer. Even had XBox 360 sponsorship for a few years in wrestling.

[Jmare007]

Shouldn't Sasha be a nominee for "Superstar of the Year" in this year's Slammys? I mean if they are serious about this "revolution" it would be fitting to give her a chance to win after an outstanding year were not a lot of people outside of her has really stand out.

[Migs]

The Bellas vs. B.A.D. from Main Event was interesting. Both teams worked heel, but the Bellas had a noticeable face reaction from the women in the crowd. If they keep going with this they'll have 7 heels and 3 faces, with Natalya back. I don't know if this means they'll start cutting down the number of women that they feature or what. I really hope they don't break up B.A.D. since all 3 seem to really enjoy working together and its done a lot for Naomi's in-ring work.

 

 

Speaking as the husband of a woman who owns two Nikki Bella t-shirts - if Total Divas works to get women watching, the Bellas are going to be babyfaces. The show treats them as such (really, it treats almost everyone that way, other than Eva Marie and Summer Rae, when she was on). In some ways, Total Divas has given them the chance to do some more nuanced character building with the women. Whereas the women used to get no time to build a character - now they have a whole television show that has, over time, developed the on-screen personality of many of them, and could push them beyond more traditional face/heel dynamics. The Bellas are a good example - they can both do very unpleasant things on the show, but the overall response to them is positive, even if one may be positioned as in the wrong in a particular episode. Will WWE ever actually write to that level of nuance on Raw? Probably not.

[Russellmania]

Shouldn't Sasha be a nominee for "Superstar of the Year" in this year's Slammys? I mean if they are serious about this "revolution" it would be fitting to give her a chance to win after an outstanding year were not a lot of people outside of her has really stand out.

I will be *shocked* if this happens. They're more likely to nominate Charlotte. Sasha has been on fire, but it has been mostly in NXT so as far as WWE is concerned it practically never happened. Charlotte winning the title on the main roster > anything Sasha has done in WWE canon unfortunately.

[Russellmania]

 

The Bellas vs. B.A.D. from Main Event was interesting. Both teams worked heel, but the Bellas had a noticeable face reaction from the women in the crowd. If they keep going with this they'll have 7 heels and 3 faces, with Natalya back. I don't know if this means they'll start cutting down the number of women that they feature or what. I really hope they don't break up B.A.D. since all 3 seem to really enjoy working together and its done a lot for Naomi's in-ring work.

 

 

Speaking as the husband of a woman who owns two Nikki Bella t-shirts - if Total Divas works to get women watching, the Bellas are going to be babyfaces. The show treats them as such (really, it treats almost everyone that way, other than Eva Marie and Summer Rae, when she was on). In some ways, Total Divas has given them the chance to do some more nuanced character building with the women. Whereas the women used to get no time to build a character - now they have a whole television show that has, over time, developed the on-screen personality of many of them, and could push them beyond more traditional face/heel dynamics. The Bellas are a good example - they can both do very unpleasant things on the show, but the overall response to them is positive, even if one may be positioned as in the wrong in a particular episode. Will WWE ever actually write to that level of nuance on Raw? Probably not.

 

a big problem is that the women on Total Divas are nothing like their gimmicks on the actual wrestling show. It makes for a really strange dynamic where whatever crossover audience you get might show up to a show and cheer for someone they like on Total Divas even if it's totally inconsistent with the kind of reaction they're trying to get.

[shakla]

I'm not sure if Sasha will even be a nominee for the Diva of the Year Slammy, let alone Superstar. I don't think NXT work counts and she hasn't been consistently positioned high in the "Organically Formed" Trios Revolution.

[Matt D]

In the set up promo to the Sasha vs Bayley stuff it bugged me a bit how much they hyped being the best at "woman's wrestling" instead of just wrestling, if that made sense. It didn't seem real to their characters.

[Goodear]

On on hand, I think that's why they called it an Iron Man match rather than re-gender the term like the annoying Lumber Jill match. On the other, I can see why as women, Bayley and Boss Sash don't want to be completely divorced from having to overcome so much as women. Its important that as women they are breaking boundaries.

[Ready_Willing_Gable]

 

 

The Bellas vs. B.A.D. from Main Event was interesting. Both teams worked heel, but the Bellas had a noticeable face reaction from the women in the crowd. If they keep going with this they'll have 7 heels and 3 faces, with Natalya back. I don't know if this means they'll start cutting down the number of women that they feature or what. I really hope they don't break up B.A.D. since all 3 seem to really enjoy working together and its done a lot for Naomi's in-ring work.

 

 

Speaking as the husband of a woman who owns two Nikki Bella t-shirts - if Total Divas works to get women watching, the Bellas are going to be babyfaces. The show treats them as such (really, it treats almost everyone that way, other than Eva Marie and Summer Rae, when she was on). In some ways, Total Divas has given them the chance to do some more nuanced character building with the women. Whereas the women used to get no time to build a character - now they have a whole television show that has, over time, developed the on-screen personality of many of them, and could push them beyond more traditional face/heel dynamics. The Bellas are a good example - they can both do very unpleasant things on the show, but the overall response to them is positive, even if one may be positioned as in the wrong in a particular episode. Will WWE ever actually write to that level of nuance on Raw? Probably not.

 

a big problem is that the women on Total Divas are nothing like their gimmicks on the actual wrestling show. It makes for a really strange dynamic where whatever crossover audience you get might show up to a show and cheer for someone they like on Total Divas even if it's totally inconsistent with the kind of reaction they're trying to get.

 

yeah TD needs to be scrapped ASAP. More people buy into it, from a realism standpoint, than wrestling, so what does anybody get out of for example Ziggler horndogging on Nikki Bella other than make him look a pest?

[Loss]

They seem to be course-correcting with Paige, or at least they were a few weeks ago, where she was the same in both places.

 

Overly neurotic Natalya would be an outstanding wrestling character.

[Russellmania]

 

 

 

The Bellas vs. B.A.D. from Main Event was interesting. Both teams worked heel, but the Bellas had a noticeable face reaction from the women in the crowd. If they keep going with this they'll have 7 heels and 3 faces, with Natalya back. I don't know if this means they'll start cutting down the number of women that they feature or what. I really hope they don't break up B.A.D. since all 3 seem to really enjoy working together and its done a lot for Naomi's in-ring work.

 

 

Speaking as the husband of a woman who owns two Nikki Bella t-shirts - if Total Divas works to get women watching, the Bellas are going to be babyfaces. The show treats them as such (really, it treats almost everyone that way, other than Eva Marie and Summer Rae, when she was on). In some ways, Total Divas has given them the chance to do some more nuanced character building with the women. Whereas the women used to get no time to build a character - now they have a whole television show that has, over time, developed the on-screen personality of many of them, and could push them beyond more traditional face/heel dynamics. The Bellas are a good example - they can both do very unpleasant things on the show, but the overall response to them is positive, even if one may be positioned as in the wrong in a particular episode. Will WWE ever actually write to that level of nuance on Raw? Probably not.

 

a big problem is that the women on Total Divas are nothing like their gimmicks on the actual wrestling show. It makes for a really strange dynamic where whatever crossover audience you get might show up to a show and cheer for someone they like on Total Divas even if it's totally inconsistent with the kind of reaction they're trying to get.

 

yeah TD needs to be scrapped ASAP. More people buy into it, from a realism standpoint, than wrestling, so what does anybody get out of for example Ziggler horndogging on Nikki Bella other than make him look a pest?

 

well another big problem is that Total Divas does more to make me care about any of these women than WWE does.

[donsem43]

So is Sara Del Ray working with the women on the main roster now? Has Sara Stock took over in NXT? I'm just curious because Stock just finished up her last tours of Mexico and Japan. Also, Nikki Bella and Naomi have looked really good the last couple of weeks, so that's why I'm assuming Del Ray is the main reason for that.

[thebrainfollower]

It's funny, everyone was saying get the title off Nikki was priority #1. Now I think they need to figure out a #1 face. Sasha and Nikki are the top workers in the division IMO. Would either work half as well as a face? With Paige going heel and Charlotte not really doing that great IMO it's a problem unless you wanna have Becky Lynch step up or throw a hail Mary with Bailey,

 

I actually think Bailey taking on all these supermodel types would be a great empowering story for young women, but it's WWE so I am not holding my breath.

[Russellmania]

the problem is that the main roster has kind of an imbalance of heels/faces IMO.

 

Charlotte, Paige, Nikki, Brie and Sasha are all natural heels. that leaves Becky, Naomi, and Nattie as natural faces, but Naomi is a heel for some reason. Foxy is a good heel, but I have a hunch should could be a killer loose cannon face if they booked it right.

 

I wish they'd give Becky more of a push because she's the best natural babyface they have (not counting Bayley yet).

[thebrainfollower]

I watched Nikki vs Paige from Smackdown which is a great match but watch Charlotte. Her performance at ringside as a babyface, good lord. I've seen more charisma from just about anyone.

[ZThomas]

Noami posted on her twitter that was frustrated i dont know if its an angle. I dont want team bad to break up they are very marketable.

[donsem43]

They've been stuck on Smackdown/Main Event for the last month. She also might be frustrated over Athena signing, doubt they would keep two black women with a similar skill set on the roster for long.

[Loss]

I think the issue with Charlotte is that she has a great look and some awesome natural talents. She can also be carried to a great match. But she needs a certain amount of booking protection. With a few more years in NXT, she might have picked up on everything and I don't have a feel for if she is improving with more WWE time or not. But she's the classic example of someone who can contribute a lot and be fun to watch, but she has to be booked with a scalpel -- only opposite great ring generals, little to no promo time, camera angles that get over her height and physique, losses that are rare and have an impact when they happen, etc.

[Wade Garrett]

The division needs a serious ass kicker. A bad ass Woman who kicks ass. Not Sasha running around with her pals or Bayley and her huggin. Not Charlotte. Not Paige. A female form that is believable and kicks some ass like Rousey does in UFC. An image that is believable. A female Goldberg.

[fakeplastictrees]

Tamina would fit that role nicely.