STEP DOWN: The Divas Division
Remember a few months ago when there were 3-4 Divas programs going simultaneously across Raw, Main Event and Smackdown? You had the Brie vs. Stephanie feud, the break-up of the Funkadactyls, Summer Rae and Layla going at it, and Paige defending the Divas Championship or in non-title action on a weekly basis.
It looks like Stephanie is out of any programs featuring her. Summer and Layla were turned into a comedy duo double-dating a couple of little people in costumes, then taking off TV completely. My biggest frustration is that nothing came out of the great drama between Cameron and Naomi. They set them up to have decent singles runs, but instead both were taken off TV, and now any momentum either had is totally gone. Even Lana’s pre-match rants have gotten stale, when she does get mic time, which is pretty infrequent these days.
I don’t know why this surprises me, because it happens several times a year, but WWE gets itself really invested in certain divisions, builds it up to look great for a few months, and then totally drops the ball. It happens 100% of the time. How many tag team “revolutions” have there been? The current project is making The Usos the “best team ever”. They get one challenger at a time, so we see the same match about 15 times between TV and PPV, and the losing team gets recycled back into the roster. It’s the same with the Divas.
I’m happy to say that the Divas who are given attention are doing well with their roles. I’ve already praised the Bella Twin program, and at the very least I’m interested in seeing another Paige vs. AJ Lee wrestling match. The creepy “frenemies” thing doesn’t really do it for me though. Mickie and Trish were 10x better at selling the whole passive-aggressive stalker vibe.
Total Divas season three is starting in a few weeks, so I expect to see more of Eva Marie and Rosa Mendes on television. I can hardly wait for 10-women tag matches again.
