Hello, everybody! It’s Sunday, which means it’s time for someone to go ‘Under the Spotlight’ here on SLTD Wrestling! For those of you who do not know, this is where I take someone or something in the wrestling industry every week, and try to conceptualise it and give somewhat of a personal outlook on the situation. With Battleground taking place tonight, I don’t really want to talk about any of the main people or things involved with the show, because a lot of them could change once it’s all said and done. So I’m going to discuss one of the things that has been bugging me over the last few years in the WWE. I’m going to be discussing the Divas division, specifically the WWE Divas Champion, AJ Lee.
By now, whether you’re a casual wrestling fan or a die-hard smark, it is common knowledge that the WWE Divas division is more of an afterthought compared to the predominant male roster in the company. It’s pretty much always been like this, but in the past, the Divas had some of the most compelling moments on the show. In recent years, this has changed drastically. Instead of putting out some awesome matches, storylines and moments, we barely get a three-minute match per week. And what we do get is mostly shit. You can blame that on the difficult time slot to work with or the talent of the Divas, but whoever you blame, it’s still true.
I know I’m pretty young compared to a lot of the guys that love the industry as much as I do, but with regards to the Divas division, I would consider myself very mature. I was growing up when Divas matches were good. I was a young fan at the time, and the list of female wrestlers in the company was a lot larger than it is today. There were more characters. There were longer, more compelling matches and storylines. Women like Lita and Trish Stratus were goddesses. But the main difference was that the majority of the Divas, beautiful as they were, were wrestlers. They were there to wrestle, not to look good. They did look good, but they looked good in the ring too. The same can’t really be said about the Divas of today. It’s evident that many girls try to get jobs with the WWE because it’s a way into the modelling business, or because it’s a way to get themselves on television, in front of a huge audience. Unfortunately, the WWE digs that, because they can imagine people tuning in to see some beautiful women. Which is kind of dumb if you ask me, because I don’t really see non-wrestling fans watching a wrestling show just to see some good-looking girls, when there are many other means of doing that. The thing that Vince McMahon and the rest of the guys behind an office chair at WWE HQ can’t quite get a hold of, is that their product isn’t exactly one that appeals to numerous audiences. It appeals to wrestling fans, or soon-to-be wrestling fans. If there are some men that watch the WWE for the Divas, which I can’t see happening anyway, then they’re going to stop watching after the two or three minutes of screen-time that the Divas get. And they’re going to spend the rest of that time talking about how everything else is so “fake and gay“. Seriously, I have heard that exact phrase used to describe wrestling so many times, that it’s actually kind of funny now. It’s funny how someone can say something to make themselves look clever, when they’re actually just an ignorant, little shit. I kind of went off topic there, but screw it, this is my article. Basically, the WWE seems infatuated with hiring models instead of wrestlers. It’s a wrestling company, so you can imagine how unbelievably ridiculous that sounds. It’s not that difficult to find a good-looking woman that can actually wrestle, so why have the WWE only done that like five times in the last five years? Seriously, AJ Lee and Natalya Neidhart are the only two on the roster that can actually work. Maybe Layla, and Kaitlyn is improving, but that’s about it.
I would consider myself in the minority with regards to how I approach the WWE Divas. When watching Raw or Smackdown, most people, whether at home or in the arena itself, take any matches involving the women of the company as “piss breaks”. But I watch a Divas match with the same mind-set that I would have when watching the Superstars perform in the ring. They may be seen in a different light by the WWE itself, but at the end of the day, their official job descriptions make them wrestlers. And I like seeing how wrestlers are progressing in terms of their talent, regardless of gender. I’m not saying that the Divas are on the same level as most of the Superstars, because they’re clearly not. There’s obviously a huge difference in talent between the Superstars and the Divas of the WWE, but I would never compare them to each other. The main difference between the men and women is that most of the men are hired based on wrestling ability, and most of the women are hired based on beauty and sexiness, and it’s a plus if they have some sort of athletic background under their belt. Like I said before, the WWE have a habit of hiring models, so until we start seeing some women with more talent, you can’t really compare them to the actual wrestlers in the company. Take Cameron for example. She dances her way to the ring each week, she looks good, but can she wrestle? Hell no. In fact, you may recall her presence on the WWE’s reboot of the series ‘Tough Enough’ back in 2011. Cameron was on that show under her real name, Ariane, and she was tossed out on the first week because she sucked. She couldn’t run the ropes, she couldn’t tumble and she couldn’t do jack shit. She was the first person eliminated, yet she was the only one to actually make it to the WWE, including the winner, who was future endeavoured after a year of working in FCW, never making it to the main roster. If that’s not proof, then what is?
Over the last year and a half, there is one woman who has stood out in the WWE. Some love her, some hate her, but there’s no doubt that she has been the central Diva since the spring of 2012. Her name is AJ Lee, and she is the current WWE Divas Champion, who is getting set to defend her Title against Brie Bella tonight at Battleground. I have a particular fondness for AJ. I suppose it might be our common interests; wrestling, comic books, video games, etc., but this crazy chick can actually wrestle, which in contemporary WWE, is no small feat.
I’m going to go into a bit of a rant here, so please bear with me, because it’s going to go somewhere (hopefully). I understand that people are entitled to their own opinions, hell, if every wrestling fan had the same opinion, the industry would be boring, but most of the people that hate AJ Lee have the most idiotic reasons for it. These people embrace the fact that they’re smarks all of the time, which is nothing to be ashamed of (I’m one myself), but when AJ Lee comes into question, they are 100% mark. Think about this; the IWC is full of people who love CM Punk with a passion (myself included). They love his incredible wrestling ability, they love his god-like ability to speak on the microphone, but one of their favourite things about him is how he has risen to glory in the wrestling industry. He started off teaching himself how to wrestle, then he piled some money together to train professionally, then he took part in several wrestling shows in his area, he was hired by independent companies and then he went to Ring of Honour and then signed his first contract with World Wrestling Entertainment. He scratched and clawed his way to the top from the very bottom of the food chain, and is now one of the top guys in the WWE.
AJ Lee has had an unbelievably difficult life so far, and she’s only 26 years old. She has lived in cars, she has had to sacrifice so much to simply train to be a wrestler. She has grown up loving the business just as much as we do. She has given her life to get where she is. And last year, in 2012, she stepped up, and was given the chance to be the most interesting woman in the WWE. She was given storylines with top guys like Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, John Cena and Dolph Ziggler. She was the General Manager of Raw. She was a fundamental part in the World Heavyweight Championship rivalry leading up to Wrestlemania 28. She won her first Divas Championship on the 16th of May this year, and she has that date tattooed on the back of her neck because it was the defining moment not only of her career, but her entire life. She has achieved her dreams in her short career so far, something that each and every one of us would love to do. But why do people hate her? “Oh, because she’s a whore and she fucked a bunch of dudes in 2012 and now she’s Champion“. Fucking marks. It disgusts me that this is where some people draw the line between fact and fiction. You guys love CM Punk and Daniel Bryan because of what they’ve had to deal with in the past, and because they’re amazingly talented, so why do you hate AJ Lee? Is it her fault that WWE Creative wrote a few scripts that involved her locking lips with some of the male talent in the WWE? No, so stop being so bloody ignorant.
AJ Lee is pretty much the only girl on the roster that interests me. Natalya is very talented, but at this stage, I really don’t care about her anymore. The WWE has ruined her, and I’ve given up hope. I still like her, and I think she is highly overlooked, but with today’s treatment of the division, I’d rather see her get no TV time than to see more demeaning dancing with The Great Khali or God forbid, another flatulence gimmick. AJ has been given nothing but positive air time, which I’m happy about. If she loses tonight, then I’ll be pretty pissed off. The whole idea of AJ Lee saying that the ‘Total Divas’ were just wannabes that couldn’t make it as actresses was amazing. She said what everyone else was thinking. She also owned Jerry Lawler on commentary, and anybody who does that is good in my books. Unfortunately, I feel like WWE is more interested in the show, ‘Total Divas’, then they are in the actual Divas on Monday Night Raw. I feel like they’re going to take the Divas Championship away from AJ, just to give Brie Bella another unsuccessful drawing factor to get people to watch the “reality” show. I’d go into more detail about the show if I’d seen more than three episodes, but I haven’t, so maybe I’ll do it somewhere down the line if I catch up.
This is the part where I’m going to suggest a somewhat intriguing storyline idea, and the WWE is just going to disregard it and do nothing, so sit tight. The best case scenario, if Brie was to win the Title, would be for AJ to try and win it back. I would love to see something between the ‘Total Divas’ and perhaps the ‘Anti Divas’, which would give Paige grounds to make her much anticipated debut to WWE TV. That would be awesome. Especially if the talented side of the spectrum would get the victory. I can see a possible Heel vs. Face match happening at Survivor Series. It could be Brie Bella, Nikki Bella (if she’s healed), Natalya, Cameron and Naomi vs. AJ Lee, Paige, Tamina Snuka, Alicia Fox and Layla. I don’t know if the WWE would go for a Traditional Tag-Team Match with the Divas for Survivor Series, but if they commit to a storyline, it could pay off. Then again, this is the WWE we’re talking about, so the most likely way that they’re going to continue to book things, is Vince McMahon nailing a few pictures of the Divas to a dart board, and whoever the first dart lands on gets to win the Divas Championship. I honestly would not put it past Vinnie to do that, just to save time so he can have longer to roll around in his money while flying in his private jet. You can’t really blame him though, because that’s what I’d do if I was a multi-millionaire. Then again, I’d actually make time to come up with some good TV as well, but whatever…
I think I’ll leave it there for today, folks. I said I’d make it past 2000 words this week, and that’s what I did, so cut me some slack. I don’t really have any closing hopes, because I don’t really see them knuckling down and actually giving the Divas some time to be good at what they do, and we’re probably going to have our most talented Diva on the roster lose her Title tonight, so that’s a thing. I’ve presented you all with a simple suggestion to shake things up a bit in Divas division in the WWE, so you can’t say I wouldn’t be able to do any better, considering anything would be better than what they’re doing right now. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for change, but I hope it happens at some stage down the line. Probably not this year, maybe not next year, but some time, I want the Divas to be exciting again.
And that’s the end of that chapter! Hopefully some of you can see what I mean by this article, and it wasn’t a complete waste of time. If you did happen to enjoy it, please leave a like on Facebook, Tweet and Retweet the links and leave your Comments down below. They help us out in a huge way, so please get involved. Speaking of getting involved, you can now join the final round of the first part of the SLTD Wrestling Predictions League! Cast your picks for WWE Battleground and you could be in for some prizes! If you haven’t taken part before, do it anyway, to end the first part with some points just for the craic, and be sure to check back before Hell in a Cell to join the first round of the second leg, because everyone will be restarting at zero. Click here to join. And seeing as I’m in first place with George, click here to see who I think is going to win with my preview and predictions for each match on the card. Finally, if you wish to speak with me about wrestling, my writing, future ‘Under the Spotlight’ topics or anything at all, be sure to follow me on Twitter @AdamOB_SLTD. There’s a good chance that I’ll follow back!
Thanks for reading!
Self-Professed Conversational Wizard.
Admin, Editor and Writer for SLTD Wrestling.
Creator of 'Under the Spotlight'.
Studying Computing in Games Development.
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