WWE Survivor Series 2015 Predictions

How’s it going everybody? Thomas Robinson here with a very brief prediction piece on the Survivor Series show where a new WWE World Heavyweight Champion will be crowned. It seems that the event will go on as planned, despite the ISIS terror threat. That’s good to hear as cowardly threats from ISIS really shouldn’t get in the way of a great WWE product.

Let’s get cracking. This won’t be like the huge prediction pieces from the past but I’ll just throw my predictions out there for all the matches. We’ll start with the traditional Survivor Series match between an unannounced team and another unannounced team and I believe it’s a safe bet that an unannounced team will win! Very upset that they didn’t come up with an advertised elimination match for this year’s show. It would be nice to know who will actually compete in it! However, this is a great opportunity for somebody to make a name for themselves. Do check out my top five Survivor Series elimination matches piece for SLTD Wrestling at this link as part of a lot of great content in time for Survivor Series.

Charlotte vs Paige. I personally don’t think either of these women should be the Divas Champion right now, especially not Charlotte. I have a piece lined up for SLTD about Charlotte, where I talk about why Charlotte’s Divas Title Reign has not worked. I don’t think she should retain the title and I really feel that they have to take the belt off her at this point. I think I’m going to stand by my pick of Paige to win but I can totally see Charlotte also winning as well.

Dolph Ziggler vs Tyler Breeze. Tyler Breeze has to win in this match surely? I wouldn’t put it past them to beat Breeze in his first WWE PPV match but surely Breeze has to get the win as they’ve just brought him up to the main roster unless they’re purposely setting him up to fail. There’s no real evidence that they’re planning on doing that YET and to have Ziggler beat him here would be absurd. It’s not going to be a huge win for Breeze but it does get him on the right tracks.

Undertaker and Kane vs The Wyatts. I believe it’s Bray Wyatt and Braun Strowman that’ll be representing the family. I highly doubt that WWE will have the Wyatts beat Taker and Kane. They have the Wyatts’ biggest guns out there but it’d be odd to hype Undertaker’s 25th anniversary this intensely to just beat him. I’ve seen a lot of people talking about Braun making the Undertaker pass out which I think would be one of the smarter ways to go but I’m not sure. I mentioned this for SLTD. The Wyatts should be the one that goes over if they want to promote new stars. However, this whole pay-per-view’s promotion beforehand was to promote one of their older stars. It seems very unlikely that Taker and Kane are losing.

Finally the WWE Title Tournament. I think it’s safe to say that the final is going to be Roman Reigns vs Dean Ambrose. I don’t see Alberto Del Rio beating Roman Reigns. I don’t think they’ll take a chance on Kevin Owens, although I think he’s got more of a chance of winning than Del Rio. Reports are suggesting that Reigns and Ambrose were the two most lobbied names backstage. I would be surprised if one of them didn’t turn heel. All signs from RAW indicate that it’s going to be Ambrose but I’d prefer Reigns. It’s a toss-up really about who is going over. I see Roman as being more likely to win the WWE World title but I see Dean more likely to turn heel. It would be a pretty lame for them to turn him heel after losing to Roman. It’d make sense but it’d make more sense for him to win the title by selling out to the Authority. I’m going to stand with Roman Reigns but it’s very hard to guess which of the two will win the belt.

 

TOP FIVE MOMENTS FROM WWE RAW (16/11/15)

The biggest talking point coming off of RAW was the incident involving Charlotte and Paige with the contract signing that ended the show. Out of all the things WWE could have went with as the ending segment for their go-home show before Survivor Series, I was not expecting it to be this angle and it really shouldn’t have been this angle. As I’ve mentioned before, this angle was a complete failure and you can read my thoughts about it by clicking on this link.

It’s a shame because this week’s edition of RAW was actually pretty good with the exception of the Paige/Charlotte segment and the opener with Undertaker, Kane and the Wyatts. Allow me to share with you my top five moments from a RAW that had terrible a opening and ending but a darn good middle.
1. Tyler Breeze vs R-Truth

Believe it or not, the first entry for this post is the match between Tyler Breeze and R-Truth which I thoroughly enjoyed. This was a match that actually did a good job in making Breeze look good. Breeze’s start to the main roster hasn’t been TOO bad but he still lost in the opening round of the tournament on his in-ring RAW debut to Dean Ambrose. I think this match was the RAW debut that Breeze should have had and Truth did a great job in making him look good. I’d hate to see Truth constantly in that role of putting other people over all the time but at least he’s very good at it and helped Tyler a lot out here. I also liked Summer Rae applying Lip Balm to Tyler in the middle of a match. What a move right there!

 

2. Roman Reigns vs Cesaro

To be honest, this was around the time of the show where I was starting to lose interest with the show being three hours long. With that being said, I saw a lot of great stuff with this Reigns vs Cesaro match. I thought Cesaro did a really good job with Roman and looked great in his own right, especially when he did the Cartwheel counter in the middle of the match. I think this and as well as two of the other quarter final matches tonight succeeded in giving this tournament a serious feel to it as these men were giving it their all to try and get into Survivor Series. Both men looked great here but there was not one time where I thought Cesaro was going to win, maybe except when he was about to go for the Neutraliser but even then there was a lingering thought of “Roman’s going to kick out” because the big mission for WWE is to push Roman. Him kicking out of Cesaro’s finish would have done well for him. I thought this probably should have been the main event out of everything I saw on RAW considering the post-match angle of Cesaro and Roman hugging. It would have made a lot of sense.

 

3. Neville vs Kevin Owens

Looking back, I kind of wish this match got more time because it was so good. However, at the same time it might have worked a lot better short and sweet rather than Reigns vs Cesaro which went a bit too long. Regardless, these two put on a hell of a match. This was the type of win Kevin needed and this tournament is making him look really good. He’s getting these clean wins and he’s coming out strong after every match. I’d like to see Neville vs Kevin Owens for the Intercontinental title for after Survivor Series but I guess we’ll see what they do with these two.

 

4. Dean Ambrose vs Dolph Ziggler

This was a very unique match, especially with these two styles and the fact that they are both faces. It managed to weirdly work for this 16 minute match but I think Ambrose benefited a lot more from it. I don’t think this was like Reigns vs Cesaro where Cesaro actually got a large reaction and got over despite losing. Ziggler still got beat and it was not like him and Ambrose shook hands. Ziggler got beat and then Ambrose cut his promo after the match. It was a good match. I liked Ambrose’s fired up promo afterwards when he talked about the WWE changing if he won the belt. I think this is properly the biggest indication to me that if anyone is turning heel at Survivor Series during this tournament, it’s probably Dean. There has to be some meaning for WWE to have Dean cut this promo. It’s not like Triple H did a segment with him backstage where he was asking Dean to be his “man.” I’m guessing something’s going to happen that’ll involve him at Survivor Series.

 

5. Triple H

I’d hate to bump the New Day of this list for the best parts of RAW as they usually are one of the best things on RAW every week. However, I have to give Triple H credit for some of the promos he cut backstage. What Triple H was doing was going to those competing in the tournament and trying to convince them to do what it took to “be his man.” He did it with Kevin Owens in a segment that we couldn’t actually hear, he did with Alberto Del Rio but the best one he did it with was Cesaro. He cut a really good promo on Cesaro referencing the “brass ring” and Cesaro lacking something to make it to the top. There was a lot of subliminal references to backstage feelings on Cesaro which was weird, as it came off like the WWE know full well how good Cesaro is but still don’t push him. However, Hunter did a good job so I’ll give him credit.

A really good middle to a RAW ended with controversy which is a shame as it took away from a lot of the good parts of this show. I thought the show was good but I still think they promoted Survivor Series that well especially with that last segment.

The Paige/Charlotte Contract Signing On RAW (16/11/2015)

There’s a time and a place for the use of the divas in the final segment of your flagship show. There’s a time and a place to have a contract signing. There’s a time and a place to make rivalries personal. There’s a time and a place for the use of personal tragedies in wrestling storylines. This week with the Paige and Charlotte contract signing for Survivor Series… was not one of them.

Everyone is talking about the mention of the deceased brother of Charlotte, Reid Flair, which lead to Charlotte attacking Paige to end the show. Here’s the thing about this segment… that was not even close to the biggest reason about why this segment was so bad.

Keep this in mind. Look at all the segments that WWE had to choose from to be the go-home segment going into Survivor Series. They could have had the Brothers of Destruction confronting the Wyatt Family, with Bray revealing who would face Undertaker and Kane at Survivor Series and it would have worked. They could have had one of the Quarter Final matches of the WWE World title tournament be the main event of the show, which would lead us nicely into Survivor Series. Instead, WWE decided to end the show with Paige and Charlotte promoting their match at Survivor Series for the Divas Championship.

It’s not like this match is such an important match that it required the main-event spotlight. In fact, out of all the matches that have been announced for Survivor Series, this would be the match that required the least amount of attention. The WWE World Tournament and the Undertaker and Kane vs Wyatts program have both been BY FAR more important and more promoted that Charlotte vs Paige. The idea that those two storylines were bumped from the main event to make way for Charlotte, Paige and Michael Cole is just absurd.

What did they do with this main event? Charlotte and Paige got into an “intense” argument which saw Charlotte get completely lost for words early on into the segment. WWE could have given Charlotte any other time to do this segment with Paige and give her a chance to work on her mic skills. They could have even done this on SmackDown! and they could have easily edited it so Charlotte didn’t come off as bad as she did. No, what they did was put her out there live on RAW and as soon as she mentioned Reid it just went off the rail.

You could tell just by watching it that Charlotte did not want to mention Reid at all. She obviously must have agreed to it in some way beforehand and I don’t believe that she was pressured into doing it or anything. When she was out there though, I just got the feeling that she was thinking afterwards “this was a lot harder than I thought” and that was kind of the turning point which saw Charlotte really mess up.

To me, it didn’t seem that it was a line that was relevant to the plot of the story. Michael Cole explained at the start of the segment that Paige and Charlotte have been friends since NXT and that they’ve suddenly got their issues when it comes to the Divas title. Making things personal shouldn’t be needed. Scott Christ at Tape Machines Are Rolling summed it up nicely when he said:

“My problem is they basically just sprung this whole “we were best friends IRL for serious” on us at 11:02. So we went from “they have wrestling type problems” to “they have serious personal issues” to “this is a blood feud” in about 8 minutes. I also don’t think it “helps” that the crowd can barely react to this anyway. What percentage of the audience knows about what happened to Reid Fliehr? 5% at most?”

What I find to be interesting about the Reid thing is that those putting the show together didn’t seem to have no problem in Reid being used despite not many of the audience actually knowing what happened to him. There was a bit of a reaction but not nearly enough to justify it or gain Paige the proper “heel heat.” What’s interesting about it is that WWE had such a problem when Ric Flair actually mentioned his son Reid during the WWE 2K14 panel a few years ago which lead to Jim Ross actually parting ways with the company because they didn’t want that. I know when Ric mentioned Reid, it was a lot closer to when Reid actually died. However, it’s just strange that WWE are all of sudden OK with mentioning him in order to make the storyline a bit more personal.

 

There’s something about the fact that they used the line about Reid in the week after the ten year anniversary of Eddie Guerrero. If you’ll recall, WWE used Eddie’s death as the catalyst for Rey Mysterio’s push in 2006. At least then, you could sort of argue that it was to push new talent to the main event. Here, it was just used to “intensify” the storyline. The only thing was that this one seemed so obscure and unnecessary that it really didn’t add a whole lot to the storyline. It’s like when Eric Bischoff made the reference on Nitro to Sid stabbing someone in a backstage incident. Nobody at the time got it except the talent. I know a lot more people would have known about Reid Flair but it’s not like Charlotte ever mentioned him before on WWE television or NXT.

I think I’ve actually went into the Reid stuff a bit more than I intended because I mentioned earlier, this was not the biggest reason about why this segment failed. The reason this segment failed is because these two women shouldn’t have been in the main event of the show. Simple. Charlotte doesn’t have the mic skills and this storyline doesn’t have enough importance for it be even considered for a main event segment of RAW. People have begging for the women to get better treatment and I understand all of that. However, main event segments don’t result in better story-telling and better programming. If you put a tiara on a small rock, it’s still a rock. It doesn’t make things any greater.

It also failed as Paige and Charlotte were just put in a very tough position. I actually have a problem with Paige’s delivery and it has nothing to do with her controversial comments. Paige is trying to portray this rebellious “CM Punk” like character that just talks trash about the roster. The problem with that is that she’s not got the personality to pull it off. It just doesn’t suit her style and her character to spend her time bashing the other divas in a similar way to how AJ used to do it.

There’s also the issue with how Paige claimed that she had been using Charlotte which I thought didn’t make a lot of sense. Charlotte talked about how Paige inspiring her in NXT and how she wanted to be like Paige but then Paige claimed that she had been using Charlotte. Why would Paige need to use Charlotte in the first place? A lot of people could point out that it was Paige fooling Charlotte and Becky Lynch into thinking she was a team player but how did she “use” Charlotte in any of that? All she did was pretend to be a team mate before turning on the team. Paige then just won the number one contendership match on RAW to earn a shot for the title. I don’t see how she used Charlotte at all in those few months. All she did was mess with Team PCB.

There was no mention of Becky Lynch who was attacked by Paige after their match on RAW last week. She was not mentioned by either girl. This is funny because a lot of fans on Twitter have started to believe that Becky will turn on Charlotte. That really shouldn’t happen but if it does, it’s not like it was teased or anything like that. Also keep in mind, Paige beat up Becky last week so it’s not like it’d make a lot of sense either.

One last thing before I get to the finish of the show with Paige and Charlotte brawling. There’s one line I have to address from Charlotte. Charlotte said that she would not be champion forever and that she would eventually lose the title but not to the likes of Paige.

The reason I was so infuriated about this line because YOU SHOULD BE CONFIDENT THAT YOU WILL BE CHAMPION FOR THE REST OF YOUR CAREER! What champion wins a championship thinking “I’m eventually going to lose it”? I’m sure Ronda Rousey wanted to be champion and unbeaten for the rest of her life. I’m sure Floyd Mayweather wants to finish his career undefeated. What’s the point of even fighting for the title if you don’t think you’ll hold onto to it?

What’s funny is that I distinctly remember AJ Lee on commentary one time on SmackDown! mentioning that she wanted to hold onto the divas title for 28 years! When you’re a champion you want to be champion for the rest of your career. You shouldn’t be saying things like “I will eventually lose this title.” When AJ mentioned she wanted to be champion for 28 years at least her character’s goal at the time was to be champion for the rest of her career. Charlotte’s character suggests that she doesn’t care if she drops the belt as long as Paige doesn’t win it. That’s not good.

So finally, Paige and Charlotte get to this brawl. The brawl was actually not that bad with the exception of the 30 seconds where Charlotte just decided to literally lay on Paige it seems. The show ended with Charlotte not even signing her contract. Now WWE.com did post a video with Charlotte actually signing the contract and she signed this contract with the biggest smile on her face after she just beat up Paige for speaking ill about her little brother that died a few years before.

It was not like this was a sinister smile as she knows she’ll get her hands on Paige once she signed the contract. It just seemed like Charlotte was just her normal self. She wasn’t angry and it wasn’t like the officials and referees were trying to restrain her. She was just normal. If you don’t have access to the internet, you wouldn’t have even known that Charlotte signed the contract afterwards. This is an important aspect of the contract signing which WWE decided to leave after the show went off the air.

There it is. Here was my extensive review about this contract signing to end the go-home show before Survivor Series. This was not like a contract signing that was ruined by the mention of Reid Flair. This contract signing was dreadful anyway and it featured an unnecessary attempt at making things personal between Paige and Charlotte. I really don’t think I’ve seen a worse ending to a go-home show than this. I remember the go-home show where Mark Henry tried to rally USA ahead of his match with Rusev at Night Of Champions 2014. I remember that but I don’t think I remember any other go-home show as bad as this one.

I feel kind of bad for kicking this segment around this much because RAW was actually a decent show with good quarter final matches for the tournament. However, this segment was a total disaster from start to finish.

Nikki Bella Tops PWI’s Female 50 List – Thoughts and Reactions

How’s it going everybody? Thomas Robinson here again to talk about the PWI Female 50 list. The 2015 edition has just came out as Pro Wrestling Illustrated ranked the women of wrestling to see which one reigns supreme. Recently, Seth Rollins won the men’s PWI 500 list and rightfully so in my opinion. Seth’s been probably the hardest worker of the year in the wrestling industry, with a few close challengers. However, the winner of the PWI Female list has been very controversial as a lot of people feel she doesn’t deserve it. The #1 diva is not Paige, Sasha Banks, Bayley or Charlotte. The #1 diva is Nikki Bella.

I went on Twitter and wrestling websites with many fans arguing that Nikki doesn’t deserve this honour. For the record, I totally disagree with a lot of the criticism Nikki gets. It does kind of annoy me considering Nikki has come a long way since she first started in WWE. Watch her and Brie’s matches when they started at the company. She’s come a long way since those days and has certainly worked hard!

A lot of the fans wanted women like Sasha Banks and Paige to be the top diva on the list. Being huge fans of both those women, I can see why they’d believe that. Sasha’s had some of the best matches of the year and those matches even surpass a lot of the men’s top PPV matches! However, I can see why Nikki was chosen instead of those women. Allow me to play the devil’s advocate for those of you unsure about Nikki.

Nikki’s actually probably been the most active in WWE throughout the year, which I think is the first reason for Nikki winning it. Any former WWE wrestler will tell you the struggles of working 300 days a year, travelling around the world. Nikki’s not really had long lengths of time out of WWE being involved in the Divas title picture for the majority of the last 12 months. That factors into her ranking because she’s had to work in high profile divas matches throughout the year, which plays a big role. Especially during a time where more time and attention is given to the women and there’s a lot more pressure on Nikki to perform with these other NXT stars that were just putting on great match after great match. Despite that, Nikki’s matches with the likes of Charlotte actually haven’t been that bad.

Sasha, Bayley, Charlotte and Becky Lynch have all had a lot of great matches during the year. However, keep in mind a lot of those matches happened in NXT. For the majority of the year, these women have wrestled at Full Sail University. Sasha, Charlotte and Becky are only just adjusting to a busy time on the road. Nikki’s had to just do it week in and week out for the last year, travelling around the world. That must come into play when making this list.

With that being said, I know a lot of you will be thinking “How about Paige?” Paige has also been on the road throughout the year. Paige was off for a few weeks following Wrestlemania but she has been there throughout the year. As much as I love Paige, what gives Nikki the edge is that she knows exactly what her character is and is able to portray it. She is someone you are supposed to hate and she gets the heat she requires. For Paige, her character has been somewhat confusing during the year and it’s been difficult for her to maintain a substantial character.

It’s started off with Paige becoming a fan favourite again after helping Natalya but somewhat portraying an untrustworthy diva. Then she started becoming more like an agent of change, standing up against the supposed tyranny of the Bellas and being OK with doing it on her own. It then led to Team PCB being formed and Paige suddenly forming pinky swears with two women that didn’t really come off as believable friends. This then lead to the eventual break up, where Paige suddenly became that untrustworthy, selfish heel again.

On the other hand, Nikki’s character and portrayal has been pretty consistent… with the exception of that one month where she was a face. She’s clearly showcased as an egotistical heel with an apparent god-complex. Her kayfabe character is someone that is really not willing to work hard in order to achieve her goals and is reliant from the help of her sister and Alicia Fox. It’s very apparent that she’s a villain and the crowd reaction shows that she’s playing her character.

Now obviously her crowd reaction being the closest to what it should be doesn’t mean that she should be #1 on this list. It’s about the total package. If it were me, I might have went a different way but I can still she why Nikki topped this list. She’s been one of the hardest workers for the WWE all year, forced to step up her game after seeing the bar being raised by the women of NXT. She’s doing her best. I may not have liked her matches with Charlotte at the last two PPVs but she’s still trying. Not only is she raising her game but she’s also been doing it while actually waiving the flag for the division as their Divas Champion. It’s a tall order to be a champion, particularly for how long Nikki held onto the belt. She may not have been the ultimate worker but this was quite a year for Nikki Bella.

How WWE Got It Right With RAW This Week (26/10/15)

The majority of RAWs in the past month have been well below par. It’s featured a lot of repetitive booking which have prevented the show from gaining any good ratings as TV viewerships went to record lows. However, this RAW was actually a pretty good one for a number of reasons. I think the biggest reason for it’s success though is that it appears that the writers have “re-booted” the storylines as it gave wrestlers fresh new material to work with.

It wasn’t like the events of Hell in a Cell weren’t followed up on. Bray Wyatt explained his attacks on Undertaker and did reference his match with Roman Reigns in his promo. There’s also the winners of the matches at Hell in a Cell being given spots in WWE Title contendership eliminator matches which we’ll get onto later. However, it just seemed to me for so many weeks that the writers were some what burned out. A part of me still thinks that’s the case but they did a great job with this week. I think the reason it worked so well is that it almost seems like they started from scratch again which is sometimes not a bad thing. With the current WWE storylines going stale, the writers had to try something else. The transition into these new storylines were pulled off so well that it opens up a lot of possibilities for the future.

They had Paige’s heel turn finally cemented which was a big plus from me. It was almost like they were milking this apparent PCB reunion storyline for so long that it just lost it effect. It was almost making little sense as Charlotte and Becky would have came off so bad for falling for Paige’s act. Paige turning heel for good now shifts the focus onto Charlotte vs a fully heel Paige.

The best part of the episode was the series of qualifying matches for a number one contendership match at the WWE World title. This was exactly the type of thing that WWE needed. I mentioned WWE following up on what happened the night before. With this little concept, all the winners from the night before were actually rewarded for winning these big matches at this big event. All of a sudden, the winners are actually starting to get over as top talent. They’ve earned the right to fight for the championship.

For the majority of the year, there’s rarely been a time where the number one contenders for the WWE World title have actually had to earn their title match in such a way. Usually, just beating Seth Rollins would get you the opportunity. The problem with that is simple… EVERYONE had started to beat Seth Rollins on RAW and SmackDown! Therefore, anyone could have theoretically been the number one contender. With this, only the strong will survive and get the opportunity at the title.

It could be argued that WWE should have stretched this out so it could take place over the course of a few weeks and build up anticipation for future shows. However, I think that’s very difficult considering that the writers have to fill up three hours worth of television RAW every week. I’m happy with the way they went as it could have built up anticipation for the main event.

Another reason why this worked so well is that they could have easily killed the momentum of a lot of the winners from last night, but no one really suffered badly. Kofi Kingston and Big E both lost, but the New Day were coming off a big win of the Dudleyz the night before anyway. Cesaro and Neville didn’t really get a lot from this night after losing but they weren’t stars with a lot of direction in the first place. Cesaro and Neville won in the pre-show match of Hell in a Cell so it’s not like they won a big match of importance.

Then there’s the fatal four way itself. Usually, I’d be mad that they brought Alberto Del Rio back just for him to get beat in the main event of his first RAW with the fatal four way. However, Del Rio looked really good in this match. Hell, everyone in that fatal four way looked strong in their own right. Kevin Owens started to look like a legitimate threat alongside Del Rio. I didn’t believe that Ziggler was going to win the match but he didn’t look that bad himself.

This was a main event that lived up to the anticipation built over the course of the night. It was a main event that actually seemed like a main event. It’s not like the crowd was bored and burned out by the end of it. They got really pumped for the finish of the fatal four way when Kevin and Roman Reigns were staring each other down.

Finally, Roman Reigns won. The right man won this mini-tournament and looked great when he did. He was actually built up to be a great contender by beating up everyone else to do it. These were not just over people too. He defeated the US and Intercontinental champions who were coming off two big wins in the course of 24 hours or so. I think with his win over Bray at Hell in a Cell as well to take into account, Roman now suddenly looks like a main event title contender.

It was just a great show in general that was exactly what the WWE needed heading into November. I’m praying that booking like this can continue on into next week. If that’s the case, the viewership numbers maybe about to turn around and a new star COULD be made.

The Divas Revolution Post-WWE Night Of Champions Report

How’s it going everyone? Thomas Robinson here again, to bring you another blog post on the “Divas Revolution” of WWE. A lot’s happened since I last wrote about it. Last time I wrote about it, it was about why I felt Charlotte should not have won the Divas Championship at Night of Champions. A lot has happened since then with regards to the storyline in the divas division.

There’s three women which I want to talk about in-depth. I’ll be talking about the likes of Natalya and Team B.A.D, but my main focus will be on the new Divas Champion Charlotte, the former Divas Champion Nikki Bella and Paige, who recently turned heel. These three will also likely be the focus point of the storyline in the next month so it’s important to look at their roles since Night of Champions.

The biggest thing coming from this storyline since Charlotte won the Divas Championship has been Paige’s heel turn. My intentions were to do a piece on her “PaigeBomb” in a separate blog post. However, the piece I wrote up for it got lost on WordPress somehow. It was incredibly unfortunate but I’ll run it down what I wrote for you briefly. That promo breathed life back into this storyline.

The main reason why it was so effective was that it finally addressed the elephant in the room with regards to this storyline. This storyline was failing because the fans were not able to connect with these characters as a result of WWE’s attempts to promote all the divas at the same time. With this promo, Paige finally turned the attention away from the teams and onto the actual women involved in the storyline. Paige and Charlotte were the first two women to actually gain exposure as individual characters (well other than Nikki Bella, which we’ll get onto later).

Paige was already an established diva before this storyline began, but Charlotte wasn’t. When the whole team scenario was first introduced, the women were reduced to “tag lines” which took away from their actually personality. Charlotte was Ric Flair’s daughter and Paige was “the English one.” Now, they’re starting to break out on their own. The only one that hasn’t yet is Becky Lynch and we’ll get to her later on too.

The point is, when Paige called out Charlotte for only being in WWE because of her father, it suddenly started to come together. Charlotte now must prove to Paige and all the other doubters that she is her because she’s actually good. She might have the blood of a Hall-Of-Famer but she has the heart of the champion. Charlotte must now evolve to being a fighting champion and a freshly heel Paige is the perfect foil for Charlotte to properly evolve as a character.

Therefore, her championship win suddenly starts to make sense. The reason for this is because the face Charlotte must now prove herself to the critics and that she is not just a placeholder champion. Thumbs up to Paige on this front as she’s now giving Charlotte a much greater meaning.

The best way to deal with your problems is to address them head on. Through Paige, WWE has addressed the issues with the Divas Revolution. It’s kind of like they’re mocking their own attempts at the storyline, as no-one is really caring about it. The best way to deal with your own mistakes is to make fun of it. I was taught as a student of Multimedia Journalism at Teesside University that if you mess up during a live broadcast, just make fun of it! Frantically trying to change the subject or making people forget about it is not the answer. Laugh at yourself and people will appreciate you for not trying to run away from it. That’s what WWE sort of did through Paige.

They’ve laid all the issues out there, giving Paige and the rest of the divas more content to work with. Paige called out Natalya for not showing up. Hell, Natalya mentioned during an interview that she was not sure why she was not involved in the Divas Revolution. Paige wanted Natalya to appear and she did. She’s also playing a role in this storyline and helps the character development of Paige at the same time.

There’s still a few issues with the storyline that do need to be addressed. Sure, Paige and Charlotte are doing fine right now but how about everyone else?

Becky Lynch has been reduced to being the third wheel of Team PCB, caught in the middle of this conflict between Paige and Charlotte. To be fair to Becky, her delivery during the MizTV segment on this week’s RAW was actually really good. She was awesome when throwing away the Miz’s microphone and talking trash to Alicia Fox. However, she still plays a very small role compared to Paige and Charlotte.

I felt so bad for Brie Bella and Alicia Fox during the MizTV segment on RAW. In fact, I’ve felt bad for them both during this entire storyline. This storyline was meant to promote all the divas and yet the only purpose Brie and Alicia have is to support Nikki. When Nikki Bella was talking about how great she was on RAW, Brie and Alicia just stood their with zero reaction. Nikki’s not even talking about Brie and Alicia. From a storyline perspective, shouldn’t Brie and Alicia be a little annoyed at Nikki’s total disregard for them? I know that’s an important part of Nikki’s character, to be as selfish as possible. However, all Brie and Alicia are there for is to support to Nikki’s character. This means that they are just outsiders that really don’t matter at all to the storyline. That’s not good. Only Brie is getting a mention or two and that’s only because of who she’s dating. Brie’s not had a chance to retort but Nikki has (on interviews and stuff). It makes Brie and Alicia seem so insignificant.

Team B.A.D. really don’t add much to the storylines themselves anymore. Small SmackDown! Spoiler coming… they actually do beat the Bellas in a six man tag team match this week! All they are doing though is chalking up small victories over these feuding teams. Surely that’d contribute to the storyline, if the Team B.A.D. weren’t held in such low regard by the WWE. Sasha Banks started off hot in this storyline but now they’ve killed her momentum. She and the rest of Team B.A.D. didn’t show up on RAW this week. Really, it’s not great news in the WWE if you’re anyone but a member of PCB or Team Bella. This actually brings me to Natalya, who is not affiliated with any groups in the Divas Revolution.

I personally love the fact that Natalya is back on television. Not only that, but she’s actually involved in the storyline. They didn’t do her much justice by having Naomi pin her in her first match back. However, she’s got a place in the storyline which is totally independent from any group. She’s friends with the PCB and she was friends with Paige, but she’s not there as part of a team. However, Natalya’s role is exactly the same role as all the other divas play in this storyline.

Their role is to basically support the stories of Paige, Charlotte and Nikki Bella. The only stars are Paige, Charlotte and Nikki Bella and everyone else is meaningless. That’s probably my biggest criticism of this storyline, other than Nikki Bella. We’ll get to Nikki after this. Natalya is there to give Paige words of wisdom. Becky is there to be the third wheel of PCB, watching on as her two best friends feud. Brie and Alicia are there to support Nikki. Team B.A.D. is there to have matches with the two other teams. They play supporting roles in this storyline which is really centred around the three women fighting over the Divas title. That’s not healthy for this division, which is not healthy for this storyline. What’s also not healthy for this storyline is the role played by Nikki Bella, the former Divas Champion.

Think about this. At Night Of Champions, the longest Divas Championship reign ever came to an end after Nikki Bella tapped out to Charlotte. It’s a heartbreaking experience for any champion to lose the title they’ve worked so hard to defend. Any UFC fighter will tell you how disappointing it is to lose the title. On the last two editions of RAW, Nikki seemed unmoved by the fact that she was no longer champion.

This really annoyed me for a number of reasons. Leading into Night of Champions, Nikki Bella made it incredibly clear that wins and losses don’t matter and it was all about the Divas title. Her biggest argument for being “on top” of the Divas division is that she had the gold. JBL mentioned this argument OVER AND OVER again on commentary. That was her biggest claim to fame. However when it was taken away from her, she brushed it aside like it meant nothing. She even said on RAW that all reigns come to an end. That’s what really damaged this storyline.

Nikki basically diminished the importance of the championship that a month ago, she could not help but talk about. She’s doing a great job as a heel, but what she said was so hurtful to the division. What Nikki is saying is hurting the title reign of Charlotte. Sure, Nikki should knock Charlotte. She should be claiming things like Charlotte pulled off a fluke. However, she should not be suggesting that the title is not important unless Nikki is the one holding it. That’s just wrong.

Nikki’s reactions to dropping the title is also bad for another reason. When you think about the long title reigns that have occurred in that past five years, how many times are those champions shown to being angry at losing the title? When CM Punk’s 434 day title reign came to an end, he was irate the next night on RAW. He even went through a phrase of claiming that he was still the champion for god’s sake. He couldn’t accept the fact that he was no longer champion. That’s how much the championship meant to Punk.

When Brock Lesnar lost the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, he responded by destroying everyone the next night on RAW. That’s how champion should feel… angry that his/her title reign is over. However, Nikki Bella was just smiling like nothing happened in the last two editions of RAW. She was acting like it meant nothing as she’s just got her rematch. I don’t care if she does have a rematch. She should be upset that she lost the championship but she isn’t.

It’s insane how much Nikki Bella was freaking out when no-one went to her “Bellabration” on SmackDown! a few weeks ago. When she lost the title, that’s how she should have been reacting. Instead, she was smiling and making fun of Charlotte and taking credit for the Divas Revolution. How is taking credit for the “Divas Revolution” more important to these women than you know… BEING DIVAS CHAMPION?

You know who Nikki reminds me off, when it comes to no-selling her title loss? John Cena. John Cena hardly ever cares whenever he loses. When he lost the US title at Summerslam, he was more mad at Jon Stewart. To give him credit, he actually was wanting revenge on the new champion Seth Rollins too. However, his priority was beating up a talk show host rather than getting back his title. I don’t know if John Cena is telling her to do this or not, however I pray that she stops. By completely no-selling her title loss, she’s basically saying that Charlotte’s title win was meaningless.

So there you go everybody. A very extensive look into the Divas Revolution coming off Night of Champions. Paige has definitely brought a bit of life into the storyline which was starting to sink further and further into the sea of failures. There’s still issues to take care of like Nikki Bella’s actions since losing the title. However, I think once we get past Nikki’s rematch and onto Charlotte vs Paige in a singles feud, things will start to pick up. I know I just complained about  Nikki quite a bit, but I actually don’t mind her at all! Nikki’s probably the best legitimate heel in WWE right now. She’s actually someone that the majority of the WWE Universe hates and is getting legitimate heat from it. That can be used to the storyline’s advantage. However, Nikki’s character showing ignorance to the rest of the divas will hurt them to a great degree.

To read more about my past thoughts on the Divas Revolution, click on the articles below…

Is The Divas Revolution Hurting Nikki Bella’s Championship Reign?

The End Of The Revolution?: Are The WWE Divas Doomed?

Why Charlotte Should Not Win The Divas Championship At Night Of Champions

TOP FIVE MOMENTS FROM WWE RAW (21/09/15)

Night of Champions was an eventful night indeed. We saw Seth Rollins put in two incredible performances in one night against John Cena and Sting. Sting suffered a “significant” injury and Kane returned to get revenge on Seth and prevent Sheamus from cashing in Money In The Bank. RAW had a lot to develop on. Considering that the next PPV main event is the Hell in a Cell grudge match between Undertaker and Brock Lesnar, the pressure was on for RAW to succeed. Here are my top five moments from the show…

1. John Cena vs Seth Rollins

If you’re in any doubt about who has been the best wrestler of the year up until this point, these last two nights should have squashed those doubts for good. Seth Rollins, as far as I’m concerned, should be WWE’s Employee of the Year with everything he’s done in the past year! I thought Kevin Owens working three nights in a row in Brooklyn, including a ladder match with Finn Balor, was special. I believe this has slightly topped that. Seth Rollins worked two matches in one night a few weeks ago on RAW. After working two top matches in one night again with John Cena and Sting at Night of Champions, Seth worked ANOTHER main event match with John Cena on RAW!

Three great matches in the space of two days. That’s astonishing to me. Let’s recap. At Night of Champions, Seth first worked a match with Cena. In that match, he took three Attitude Adjustments, including one on the floor, and went 17 minutes. He then worked a 14 minute match with Sting, which was challenging due to a number of circumstances including Sting’s injury. He then took a Brogue Kick, a chokeslam and a TOMBSTONE to cap off that night. On RAW, he worked another big match with Cena and delivered once again. That’s quite something.

It could be argued that Seth is being over-exposed in television, having been featured so many times during this show in particular. However, Seth’s handling the pressure and thoroughly deserves his position right now.

2. Kane’s Identity Crisis

I know a lot of people are a bit annoyed that Kane’s involved in a main event program in 2015. Considering that Seth’s coming off great work with Brock Lesnar, John Cena and Sting, it might seem as a step down for Rollins. However, I think their delivery in this program as been good so far.

We’re a few days into this storyline and things could easily fall apart. However, Kane came out in a blaze of glory at Night of Champions and he was awesome on RAW. His delivery with his backstage promos as “Corporate Kane” were really good and at times, he was very funny. Out of all the identity crisis storylines we’ve had over the years, at least Kane’s has been one of the strongest with regards to the actual portrayal of someone with a dual personality. He was funny in the suit and was menacing as the demon.

I like this storyline so far and to be honest, working Kane will be the easiest thing in the world for Seth. Many people have stated in interviews that Kane is very easy worker to work with and that’s great for Seth considering the amount of work he’s done in the past few months. I’m all for this feud.

3. Paige’s #PaigeBomb

One of the biggest things coming off RAW is Paige’s “PaigeBomb” which she cut when she turned heel during Charlotte’s Divas Title celebration. I won’t talk about it a great deal since I am planning to do a separate article on Paige later on in the week. However, I will say this promo was magical. It’s definitely what was needed to salvage this Divas Revolution which has really sunk in the past few months. I had my issues with Charlotte winning the title initially but I think Paige will help things along tremendously now she’s a heel. Considering all the ways they could have turned Paige heel, this was by far one of the greater methods.

4.  Randy Orton Returns In Big Brawl With The Wyatt Family

I thought this opening segment with the big brawl involving Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose, the Wyatt Family and the returning Randy Orton was a great segment. It seemed to come out of nowhere as you’d think they’d build up to the fight later on in the show. But no. Everyone came out all guns blazing. It started off with Roman challenging Bray Wyatt to a one on one fight. Luke Harper and Braun Strowman got involved before Dean Ambrose came down to help Roman. Then Randy Orton came down to help even the odds. The good guys were able to stand tall and knock Braun down to the outside.

I thought this was a nice little brawl. It wasn’t like a pull-apart fight or anything but it was nice to see them fight for a little while. It really helped intensify this rivalry and it’s a great change of pace to see the show actually start off with a brawl. It’s different and I do like it when WWE tries something different!

5. Xaiver Woods

Xaiver Woods still continues to be one of the greatest parts of RAW every single week. Xaiver cut a promo with the New Day just before their six man tag also involving Rusev, the Dudley Boyz and Dolph Ziggler. Xaiver talked about how he had to get wood removed from his “buttocks!” Xaiver did his usual thing on the trombone and in one of the highlights of this show, played Rusev’s theme song on the trombone. I thought that deserved the pop of the night! I also like how 30 seconds into the song, Michael Cole then stated “I think he’s playing Rusev’s theme music” or something like that. I love how it took Cole that long to figure it out!

Summer Rae was also getting involved by doing a “trombone tag team” with Xaiver! What’s funny about this was that Rusev and Xaiver were in some kind of video together playing video games recently! It’s nice to see how their relationship in real life has now been transferred into the kayfabe world of WWE! Rusev was celebrating with the New Day and seemed so out of character being filled with positivity! There was also the moment where the New Day were doing Rusev’s pose that he does in the ring during his entrance! That was awesome! The New Day is awesome! I hope they never break up!

There were a few great moments in the show, accompanied with some not so great moments. There was a few things that annoyed me. Cesaro jobbing to the Big Show was one of them, effectively finishing his main event push. That was sad. There was one other thing that annoyed me, which I’ll get to now before I finish.

WWE made the big announcement that Brock Lesnar would be facing the UNDERTAKER in a Hell in a Cell match at the PPV. Instead of promoting that match, WWE decided it was more important to dedicate more time to promoting Big Show vs Brock Lesnar at Madison Square Garden in a few weeks!

Why Charlotte Should Not Win The Divas Championship At Night Of Champions

Charlotte is undoubtedly one of the most gifted women in the WWE. She has the blood of one of the greatest wrestlers of all time running through her veins. When I saw her compete in NXT, I thought she was exceptional. She’s had some brilliant matches with Sasha Banks, Bayley and the rest of the women in the NXT roster. When I saw her debut on RAW in July, I was ecstatic. She’s got all the tools needed to be a huge star. With that being said… I don’t think Charlotte should win the Divas Championship in her title match against champion Nikki Bella at Night of Champions.

Pitchforks down please! I’m not entirely endorsing Nikki Bella’s reign as Divas Champion to continue either. However if you’re going to build up a new top face in the Divas Division, then the build up to their title victory is crucial. Look at Bayley’s title win at NXT TakeOver. Bayley had been struggling for a year or so to capture the NXT Women’s Championship. Bayley mentioned that her family was at everyone of her title matches. Her family has been through thick and thin with Bayley en route to her glorious moment in Brooklyn. When Sasha Banks injured her arm during TakeOver and the odds were stacked against her again, you really wanted to see Bayley finally get her moment at the top of the NXT mountain. When Daniel Bryan was taken out so many times at Wrestlemania XXX, you were rooting for this underdog to defy all the odds and win the championship. Charlotte needs that same journey.

Let me explain why Charlotte needs this journey so much. When Charlotte won the NXT Women’s Championship, she was a heel. She had Ric Flair in her corner. The NXT Championship was vacated by Paige and Charlotte seized the moment to capture the belt. She then turned face to engage in a heated rivalry with Sasha for the belt. She came onto the main roster as a babyface. She won her first match at Battleground and her record since has been pretty great compared to the rest of the divas in this “Divas Revolution”. Therefore, Charlotte has missed out on this opportunity to have her “struggle to reach the top” storyline which can make a top babyface… particularly in the divas division.

If you’re picking the babyface that will end the record-breaking title reign of Nikki Bella (it will be record-breaking longest title reign come Night of Champions) it has to be a worthwhile moment. Look at when Paige beat AJ Lee for the Divas Championship in 2014. AJ Lee had beaten everybody in her path. At Wrestlemania XXX, AJ beat everybody else on the main roster to successfully retain her championship. She had legitimately beaten everyone there was to beat on the main roster. That was when NXT Women’s Champion Paige arrived onto the scene. After being forced into a title match she initially didn’t want to be in, Paige overcame the odds to shockingly beat AJ for the title. She’s done something no other woman has done in 295 days. That MADE Paige an instant star from the moment she got onto the roster.

Paige’s background wrote the story well for her. During her efforts to break into the wrestling industry in England, Paige was the only one out of her family selected from try-outs to be apart of the WWE. She struggled to fit into WWE as she was the outcast. She was not like any other diva. She really was the “Anti-Diva” and used that to shoot right to the top of NXT. This led to her winning the Divas Championship, being the youngest woman in the history of the company to do so. That is a phenomenal story.

Charlotte has a great story in the fact that she is Ric Flair’s daughter. There’s a great burden on her to succeed due to her bloodline. However, there was no real struggle for her to capture the NXT Women’s title. She won the belt after the previous champion Paige had vacated the belt. She won it in her first ever title match, so the climatic rise to her title win was seemingly non-existent. If she wins the Divas Championship on the first time of asking, then it would kill her rise to being the top babyface. There’s not been enough reason to get fans to rally behind Charlotte. The biggest reason for people wanting Charlotte to win the title is because they DON’T want Nikki Bella being the champion.

Nikki Bella is the type of heel champion who generates heat every time she goes down to the ring. People are sick of seeing her. WWE uses this to their advantage as Nikki is the perfect foil for Paige, Becky Lynch and Charlotte to rise up against. That would make anyone of these women worthy of winning the title, if it had not been for the WWE writers and how they’ve booked this women. As I went to great detail in during my End of the Revolution blog post, these women have suffered due to the way to writers have booked them. Out of everyone in the PCB, Charlotte has suffered the most.

In what I think has been quite degrading, WWE has labelled Charlotte simply as the daughter of Ric Flair. That’s factually correct but it’s one thing to pay homage to her own family. It’s another thing to have Charlotte mimicking her father ALL THE TIME. Her theme music is a remix of Ric Flair’s entrance music. She shouts WOO every time she’s in a match. She shouts WOO every time she cuts a promo. She does the strut of Ric Flair. Her finisher is a variation of her father’s finisher. This means that Charlotte cannot stand out on her own as she needs to channel Flair in order to get a reaction. That’s not Charlotte’s fault. It’s the writers.

Chavo Guerrero was perhaps the worst victim of this type of booking. Every time he appeared on WWE or TNA following the death of Eddie Guerrero, they would have Chavo reference Eddie in literally every other promo he cut. He started using the three amigos and the Frog Splash and those became his permanent signature moves. Chavo couldn’t develop as a character or get over as the booking resulted in him needing to pay homage to somebody else in order to get over. Charlotte shouldn’t need to do this but now… she has too.

WWE is making Charlotte channel Flair to the point where she is now simply a tag line. In the casual audience’s eyes, she is Ric Flair’s daughter and nothing more. It’s sad. It sucks. But for this reason, Charlotte cannot be the one to win the Divas title if you want to develop this Divas Revolution. Unless Charlotte were to turn heel after this, which I don’t see happening, she is going to be stuck in this character purgatory. This means Charlotte cannot develop her character which means the fans’ interest in this champion will quickly vanish. Why do you think Natalya struggled so hard to get over as Divas Champion?

Natalya was a great wrestler but it’s very difficult for her to develop a personality. Charlotte is going to do the same thing unless WWE gives the fans a reason to rally behind her. Have Charlotte lose this round at Night Of Champions. Have her make a mistake or have Paige accidentally cost her the match. That way, fans will begin to feel for her as she just had the title in her grasps only to come up short. Rematch after rematch on RAW until Charlotte says “Right. If I don’t beat Nikki at Survivor Series (or whatever), I don’t deserve to be on the main roster. If I lose, I will leave the main roster and never return.” That character development and self-motivation will get the fans to get behind Charlotte as she has a family legacy to uphold. When she wins the title, it will be a big moment. After struggling, she finally wins the Divas title on her last try. Therefore, you’re able to get Charlotte over enough to make Nikki losing her championship mean something.

If I had to pick right now who I believe should be the Divas Champion, I wouldn’t pick Charlotte. I’d pick Sasha Banks because she’s the most over person in the Divas Revolution storyline. But if WWE are going to go with Charlotte, then WWE have to do a lot more to develop this woman’s character. They have to build up the moment of Nikki losing her title a lot better. If Charlotte just beats her at Night Of Champions, then you make all these calls for change in the divas division seem anti-climactic. If you’re going to bring up all of these top quality NXT stars, then build them up as stars. Build up their moments of glory as truly big moments. If you’re going to take inspiration from the women from NXT, then do it properly.

The End Of The Revolution?: Are The WWE Divas Doomed?

Previously on this blog, I did a blog post on the Divas Revolution and how it was affecting the Divas Championship reign of Nikki Bella. I argued that the Divas Revolution was really hurting Nikki Bella’s title reign, as Nikki had not defended the Divas title in over 30 days. As of me writing this post, it will have been 50 days I believe. The commentators were suggesting that “Team Bella” having the championship meant that they were the ones dominating this feud. But if she wasn’t defending the championship, than the commentators’ argument doesn’t really have any validation. Still, at least the audience still cared enough about these women for the storyline to be a bit of a success. That was until WWE’s three nights in Brooklyn at NXT TakeOver, Summerslam and RAW.

Things got off to a promising start. I never blogged about this, but the NXT Women’s Championship match between Sasha Banks and Bayley completely stole the show at NXT TakeOver. It was the end to an incredible journey for Bayley and the ending segment involving the Four Horsewomen was an incredible celebration of how much women’s wrestling had come in NXT. However, things started to go south for the Divas Revolution. Then came along Summerslam…

The Three Team Elimination match between PCB, Team Bella and Team B.A.D. was not a bad match. At least, it was not bad compared to your average divas match. There were a few moments that were off. For example, every diva forget how to catch each other apparently during the diving frenzy spot. However, the fans’ interest in this match really disappeared after Team B.A.D. was eliminated. Sasha Banks was the most over person in the match and they eliminated her first, leading the fans to just completely lose interest when it was down to PCB and Team B.A.D. On RAW, things got worse…

In a segment of MizTV, The Miz interviewed Paige, Becky Lynch and Charlotte which was interrupted by Nikki Bella, Brie Bella and Alicia Fox. The Team Bella promo was not good and the only person in the ring that got cheered, was The Miz. The heel movie star wannabe character was cheered the most out of the seven people in this segment. This crowd didn’t care at all for PCB or Team Bella. They didn’t care when PCB was about to beat up The Miz. And then there was a six man tag team match between PCB and Team Bella which really tarnished the entire Divas Revolution…

The match itself was not bad. It was just pretty boring. So the fans, in order to get themselves hyped up for the show again, completely hijacked this match. The fans chanted for JBL, the fans chanted for Sasha Banks (who was not on RAW at all), they did the wave and chanted for everything expect anyone in this match!

I don’t really endorse the fans hijacking the show just to put themselves over and to go into business for themselves BUT these are the same fans that likely got #GiveDivasAChance trending on Twitter in the first place. They are most likely the fans that wanted to see women given a chance to put on a show for the fans that might have paid to see them. MOST IMPORTANTLY, most of these fans are the SAME FANS and in the SAME ARENA that popped big time for Bayely and Sasha Banks tearing the house down two days before! Two days after Bayley and Sasha Banks, the fans would rather chant “JBL” than watch this match. So you cannot blame the same fans that wanted change in the divas division for it’s failures at the moment. Especially you cannot blame them, if you are one of the divas involved in the storyline…

Paige sent out a tweet after the RAW match, which was quickly deleted. Thankfully, somebody screenshotted it so I’m going to post it below.

Nikki Bella also went onto Instagram and sent out this…

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Nikki Garcia (@nikkigarcia)

Brie Bella also went onto Instagram to tell Brooklyn to “kiss her ass”. I’m sure these women were frustrated with the chants they were getting as they were putting their bodies on the line in the ring. I understand all of that. But I will say this again… this was the SAME FANS in the SAME ARENA that was going nuts for Bayley vs Sasha Banks at TakeOver! Nikki talked about the fans disrespecting women. Well that’s obviously not the case if it’s the same fans that watched Bayley vs Sasha Banks. Now of course, that does beg the question… WHY did these fans care more about Bayley vs Sasha Banks than the Divas Revolution?

WHY did fans care more about a NXT Women’s title match which needed little promotion going into it than a heavily promoted storyline involving the nine top divas on the roster which was endorsed by Stephanie McMahon? It’s very simple…. the differences in storylines.

The storyline for Bayley vs Sasha Banks has been something which has been building for months, much like the Divas Revolution. Bayley has came close time and time again, but has fallen at the final hurdle time and time again. The promo video they played before that match emphasized this tremendously. Especially when Bayley was talking about her family being there at everyone one of her title shots beforehand. You could get invested into her story because she was treated like a star. Sasha Banks, the NXT Womens Champion, was treat like a star. The divas in the Divas Revolution storyline were not treat like stars.

What happened to divas was they had a promising segment on RAW where Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch and Charlotte all debuted at the same time. While that was cool to see and the fans were going nuts for it, it gave WWE a huge problem. Chris Jericho said it best on his podcast – WWE were trying to promote three new divas all that the same time. Not only that, but they have to promote the six other divas involved in this storyline too. Therefore, there’s not enough time for the WWE to work on the storylines for these specific characters.

I’m going to begin paraphrasing Vinny from the Bryan and Vinny show on Wrestler Observer, because he made an excellent point regarding the potential storylines this women ALREADY have but the WWE are not picking up on.

• Charlotte, being the daughter of arguably the greatest wrestler in WWE history, has huge pressure on her to succeed and she’s doing that. That’s a great story. When she was talking about wanting to main event Wrestlemania a few weeks ago, that was a great line because at least Charlotte made it sound like she was passionate about wanting to accomplish things that no woman has ever done before.
• Becky Lynch has been through a lot, having started from Ireland and worked around the world just to make it to the WWE. That’s a great story.
• Paige‘s entire family wrestles and she is the only one that is currently in the WWE, waving the flag for her family. That’s a great story.
• The Bella Twins get heat all the time. They are often accused of being protected because of who their boyfriends are. They MUST prove that they aren’t just here because of them, and that they are hard-working divas that are on top of the division for a reason. That’s a great story.
• Alicia Fox. She mentioned on RAW that she had been at WWE for NINE YEARS. She’s been there for nine years and she’s mostly been just an afterthought in the division. Her goal is to prove that after all of these years, she is still among the elite in the division. That’s a great story.
• Naomi‘s never won the Divas Championship before and has changed her attitude in order to accomplish that goal, after failing time after time. That’s a great story.
• Tamina Snuka has her own family story, being the daughter of the legendary Jimmy Snuka. She’s been at the company since 2009 and has never won the divas title. That’s a great story.
• Sasha Banks has been a wrestling fan for years. She’s dominated the NXT Women’s division and has now set her sights on the main roster to do the same. That’s a great story.

The storylines are already there for these women and for WWE to build on. WWE should be building on these storylines that are already written for them and they’re not doing it! It’s mind-boggling. The divas are trying their hearts out. The Bellas are stepping up their game in the ring. Everybody is getting their chance to shine. This is why these divas got so passionate when the fans of Brooklyn “disrespected” them. However, what’s wrong with the Divas Revolution is something they cannot control. It’s the writing for this story. They are victims of the laziness from the writers and the “powers-that-be” telling these divas go out there and take part in the same matches every single week.

Yesterday, I posted an article on the SmackDown! Six. This was Paul Heyman’s idea to build Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Chavo Guerrero, Kurt Angle, Edge and Rey Mysterio up as singles stars by grouping them together as tag teams in the second half of 2002. It worked so well because it was simple booking and there was so much talent to work with. One week you could have Chris Benoit vs Chavo Guerrero. The next week it could be Rey Mysterio vs Kurt Angle. Then it could be Edge vs Eddie Guerrero, or Angle vs Chavo, or Rey vs Benoit. The possibilities were endless. It was featuring the same six wrestlers but no match was ever the same. With Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit being the team that didn’t get along, those two even had matches with each other!

The reason I bring that up is because it looks like WWE are trying the exact same thing. That could POSSIBLY be OK, but these matches are not progressing the storyline along and that is making these matches see, unimportant. Every single women’s match that happens on NXT has a purpose that is centered around the main storyline in the women’s division. Bayley’s matches leading up to TakeOver were important. The tag matches leading into Summerslam were not important. One thing has to lead to another, which is exactly what was going on with Benoit, Angle, Eddie, Chavo, Edge and Mysterio. For the Divas Revolution, we’re given a few matches to enjoy each week and that’s that.

As I wrote about on the Armbar Express, the WWE announced that there will be a Beat The Clock challenge featuring the PCB on RAW for the right to face Nikki Bella at Night of Champions. At least now, the storyline is starting to get freshened up a bit with the focus now being the Divas title. At least now, there’s a bit of a in-group rivalry going on between Paige, Charlotte and Becky over who’s going to fight for the Divas title. It’s interesting. However, there’s a problem with this. On RAW, Team Bella BEAT the PCB in a six person tag team match! Therefore, it is difficult to promote any of the PCB as potential challengers when they lost to Team Bella just a week ago. Therefore, the Team Bella vs PCB match meant absolutely nothing if they now have an opportunity to win the Divas Championship!

Furthermore, this storyline is being promoted as a “Revolution”. Technically, that’s incorrect. If this is a revolution, then why was it endorsed by the heel authority figure Stephanie McMahon? It’s not a revolution. That’s like Prime Minister David Cameron telling the MPs of England to step up. It doesn’t mean that the MPs are going to revolt and take down Cameron! Stephanie was inspiring the women to put in more effort.

I am ALL for the promotion of women’s success in sports. I’ve written stories for newspapers about the England women’s rugby team, that won the World Cup last year. I watched the majority of the women’s football World Cup this year. But you never hear the commentators going “This is a revolution in women’s sports,” whenever they see a great match. You never hear Joe Rogan going “This is a revolution in women’s sports,” whenever Ronda Rousey beats somebody up in UFC. That’s because they never need to. In TNA, quality women’s wrestling has been around for years. From Gail Kim and Awesome Kong to Taryn Terrell and the Doll House. Mike Tenay never needed to say, “This is a revolution in women’s wrestling,” as the action was always great. It’s going to take more than a tagline to convince WWE fans that we are in the midst of a changes on the main roster.

NEWS – Nikki Bella To Defend Divas Championship, Beat The Clock Challenge Set For RAW

NEWS coming from WWE, who’ve announced that Nikki Bella will INDEED be defending her Divas Championship at Night of Champions. She’ll be defending the Divas title against the winner of a Beat The Clock challenge on RAW featuring all three members of PCB – Paige, Charlotte and Becky Lynch. This comes after the hashtag #ThingsBetterThanNikkisReign began trending on Twitter in the last few days.

Nikki Bella has currently been champion for 285 days and if she holds onto the Divas title until Night Of Champions, she will have not only surpassed the record title reign of AJ Lee but she will have went 300 days as champion as well. Nikki’s title reign has been heavily criticized, especially considering that she has not defended the title in the last 50 days. However, AJ Lee once went 70 days without defending her championship during her Divas title reign. With that being said, there’s no real excuse for Nikki not defending her title considering she’s actually been active wrestler in the last 50 days.

They probably announced it ahead of time as a response to the #ThingsBetterThanNikkisReign hashtag and overall criticism of the Divas Revolution storyline.

Thankfully, it seems Nikki will finally have to put the title on the line at Night Of Champions. The question is, who should be the one to go up against Nikki for the belt. Charlotte is the name that’s been rumoured for Night Of Champions, but Becky Lynch did get the match-winning pinfall at Summerslam. Paige has had numerous title shots since Nikki’s title reign began so I wouldn’t put my money on her winning the title her. Sasha Banks, Naomi or Tamina are apparently not in the mix for a title shot. However, they may appear next week as the opponents for the PCB. It’ll be interesting to see.

It’s still a nice change of pace, giving the “Divas Revolution” storyline a much needed shift from the constant tag team matches that we’ve seen in the last month to actually competitive action with championship implications.