Thoughts on the WWE's Current Roster

Did anyone else notice that every champion who walked out of Night of Champions was a former NXT star? NXT is creating great WWE wrestlers faster than they can be absorbed into the main company, but that's okay, because they are also raising the bar across the board as far as skill and talent goes. Between Kane and Undertaker moving into the end of their careers and all the guys just getting started, we're at a point where things can change quickly and anything can happen. Here is what I think should happen.


THE DIVAS

Bayley should be in no rush to move up and would be best served by remaining the NXT Women's champion for a year or so. The kids love her, she's got a great babyface attitude and could really pull up the rest of the division. If she moves up to the WWE, she'll be sitting at the back of the line behind the other four horsewomen. Bayley needs to cement her place and her personality so that when she does finally make the leap to the Divas division, she will do so as a top superstar. Asuka and Dana both need to a few good matches against Bayley as well, especially Dana, who comes across as a great heel with a great physique, she just needs the right focus and story to build her up. I don't know much about Asuka but I am sure her skills are top notch. Why is the WWE even wasting our time with Eva Marie matches? Especially when Bayley seems to be the Hulk Hogan of women's wrestling. If she isn't now, she soon will be. I also can't wait to see who this Nia Jax woman is.

Monday Night Raw: The Day the Divas Division was Born

If you were watching Monday Night Raw last week, you might have noticed a groundbreaking event occur: The WWE Divas division was officially born.

Now I know what you are thinking, the Divas have been around for like twenty years! Well that's true, but the WWE  Divas division was never really a wrestling division, was it?
I mean we had bikini matches. . .

Mud wrestling. . .

And a never ending parade of valets, AKA, girlfriends.

Beast In the East and Weekly Review

So all week I was looking forward to Brock's big event in Japan. I waited with anticipation to see who his opponent was going to be. I am not sure if it was posted online, I don't read online rumors because they always spoil the show for me, so I had to wait until about ten minutes before the match, literally right before the Divas match, before I knew who Brock was going to face.

Kofi Kingston. I was sure I was reading that wrong. Seriously, did Kofi piss somebody off in upper management? Kofi Kingston? That match isn't worth the flight to Japan! Maybe I am missing something, maybe Kofi is a huge star over there. . . is he?

At least Brock's going to take on New Day, right? No. . . apparently not. So it was just Kofi alone in the ring against the Beast. Brock barely broke a sweat. I can't say it was a let-down of a match, but I was expecting a better booking than that; hell at least throw a Japanese champion at Brock, right? Well, at least we got to see Brock manhandle New Day. I can watch those boys get beat all day long.

I started writing this blog post yesterday and since then I came the conclusion that Brock was never really the beast they were trying to promote in the East; that honor goes to the new NXT champion, Finn Balor. Finn is a major star in Japan and he certainly deserves the title, although I am not sure how well he's going to go over with the WWE crowd.Kevin Owens did a great job in the map and took a lot of kicks to the head before losing his title. If you thought Owen's attitude was bad before, just wait to see how he acts now that he's no longer the champ. I don't want Cena to lose the U.S. title, even though the rumor mongers say he will at Battleground. John Cena worked hard to give that title some prestige and dignity again, although historically it has been more a heel title. In the past, the US title was often given to heels who put over the main champion, or were too old to be main contenders, or for superstars who just weren't right for the World Heavyweight Championship. If Cena loses, it would mean he would have to work himself back into the world title scene, which is already crowded as it is.

Nice to see a Canadian in Japan, a big shout-out goes to Chris Jericho who, despite looking like shit, gave a great performance inside the Sumo Stadium.

Over the last two weeks I've watched almost every match Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins have had together, going all the way back to their first matches at what used to be Florida Championship Wrestling. As great as these two guys are, I am bored of it. I can't watch any more Kane and Seth Rollins matches either, these four guys have gone round and round for two months. Much like the Divas division, there needs to be some new angles thrown into the mix. Reigns has been taken aside and forced to deal with Bray Wyatt, which also doesn't thrill me, but at least I am giving it a chance. I can't see Seth Rollins beating Brock Lesnar and I think Ambrose vs Lesnar is a much more interesting match. We'll have to see on that one.

Nikki Bella continues to dominate, unfortunately I've watched the Bellas face Paige sixteen times this year and I am sick of seeing the same four Divas every week. Bring up Charlotte or Becky Lynch, even just for a couple weeks. I can't understand why the WWE has been in a holding pattern recently, afraid to make any big shifts in direction. Fortune favors the bold, Vince McMahon understood this. It's time for the new era to kick it into high gear. I know that Nikki is set to become the longest reigning Divas champion, they don't want that honor to belong to a loser who isn't with the company anymore. AJ Lee was one of the most overrated Divas of all time. I have zero interest in watching her or hearing about her legacy. Nikki will be the longest reigning Divas champion, you wait and see.

BATTLEGROUND is going to be interesting, because no matter what the outcome is of the matches, we're going to see some shake-ups afterwards. If Owens loses, Owens will be facing other WWE superstars on his climb to the top. If Brock loses, we're going to be firmly set into the era of the Authority. The WWE needs more chaos, damn it! And where the hell has Stardust been??

I actually missed Smackdown this week, instead watching NXT, which seemed to be focused on the Divas this week. Can't complain about that!

On Tough Enough last week they eliminated the guy I chose to win it based on submission videos. So much for that prediction! Interesting start to the show, but not sure if any of the personalities on the show have what it takes to make it in NXT. Going to have to get caught up with this weeks episode tonight.

If you ever watch a match in Japan again, try the game my wife and I invented: Spot the blonde. We weren't able to find a blonde in Sumo Stadium, although we did spot a white-skinned, American style redneck! Although he may have been a roadie. . .

Nikki Bella and the Divas

I'll admit it, I have never really been a fan of Divas. Women's wrestling throughout the 80's, at least as I remember it, was a lot of cheap hair pulling and body slams. I pretty much ignored women's wrestling through the 80's, I never really paid much attention to what was going on in WCW back then, and I never had any interest in any of the female wrestlers of that era. 

Then the 90's came, and women's wrestling got much better, and so much worse. On one hand you had Chyna, a woman with the skills and the talent to stand toe to toe with the men. You also had Lita, who was the exact opposite of Chyna; small, fast and athletic. 

Both women were more than capable of holding their own in the ring, in some cases even better than the men. In fact at one point Chyna was a serious contender for the men's title. Chyna was the first woman to qualify for the King of the Ring tournament (Queen of the Ring?), the first female contender for the WWF title, until Mankind came around to knock her out of the spot, and eventually became the first and only female Intercontinental Champion. Had she not done such terrible porn, she would be in the hall of fame already.

Lita had the same level of success, but in different ways, and also carried the same amount of baggage, although not from porn. No, Lita's legacy was tarnished by cheating on her boyfriend Matt Hardy with Edge and turning it into a painful storyline. Seeing her relationship and hearing Matt's moaning and groaning was painful to watch, I think they were the first pair of entertainers to make the entire WWE Universe feel uncomfortable. 

Lita and the Hardy Boyz were groundbreaking in their own way and Lita had no problem keeping pace with her crazy male partners. Lita was a "dancer", who decided she wanted to become a wrestler after watching Rey Mysterio Jr. on an episode of WCW. From there, Lita met the right men at the right time, including Paul Heyman who was in charge of ECW and worked her way up to a WWF spot. Her high-flying moves and perfectly executed hurricanrada made her one of the top stars of the day.

Later on, Trish Stratus joined the mix. I actually met Trish a few years before her debut with the WWE. She was manning a table at Fan Expo. I asked her what she did and she told me she was a fitness model. I felt kind of bad for her because there was no one interested in buying the calendar of a local girl they'd never heard of. It was almost embarassing, because the cute anime girl across from her was surrounded by an entourage of men and women. Trish was the link between the great divas and the not-so-great, which I will get to soon. Trish could wrestle AND looked sexy, which essentially makes her the first real DIVA, a wrestler and model who could pose in swimsuits and also close matches. Unfortunately the Divas division never really got the serious push it needed, because whenever fans asked for a match, there was always some other woman willing to take her clothes off instead. Which brings me to the bad side of the Divas division: Sable.

I never found Sable attractive. She looked like someone's mother who thought she was hot but really didn't get what hot was. Her boobs were too fake, her body too tall and lanky, for me to personally find her attractive. However, she pushed the envelope on what was acceptable on television. Her bikini matches and constant slutty behavior crippled the Divas division and turned it into a joke. When every Diva was willing to do the swimsuit issue and was forced to promote THAT over their own skills in ring, your going to have problems. No one took the Divas division seriously. Until now.

I'll give Sable credit for trying, and she must be tough, she sleeps with the Beast Brock Lesnar every night, but I never considered her a wrestler.

Which brings us to the greatest Divas champion of all time: Nikki Bella.

As far as I am concerned, AJ Lee, Chris Benoit and CM Punk no longer exist in the WWE timeline. They've been retconned out and good riddance. 

When I first came back and saw the reinvigorated Divas division, both in the WWE and in NXT, I was surprised by the talent and skills of the women wrestlers. It seems creative isn't as sharp with using them as they are with the men, but still they've managed to carve out a nice spot for themselves.

I knew Nikki was with John Cena and Brie was with Daniel Bryan, but I didn't know much else about them. I assumed that Brie, with her natural body and more laid back attitude, was the one I'd support. Nikki seemed superficial and a bit of a valley girl. Until I discovered Total Divas, I thought for sure I'd be a Brie fan.

But Nikki Bella is one of the coolest women I've ever seen on television. She is open with her feelings and not afraid of her passions. She whipped out a box of dildos on television and didn't think twice about it. Her attitudes toward her career, her sex life and her relationships is completely normal and healthy, something you almost NEVER see on television. Nikki loves her life and she is not afraid to show it, she has goals that she works toward and is not distracted with trying to life a certain lifestyle, the way her sister is. Brie seems like an annoying hipster who doesn't know how to shine her light out, instead holding back. Nikki burns bright and shines in the ring. She has all the skills needed to remain champion and most women aren't working hard enough to take it from her. While Nikki builds a second career as a real estate agent, Brie is worried about farming vegetables from her own feces. Yeah, you read that right. Nikki Bella is the first real woman champion, the first real Diva, and I hope John Cena stops acting like a jackass and realizes what Nikki has to offer as a mother and wife. 

TOTAL DIVAS offers a unique glimpse at the wrestling industry from the perspective of the women who are lucky enough to work there. I really think it would be worthwhile to unite the two Divas divisions and create a tag team title, everyone loves the current women but Nikki needs more challenging opponents in the WWE. Paige's constant complaining is boring. Brie doesn't seem to want anything, other than what she doesn't want, apparently Brie would rather fight for chicken's rights than be women's champion. 

I hope the Bellas have many more years of wrestling ahead of them and I hope Nikki beats the old Divas record for longest run with the women's title. She totally deserves it. Nikki Bella is my Divas champion and I am not afraid to say it. I'd love to see her matched up against Becky Lynch or Charlotte Flair. Make it happen, WWE!