Give Divas a Chance

So I have a beef with the WWE. I quite enjoy their shows, but they keep saying to Give Divas a Chance! This has become a hashtag and people keep wanting to see what the Divas can do and to see them get the limelight they deserve. Yet with all the momentum behind this movement I have to say the WWE is not handling it well.  Between both NXT and the Main Roster we have a bevy of beauties that are powerful and could be made into great role models for young girls. However, I also don’t see more than just one or two characters actually being role model worthy right now. It seems that the WWE looks at the Divas and says “For them to be good they need to be  psychotic or just down right mean evil bitches with attitudes!” Lately we only have a handful of Divas that girls can truly look up to no matter what the Divas themselves say about their characters. I don’t see why the WWE thinks that their Heel flavor of the month makes the rest of the Diva’s faces if they go against them. Right now we have a lot of Heel vs Heel matches and I want to know why can’t we truly give the Divas a chance and let them be themselves and have some good face vs heel and face vs face matches. Let me do a run down of the main women and what side of the face/heel coin I see them on.

Natalya- Ah Nattie, Nattie, Nattie, our webmaster has such a crush on you it’s not even funny… and yet lately he hasn’t made a single mention of you other than to wonder why you look like a Mad Max extra now a days. He had nothing but great words for you when the WWE kept going on and on about the problems supposedly with you and Tyson and your marriage. Kevin was outraged when Tyson would use Natalya as a shield during his matches but then leading up to wrestlemania it all changed. Natalya suddenly looked like she stepped out of the Mad Max set and then she started getting involved in Kidd and Cesaros matches. Now sure Naomi had interfered first but that was to stop Kidd from cheating and since then Nattie has been helping her husband by cheating! Natalya even put the little El Torito into the sharpshooter at the Wrestlemania pre-show! Unfortunately Natalya’s sunny disposition does not seem like it’s going to come back anytime soon as she seems to have embraced her bad girl side.

Naomi- This is the second of the 3 main roster Divas that my dear friend Kevin has a huge crush on (and he’s probably going to get back at me for spilling the beans like this!) But just like Nattie,Naomi has gone to the dark side. It all started about the same time as Nattie to be honest though maybe just a week or two later. You see, Naomi tried to stop Kidd and Cesaro from cheating against the Usos so good for her. But then Nattie cheated instead…then one of the Usos was hurt and taken out of competition for what is being said may be up to several months for surgery and a rehab. So right after Wrestlemania what does Naomi do? She blind sides Paige and puts her out of commision for a while (now this was just Storyline since Paige was out filming and they had to explain her absence somehow). However, since then, Naomi has kept her attitude and has even paired up with Tamina Snuka who has the reputation of being muscle for bad guy female characters.

Tamina Snuka- Speaking of Tamina she has just recently come back from an injury. However, this just brings in one more heel female. Before Tamina went out on injury she was known for being the bodyguard of A.J. Lee. So here we have a very talented Diva who everytime I see her. she is doing nothing more than just being muscle for a smaller diva. She’s this era’s version of Chyna it seems and it truly is a shame because she is a talented Diva with a great wrestling lineage and yet all she is is hired muscle it seems. If any Diva needs a chance it’s her but right now all she is is another heel helping out a heel.

The Bella Twins- oh gods where to start with these two. If I were to just go by the way the WWE treats these two you would think they are both manic depressive or multiple personalities or something! One week they are all nice and sweet and talking about their loved ones John Cena or Daniel Bryan, then the next moment they are being catty bitches to the other Divas. One moment one sister is being a crowd favorite while the other sister is siding with the evil authority, and then after 2 months of that storyline all of a sudden, BAM they are all made up and are now heels. But wait, now Naomi is going after the title and she’s a heel but the Bella’s are still being catty bitches but they are now faces because they are going against Naomi. HUH? NO! Thats not how this works! If you are still acting like one of the main characters from the Mean Girls movie then you are still a heel! If I had a daughter I would tell her that the Bella’s were not ones to look up to and that if she sees people like them in school then to steer clear.

Summer Rae- I really don’t have much to say about her other than that looks do not always make a good woman. She is your typical Barbie Doll looker, and when she was in NXT she ran the BFF’s – which was one evil group of women. Once she got to the main roster, of the WWE as a singles competitor and not just Fandango’s dance partner she wasn’t much better. She was still mean spirited and just a generally backstabbing hateful character. Seeing what she did with Sandow recently, while I had hopes for her to have turned things around, it seems that it just isn’t happening.

 

Cameron- This lovely young lady was once part of the Funkadactyles and, to be honest, my least favorite of the dancing duo. She always seemed to have an attitude problem even when they were all happy and dancing. Go to the show Total Divas and you get to see that if this show is true, she has a huge attitude outside of the show too! Eventually she breaks up the tag team she had with Naomi and embraces her inner bitch, and since then she has been on the side of the heels for every match. So I hate to say it, but I wish this girl would just ‘Girl Bye’ herself right off the show.

Alicia Fox- Alicia started out as part of a sketch that saw her breaking up the marriage of Edge and Vickie Guerrero when Triple H played  video of her kissing Edge the night before Edge was to marry Vickie (obviously Alicia is the Hero in that story…at least for Edge). However Alicia was only a good guy for the year of 2008 while in RAW and ECW. Then she moved to Smackdown and became a heel and she never really came back from the dark side. This has made me not like her at all and during the past few years the twist her character made made me like her even less. You see she went from evil heel character to…how should I put this gently…..Batshit Crazy. If she lost a match she would throw a fit in the middle of the ring. She was known to steal JBL’s hat and just act the general loon before a match. But if she lost cue the 2 year olds temper tantrum! Because I know all of us women want to be considered emotionally like 2 year olds when we don’t win at something right? Please WWE give us something better for this talented Diva!

There are a few more women in the Main roster part of WWE, but to be totally honest it’s all the same story as what I have already put here, so I am going to go to the NXT roster to change things up a bit…well not really. I’ll point out the bad first and then head to the good… if I can find them!

First in NXT we have the Womens Champion Sasha Banks. She is one of Summer Rae’s old BFF buddies. This Beautiful Fierce Female went on to try and take over the BFF’s when Summer went up to the main rosters. She surrounded herself with others like Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch as she tried to keep some sort of body guard base around her as she worked her way up to the title. Eventually, Charlotte and then Becky both got tired of her crap and broke away from her. Sasha however has never backed down from her bitchy ways doing whatever she can to win and keep the championship to making sure to be a catty bitch to all of her opponents. The laughable part is that I read an interview after she won the title that said she was so happy to be a role model for other girls now! She was quoted as saying in an interview with WWE.com itself “I believe I am. Bayley, for all her hugs and lovingness, can be a bit naive. I think that type of inspirational figure can leave girls a bit vulnerable in the real world. I’m showing young girls that to be a big deal in life, you have to be a big deal inside.” I’m all for girl empowerment, but like Summer and the Bella Twins she reminds me of one of the main characters from Mean Girls and that is not someone I would want a daughter to look up to. It wasn’t so long ago back when NXT was starting that Sasha was a person to look up to, before Summer dragged her to the dark side. Maybe if she sees this article she’ll realize what a negative impact her character has and come back to the side of light and realize that that can be just as powerful as the spitefulness she has shown if used correctly.

Becky Lynch was once a member of the BFF’s after it technically broke up. In other words she was Sasha Banks lap dog. The sad thing is when she first came into the NXT I was all for her as she was energetic and beautiful and reminded me of an Irish Lita. I have to admit I had a small girl crush on her. So Becky came in and seemed to be a good new friend for Bayley, who I absolutely adore, but then the claws of Sasha got to Becky and she turned to the darkside and became a traitor to Bayley. So just like Sasha fell to Summer, Becky fell to Sasha. And just like Sasha eventually turned on Summer, Becky has turned on Sasha. However, she has not come back to the light yet but still practices this whole “to get anything done one must be mean” mindset that seems to be prevalent in the WWE right now. While she just lost a hard fought match to Sasha Banks at NXT Takeover, I am hoping that the crowds reaction to her and how they cheered her like crazy afterwards will start to bring her back to the light. Maybe if she sees that the crowd still loves her she will realize once again that she doesn’t need to act like Sasha in order to become someone.

We also have Dana Brooke who has just come to NXT and from the moment she first came out I looked to my hubby and said “I can’t stand her.” She just oozes attitude from every pore. When she comes out to the ring she flexes to show off her muscles and then makes movemets that scream “I’m BEAUTIFUL LOOK AT ME!!!” and then shows the muscles again as though we MUST be impressed with her. Right away that attitude turned me off. I mean don’t get me wrong ladies I have always lived by the adage “If you got it flaunt it” but there is a right and wrong way to flaunt it. Charlotte Flair flaunts it with style, Dana Brooke rubs your nose in it as though you were a bad puppy. Now that she has teamed with Emma who I shall mention next it just goes to prove that I won’t like her.

Emma is one of the cases of the WWE taking a wonderful, bright, uplifting, character and just dragging her through the mud and crap and then throwing her back to us all soiled and sullied and expecting us to still like her. I remember when I started watching NXT Emma would come down to the ring with a silly little dance she did, bubbles were floating everywhere, and that dance of hers let her pop the bubbles on her way down to the ring. It was fun times; everyone loved her. She would try to hold the ropes and skin the cat into the ring, but it only worked sometimes and when it did, the crowd went wild with cheers for her because she was so bubbly and likeable. Every week you would see a person in the stands with an Emma poster that was basically a giant puppet of her, so expertly done it was amazing and the arms were made so that they could make the sign dance just like Emma. She was a great face character and a welcomed change from the heel heavy cast. Then she went to the main roster and she had a good time with Santino until he announced his retirement. But then came scandal! She was supposedly caught shoplifting OH NO! the WWE swiftly fired her over a couple of dollars! There was a backlash from fans who said “Wait she can’t shop lift but these other superstars can get away with doing illegal drugs like 3 times before you fire them?” and she gets rehired within a day, but she gets relegated for the most part to the smaller shows like Main Event and Superstars. Eventually, they sent her back to NXT and what did we get? A broken Emma who no longer dances. A sad grinch like Emma who tells Bayley that being a fan favorite gets you nowhere. We get an Emma who is now so disliked by the fans for this heel turn that we no longer see her dancing sign. Just like they are doing with Adam Rose they are taking one of our bright rays of light and snuffing them out!

So these are our major heels in NXT…now in the Main Roster we pretty much know where everyone stands Heel and Face wise…however in NXT there are two girls I have to mention real quick that kinda straddle the line right now.

Carmella. Carmella is a lovely lady who was supposedly a hair stylist and Enzo supposedly cost her her job. So Enzo gets her a gig with NXT after he and Big Cass go and do some training with her. Enzo seems to have the hots for her and I can’t say I blame him I mean if it wasn’t for her attitude I would probably have a bit of a girl crush on her myself. However, even though she hangs with fan favorites Enzo Amore and Big Cass she kinda rubs me the wrong way. However I think it’s because of where she is from really.  You see the whole stable here is supposed to be from Brooklyn and supposed to be the whole fiery Brooklyn Italian type of characters. With Enzo and Big Cass this works for me, however for her it just comes off as her having an attitude. As I said though she is from Brooklyn so she kinda gets a free pass on the attitude since she is playing a sterotype and doing it convincingly. I mean heck, it shows from how she treats Enzo and Cass that if you befriend her she can be a great friend but beware if you cross her! So in some ways I think she is straddling the line. To me she is a face, but I could easily see where others might consider her a heel, especially when she first came into the NXT ring and was beating up on poor ol Blue Pants.

This brings me to yet another sad piece of news from the ever shifting alliances side of things. You see the Tag Team champs Blake and Murphy have seemed to take a liking to Carmella, but she has not seemed to do the same towards them.  We all know they are just trying to use her to get into the minds of Enzo and Cass so good for Carmella for not letting it happen. However the Tag Champs distracted Carmella so that the tiny adorable pixie like Alexa Bliss could win against her. Now I love Alexa; she is another small girl crush for me. She has just such a wonderful attitude and with the sparkles and how tiny and cute she is I just love her to death. But now it seems that the dark side is creeping in and pushing past the sparkles and trying to get a hold of this cute little girl. You see at NXT Takeover, Alexa came out and blind sided Carmella during the big Tag Match between Blake and Murphy and Enzo and Big Cass. This distracted Cass and gave Alexa a moment to go and grab Enzo’s foot out from under him when he was on the top turnbuckle. So it seems my dear sweet Alexa may be turning heel on us. I am hoping that it’s just a fleeting thing and that she was returning the favor from when she was helped by the Tag Champs distraction but somehow I’m really doubting it with the way WWE’s track record is.

This finally brings me to the faces of the WWE Main Roster and NXT….so now that I have talked about 12 heels in the WWE and 2 kinda sitting on the fence how many faces do you think we can get. If you guessed less than 5 you would be right. We only have 3 more Divas to really touch on that are important to the rosters. So first we’ll hit the Main Roster and then go on to the NXT Rosters without a break in between.

First we have Paige the Anti-Diva as she refers to herself. Paige is awesome and is the third of Kevins Main Roster crushes and the only one he really has left seeing as the other two went to the dark side. Paige is pale like Sheamus, comes from England, and revels in the fact that she is different and not some sort of Barbie Doll wanna be. She had a great quote before Wrestlemania about how she and AJ Lee were the freaks and geeks and that was how they liked it. At that point, I think she cemented herself into both mine and Kevin’s hearts as our Diva Hero! Seeing as we are HUGE Geeks and neither of us really got into the popular groups in school and such her words touched us and right away we were both like “Now THIS is a Diva our kids can look up to!” One of the great things about Paige also is that she has an attitude. She carries herself like a tough guy, but at the same time she is one you want to root for. She is the type that you know wasn’t the popular person in school and now in the outside world she is clawing and scraping to become the best she can be at the job she is doing and sometimes that does take some attitude. But her’s is a positive attitude of “I’m the best and I’m going to show you that” and not the catty bitch attitude that the rest of them have. That is what makes her a great role model and face character.

Moving on to NXT, but to be honest I wouldn’t be surprised if she was a regular on the main rosters soon, we have Charlotte Flair. Flair is the daughter of the 16 time World Champion Ric Flair, so she has had some great training from her daddy and wrestling is in her genes. In many ways I think of her as one of the NXT true success stories because when she first came into the NXT she ran with Summer Rae and Sasha Banks. She was the third member of the BFF’s. However, Flair had a chance to go after the NXT Womens title and win it, and I think that changed the game for her. She was no longer a BFF as they swiftly imploded when Summer Rae came back for a few weeks. Paige had moved up to the main roster and was made to vacate the title and Flair got it. She also realized that Sasha Banks was not a good friend and she distanced herself from her old BFF buddy and actually started to tag and on occasion even save bayley from attacks by Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch. Eventually Bayley would challenge Flair for the title but even with them going head to head Charlotte still seemed to stay friends with Bayley. However she did lose the title to Sasha Banks but thankfully that has not dampened the spirit or new found good attitude of this Flair!

Last but not least, we have Bayley, dear sweet adorable little Bayley. She is Kevin’s NXT crush and I can easily see why. When she first came on the scene, she was a nervous kinda naive wrestler. She was a fan girl and she would hug all the other wrestlers and when she met Ric Flair she had to Wooooo with him and hug him and she was just all around cute! Now a days she is no longer as naive, as she has seen too much betrayal by the likes of Becky Lynch and Emma, but thanks to friends like Charlotte she really has not gone to the dark side – which is a wonderful thing. She is still bubbly and cute, but now she has a sharp edge to her as well. Her enemies still see the naive little Bayley we all got to know but now she is done taking the crap from them. She reminds me a lot of how Kevin became in Senior Year of HS when he just finally got to the tipping point and finally fought back against the bullies. That’s what we are seeing now from Bayley, she has gotten to her tipping point and she is not going to let herself be pushed around any longer.  She also doesn’t seem like she is going to let herself loose her joy in the ring and I see this as a great great thing. She is certainly a role model for young girls and even boys as well!

So WWE, I agree Give Divas a Chance….maybe not as much in the ring with my meaning of it though. What I mean by Give Divas a Chance is give them a chance to be themselves, give them a chance to shine and be role models. Not all women are catty bitches! Not all women are batshit crazy! Not all women are backstabbing evil doers either, so please stop showing us in that light! I beg you WWE you can have some heels but please please please give us an equal amount of heroes too. You would get more female viewers and probably better Diva matches if your girls didn’t all have to act like crazy backstabbing bitches all the time. Beauty can have power. Power does not have to come at the expense of your friends, nor does it need to make you sacrifice your joy. Power should not have you turning your back on your allies and fans.

So please Give Divas a Chance…to make a real difference instead of giving into the horrible stereotypes that movies and other media have tried to always portray women as- we women deserve better.

 

Photos Courtesy of:

Natalya: dailywrestlingnews.com

Cameron: villains.wikia.com

Naomi: wwe.com

Alica Fox: prowrestling.wikia.com

Paige: pwpop.com

Tamina: 2k.com

Bella Twins: philly.com

Sasha Banks: sportingnews.com

Becky Lynch: youtube.com

Dana Brooke: Youtube.com

Emma: wwe.com

Alexa Bliss: glitterblizzards.tumblr.com

Summer Rae: fanpop.com

Bayley: wwe.com

Charlotte Flair: listal.com

Carmella: saberbiade.hubpages.com