WWE RAW- How WWE gave Divas a chance
The recent episode of Monday Night Raw was special for a number of reasons. Firstly, Creative let an entire storyline unravel in three hours, just like they did for for the November 3rd edition of Raw where Randy Orton was kicked out of The Authority. It had numerous storyline and character developments and one of those storylines consisted of the female performers in the WWE. What are the odds of that? With the #GiveDivasAChance trend, Creative has brought in some positive change, at least on Raw. Though, this does not compare to what the women in NXT are given the opportunity to do, it was nonetheless a point worth noting.
The Match on Raw that surprised some
Nikki Bella showcased why she has improved leaps and bounds since her terribly green days. AJ Lee took the loss in a match that was way better than most of the match the divas have had in the past 3 to 4 years. The Iowa crowd may have been sluggish at the beginning of the match, and who in their right minds can blame them given the norm for a divas match is a few minutes and, worse still, a few seconds. The beauty of this match lies in the fact that as it moved forward, the crowd got into it and they started reacting and moment after moment, the women began getting the desired reaction.
And just for the record- the match was around 11 minutes long.
Finally, a logical storyline
The storyline that unfolded was quite logical. It was understandable. The Bellas are a better team, given their years of experience working together. AJ Lee and Paige, on the other hand, have the frenemies tag attached to them. They had a bitter feud in the past year and all of that bitterness came to the fore after Paige turned heel one night on Raw and led a beatdown on Lee. There is something quite unbalanced and shaky about this team. How can both of them set their egos aside. After all, both of them want to win the Divas Championship. It isn’t quite a secret that they’re singles performers first and tag team partners later.
And so, even if WWE is not going with a Championship match for this division at Wrestlemania, this storyline still works. This is a battle between two teams who are polar opposites. AJ and Paige are trained wrestlers and both the Bellas weren’t really wrestlers when they first joined WWE. It would be precise to say that AJ Lee and Paige are wrestlers first and pretty faces later. The same has never been said about Nikki and Brie. It is only in the past year that their in-ring improvement has been present for all to see. But the lack of time devoted to the female performers has hampered them equally. With more time given to the women, the improvement and the good quality of matches have become more prevalent.
The Possible Aftermath
The interesting part about this feud between the Bellas and Lee/Paige is the Championship title.
Brie Bella’s heel turn was quite unprecedented and not in a good way. She turned heel and nobody had a clue why. All of that after she had been subject to tantrums and humiliations by her sister and things that led on to give the audience possibly the worst feud of the past year. But WWE still seems to be high on a Bellas feud and that is rumored to happen with Brie betraying Nikki. That’s why the post-Wrestlemania time is most interesting.
This may lead to a fatal four way match between Lee, Paige, Brie and Nikki, with the slow burning tension between both the sisters. Hopefully, all of that won’t be a glaring waste of time as it was last year.