Other Than Being Eye Candy, Are Divas Hurting Viewership?

[Charismatic Edge]

I just saw in the Wrestlemania thread a couple of posts about how dreadful Vickie vs. Beth would be. Certainly that's true but it also made me wonder why they bother to add these matches. To fill a quota maybe? Every year at mania we got a shitbomb for a women's match.

It's not like there's a lack of talented female grapplers. The matches they're in and the lack of time devoted to making them interesting to anyone that may be a concern. I find myself fast forwarding diva segments when I'm watching it on the dvr.

Once upon a time the WWE phased out the women's division. Time for history to repeat itself?

 

[xFrenchKissx]

The womens division would need a massive overhaul before any real focus could be put in taking them seriously.

Beth vs Vickie isn't going to be a clean match, it will mostly consist of Beth carrying Vickie throughout the whole thing until Michelle and Layla interfere, at which point Tiffany will come out and etc etc until all the women will be thrashing their hair around and giving the guys in the audience wood.

Womens matches at Mania are used as filler to calm the crowd down and transition from one big match to the next. Basically, if you're thirsty or have to piss, this is your chance.

And in my opinion, the womens matches are no more useless than the Raw guest host segments. I thought we were done with these after Mania, but apparently it is not to be. As long as B-List celebrities want to get some free advertising, the guest host crap will drag on and on.

 

[xtremebadass]

I miss the days when Divas had gimmicks.

Sure there are a couple who still have gimmicks like Beth, Maryse and Natalya, however does anyone else see all the divas literally being the same? What is the difference between Kelly, Gail, Eve, Bellas, Layla, etc? The Divas are too generic now.

 

[gatesoftanhauser]

Yes, it's time to say goodbye to the Divas wrestling. There's too many of them around anyways.

 

[hndsmepete]

Maybe its time to just scrap the Diva concept entirely. Ever since they started the Diva search there has been a major shift from actual wrestling to trying to make sexy women's matches often. I think that doing that takes away from the women who can actually work. Doing Blue shit like pillow fights, etc, has made people just not care about seeing it on tv, last time I checked Vince I can find hotter stuff in a 30 second Google search. Also the injury rate is ridiculously high, thanks to eye candy being forced to work matches. Since the switch to kid friendly content happened, Divas don't serve a purpose anymore if they're there to just do "sexy" things like spanking matches because it goes against a kid friendly campaign. Eye candy should just be valets, let the real women's wrestlers work matches & people would probably stay tuned in during them.

 

[maty619]

In answer to your question, yes! Other than probably Gail, Beth and Maryse, maybe a few more, perhaps Mickie or Melina, the Divas are shit at working a match and some of them can't even pass off as eye-candy. I agree that the eye-candy part of the WWE should be left to valets and leave the woman that can actually wrestle do exactly that.

 

[Charismatic Edge]

It makes one yearn for the days when Miss Elizabeth just escorted Macho Man to the ring and looked good doing it.

 

[gatesoftanhauser]

It makes one yearn for the days when Miss Elizabeth just escorted Macho Man to the ring and looked good doing it.

Amen brother. Times were better when Sherri would help the Macho King cheat his way to wins, or when Elizabeth distracted Andre and Ted Dibiase

 

[hndsmepete]

Amen brother. Times were better when Sherri would help the Macho King cheat his way to wins, or when Elizabeth distracted Andre and Ted Dibiase

Can't forget the #1 American Dream fan turned manager/valet Sweet Sapphire.

 

[LadyHotrod]

The Divas don't all need to go, they need to be made credible. Beth and Natalya = credible. Mickie (minus the botches) is fairly credible. Gail (minus the botches) is fairly credible. McCool has gotten better. Eve isn't bad. Tiffany was actually okay. Milena is fairly credible. The problem here is that the WWE makes them out to be a joke instead of making them good wrestlers. A lot of them have potential to improve but they instead get used as worthless eye candy and you can't really blame them for that, they are just doing what is asked of them.

I say they at least cut down on the amount of Divas and do good training with the remaining ones. They can at least try to make it serious instead of the complete shit it is now.

 

[Kizza]

The two titles was a bad idea. It gave women like Maria and Eve an excuse to be wrestling.

It's not like there are women who CAN wrestle and still look good.

 

[Airfixx]

^^^Mickie, Beth, (formerly) Victoria, Trish.... Just from the top of my head.


The women's match @ Mania will be mercifully short. To be honest, whilst it may not immediately give the impression, Beth v Vickie is probably the biggest women's match they can put on... I mean, IF the diva's are any kinda draw you can bet the prospect of Vickie getting detroyed by The Glamazon would be a damn sight more of a draw than Beth/Michelle or some other 'proper' match.


Re: Gail Kim.... Sooooooo damn over-rated.... Her matches are a guaranteed botch-fest and she gets virtually crowd reaction.

 

[NinoBrown]

The problem is these Divas are hired as eye candy but get trained to become wrestlers.

Like XBA said they need gimmicks. Hired Roxxi or MsChif to bring some diversity. Most diva matches for the past 6 years have been bathroom breaks or a channel flip to see how the game is going but maybe if the WM match was worth watching instead of some lingerie match then maybe it'll generate some interest.

 

[kingovkings]

There are only a hand full of talented Diva's that can actually wrestle.

The rest are like clones they all look the same and are there to look good for the men or Women if ya that way out.

The Hasn't been any good Diva matches in awhile IMO.

And even if the did bring in some really good women wrestlers it would be a waste of time because they wouldn't get used.

The Divas are like Tag teams obsolete as far as the WWE is concerned.

If they did start to give a shit about the Divas Again(which they wont) and they did bring in some new decent female wrestlers and used the good ones they have and trimmed on the talentless tits and arse then that would make the Divas sort of credible again. I wouldn't mind watching a diva match then. But until that happens then it's piss break or drink refill when they come on.

 

[hndsmepete]

The Divas don't all need to go, they need to be made credible. Beth and Natalya = credible. Mickie (minus the botches) is fairly credible. Gail (minus the botches) is fairly credible. McCool has gotten better. Eve isn't bad. Tiffany was actually okay. Milena is fairly credible. The problem here is that the WWE makes them out to be a joke instead of making them good wrestlers. A lot of them have potential to improve but they instead get used as worthless eye candy and you can't really blame them for that, they are just doing what is asked of them.

I say they at least cut down on the amount of Divas and do good training with the remaining ones. They can at least try to make it serious instead of the complete shit it is now.

Exactly. I seem to remember when they reintroduced the Woman's championship it was about having good matches & storylines for the women on the roster. Hell, they even did a hardcore match or two for the title. It degenerated into softcore porn with spanking matches & pillow fights. Hell, even the Smackdown vs Raw games have women's matches where you must spank your opponent to win. At least in the 80's they pushed Wendy Richter as a credible wrestler. Sure Vince screwed her out of the title in the end, but there was a giant spotlight on women's matches then, without a need to have a lingerie match. My point is that if you present the matches as serious, then they will be accepted as so by the fans.