Self-Aware WWE: Dot Com Article about the Divas of Doom

WWE.com is taking notice
Photo Credit: WWE.com

WWE.com by Katie Raymond

The self-awareness of WWE is reaching the website. Katie Raymond, known most for her work on WWE live blogs, wrote about the Divas of Doom and how their cause may just be legit. The quality of the article is a bit sketchy, but that's probably by design, because WWE.com is never going to be known for hard-hitting journalism. That being said, the fact that this topic is being broached speaks to the paradigm shift within the company. I figure if you're going to go in a direction, you might as well go all the way. Blur the lines not only on screen, but on the site too. Then again, that definitely speaks to K. Sawyer Paul's point that the website is now the driving force in the narrative of the company.

Transcending Trish: Why Kelly Kelly Is Vital to Viable Women's Wrestling in WWE

Kelly's evolution is crucial to survival of WWE women
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Once upon a time, there was a model who was signed by WWE. She really had nothing going for her outside of her sex appeal at first, and after beginning her tenure in a non-wrestling capacity, she started to tangle in the ring. The results weren't pretty at first, but she grew into her role, she started to become serviceable and then good in the ring. It took some time, but Trish Stratus eventually lived happily ever after, at least in terms of WWE women.

Kelly Kelly has a lot of things in common with Stratus, truth be told. Like Stratus, she started out as a model, albeit as a Hawaiian Tropic model rather than fitness. She started out in a non-wrestling capacity, only as a faux-stripper instead of a manager. And yes, she's not really that good in the ring here at the beginning of her run. But like Stratus improved over her run, Kelly is showing some signs of improvement. Last night, she held her own with Beth Phoenix. Some people, like Brandon Stroud, thought that Kelly was the better wrestler in the match. It's an argument that you could take seriously without being crazy.

It was one match, but it was a big improvement over the past, when all she'd do is look pretty, botch moves and bump awkwardly. So, going from that to being someone who could make a match look good because she bumped her ass off? That's huge, especially given that she's the prohibitive face of the Divas. It doesn't matter what Eve Torres, Maryse, the Bellas or anyone else do. They're not the ones whose faces are featured prominently on billboards and posters.

Of course, maybe the answer to that problem would be not to push the Barbie dolls. Yeah, and the problems I have could be fixed by hitting Powerball. That is to say it's not going to happen, at least not overnight. Would it behoove WWE to bring back Serena and hire Cheerleader Melissa, Sara del Rey, KANA, Madison Eagles, Allison Danger and Candice LaRae? Of course it would. However, change can't really come drastically like that, or else you're risking alienating your audience. It has to come over time. It's not like the entire roster consists of no-talent model-types. There's Phoenix, Nattie Neidhart, AJ and, when she comes back from bearing child, Kharma who are already on the main roster. Naomi and former SHIMMER wrestler Tenille are in FCW.

At the same time, those women won't get the hard push without Kelly. She's the key to all this. She needs to grow and continue her ascent so that she can prove that women in WWE aren't segment fillers. She's the ideal, so she has to show, like Trish, that the ideal isn't just someone who's pretty. When Stratus was in her heyday, the women's scene, despite having Lita, Phoenix and Mickie James on the roster, wasn't as deep as it is now. If Kelly can get the crowd invested in the women more for their looks, then WWE can build a viable women's division, something that can be called more than just a Divas division derisively.

So that's why Kelly needs to channel Stratus and needs to improve. That's why last night, while not really a good match graded without a curve, was so important going forward. Kelly is going to be a vital cog, and whether she evolves or stagnates is a key for credible women's wrestling in WWE. When Stratus evolved, she got women's wrestling's foot in the door. It's time for Kelly to take the next step.

Truth, Heels and Gender Roles: Why Kelly Kelly Is the Real Diva Villain

The actions of an honorable woman?
Photo Credit: WWE.com

All Beth Phoenix wants is to be taken seriously. It's hard for her to do so when she's one of the few in a division who strive for that. When most of the Divas base their offense on how hot they are, or how well they can shake their asses, it can be hard for a legitimate female wrestler to ply her trade when all she wants to do is bust skulls. What was her repayment? She's painted as the villain, and furthermore, Kelly Kelly, the most egregious of the ass shakers and stink-facers, gave her the waylaying of a lifetime.

Coincidentally, K2 is considered the face of the Divas division.

While this may not seem "right", it has been the status quo in WWF/E for a long time to some degree. The heels were the ones who told the truth, often times uncomfortable, while the faces spun propaganda to some degree. This was no more evident than in the broadcast booth in the '80s and '90s, when Bobby Heenan and Jesse "The Body" Ventura would point out flaws in Hulk Hogan's or the Ultimate Warrior's games. Obviously, they were bad for a reason; they'd often ignore the misgivings of their bad guy counterparts, but this is nothing new for WWE.

However, the level at which this attacking of the truth, at least from an institutional level, seems to be a bit excessive from where I sit. Let's switch the narrative around a little bit. Instead of Beth wanting to turn the Divas away from looks, splits and booty-shaking, what if she came out and wanted to rid the Divas of politics and ass-kissing? She'd be CM Punk, right? CM Punk's a good guy, or at the very least, he's a fan favorite (which may still yet make him a bad guy if the fans are into that kind of thing), correct?

So, basically what the WWE is saying is that it's okay for the men to have real competition, but the ladies should be there to shake their asses. I'm no feminist, and believe me, I've gotten my fair share of erections looking at sexy photo shoots, but that's not kosher from where I sit, ESPECIALLY when the one company that does nearly everything WWE tries to do, only worse, gets it better than they do in this instance, even now when their women's division is at its worst. When Impact books women better than you, you have problems.

Even more troubling are the demographics for WWE. Apparently, 36% of the audience is female. That's not a trivial number, and it's one that needs to be catered to. That begs the question, what caters to women? Do you assume they're all vain and easily fooled by platitudes like being called "smart, sexy and powerful" without any evidence of that being the case, or do you assume they're real people who like real, three-dimensional characters, or at the very least, two-dimensional characters who can actually wrestle? The WWE thinks it's the former, but I'm going to make the not-so-wild assumption that 36% of their audience would like to see more of the latter.

So you can very much agree on why I feel like positioning Beth as a heel is a bad thing, right? Especially when the thing she's been fighting against was so expertly personified as a bad girl trait during LayCool's epic run on Smackdown. Strong women are good role models. Conversely, the woman with minimal wrestling skills maybe shouldn't be held as the paradigm. I mean, K2 uses the Stink Face, a move that was used by someone 300 lbs. her heavier. The girth was the efficacy, but now, it's reduced to lesbian homoerotica. While I'm not exactly going to argue that I dislike that kind of thing, I don't think it should be used in something that is being staged as legitimate competition. Then, in response, she Pearl Harbors Beth, partially out of retaliation for last week, but you could assume she was a bit miffed at the criticism. Then again, when did the good guy sneak attack someone? Oh yeah, that's right, it's SOP in WWE. No one fights with honor anymore. But I digress.

The point is, if the gender here was inverted, Beth Phoenix probably would be a folk hero. Instead, she's used as a monster to get over the paradigm that you need to be PRETTY PRETTY OH SO PRETTY to be a good girl in WWE (completely oblivious to the fact that there are people in the fandom, of which I'm a member, that think Beth is way hotter than Kelly). When you have a significant portion of women in the audience, especially impressionable youths, maybe it's time you start portraying the fairer sex as more than just pretty faces, fake tits and shrinking waistlines.

I Am Beth Phoenix, Bringer of War

BETH SMASH PUNY HAWAIIAN TROPIC MODEL
Photo Credit: WWE.com

When Beth Phoenix won the Divas Battle Royale on RAW, I was excited as a fan. She is my favorite among the current crop of women's wrestlers in WWE, and really, even though she'd probably be offered up as a sacrifice to the ultimate underdog in Kelly Kelly, I'm glad she's getting a shot at SummerSlam.

Then, she turned heel.

I have to admit, I got a bit giddy when I saw her destroy K2, except when she rolled out the Impact Wrestling Knockout party line of destroying her because she was a bimbo. But it was forgivable in this one instance. Either way, it was a welcome change. I like her as someone I can root for as a simpler fan, but she's at her best when she's a wrecking machine. For me, this also gives some hope to the direction of the women's division in WWE.

When Beth was in the Superstars Zone as a good girl, she worked good matches and had fun with the crowd, but she was an asset that really wasted away while Divas like the Bella Twins and Eve Torres drove the narrative. In the context of traditional WWF/E women's wrestling, it's an improvement, at least macrohistorically (it was better when Beth as a heel feuded with Mickie James), but in terms of what it can be? It's still woefully lacking.

However, one of the criticisms levied by CM Punk towards WWE in his current build has been the treatment of the Divas. There was an upturn for a little while when Kharma was doing her thing, and they've spent more time giving the Divas more time to do their thing. While that's nice, and while the models-turned-wrestlers do turn out slightly better results when they're given more time and care, well, let's face it, it's still not anything close to what the men can produce on their average day.

So, maybe they are turning Beth loose in an attempt to give their female fans more respectable heroines to hang their hats on. Maybe they're going to phase out the ones who can't go and focus more in on Beth, Nattie Neidhart, AJ, Tamina, Layla (when she returns from injury), Naomi and the newest developmental signee and SHIMMER alumna Tenille. Or maybe I'm just putting too much stock in a front office that has rarely ever cared about women.

Meanwhile, at least I can bask in Beth's return to her natural state. She should be throwing barbie dolls around. She should be splitting wigs. Hell, she should be wrestling men... okay, maybe I'm getting too ahead of myself in that regard. But I'll take her as she is now, because as she is now? She's one of the best.

Instant Feedback: Skinny Fat Asses

Well, that was interesting. For the first time in over a month, RAW, especially the ending, felt flat. The first hour was good, and the wrestling was pretty awesome, well, at least the two headline matches. The tag match, despite having R-Truth, who's passable as a worker and John Morrison who's average on his best night, was really good. Shows how good both Miz and especially Rey Mysterio are. I want to see a prolonged feud between those two guys. It'll produce some really keen matches, and it'll definitely help Miz develop as a prime worker. Alberto del Rio and Evan Bourne also had a really fun, albeit predictably finished, match, baaaaaht chu already knew that.

The out of ring stuff dominated, and it went from good to lame over the course of two-plus hours. There were sparks in the first segment, as Trips and Punk definitely have a decent rapport in promos, despite the fact that Trips had the non-sequitur flub of all flubs. "Skinny fat-ass?" That's this year's SummerFest. The only difference is that you expect that from a douche like Piven. From Triple H? Wait, don't answer that... Anyway, I wasn't a fan of Trips going all "NBD" later on when asked about Punk talking shit about his wife. Funny Hunter treads a fine line for me, but when he goes from mocking to no-selling, I think that's where the line exists. It was a big reason why Shawn Michaels really didn't resonate with me in character all the time, because unless it was against Trips or Ric Flair or Undertaker, he was all "NBD". I mean, selling isn't just something you do in the wrestling ring. If this is the tone Trips is going to take all the time, then his goodwill with me in character is going to run out, like halfway through the next telecast of Smackdown.

And don't even get me started on that final segment. For as much as I defended last week's segment (and I still will, at least as a standalone), they really dropped the ball on it this week. They have two weeks until SummerSlam, and their build into a big unification match is dueling theme music and title raising? No thanks. That was beyond lame. I swear, if they end up with Punk fulfilling every pessimistic smark prophecy and ending up as just another WWE wrestler, I will start kicking people in the nuts. They have two weeks to salvage this. Granted, it was one bad week in the last two months, so I'm not going to totally kill them, but we've been down this road before.

I will say this though; I really enjoyed seeing Beth Phoenix killify the Bella Twins and then Kelly Kelly. I also liked Miz all night long, not just in the ring. Just the main angle felt so flat after that first segment. There've been better weeks.

Wrestling Six Packs: Best WWE Theme Songs Right Now

Punk just doesn't have bad theme songs
Photo Credit: WWE.com

So, CM Punk just debuted a new theme song, presumably, that is. I love "Cult of Personality", and I think it fits him as a theme song, although I wouldn't put it in the top 6 of theme songs in WWE right now. Which ones would I? I THOUGHT YOU'D NEVER ASK. NOTE: Of course, number one would have been Edge, but he retired, so he's disqualified.


1. Alberto del Rio



I don't know what it is about the mariachi theme, but it's so well done. Maybe it's that I don't expose myself to a lot of mariachi/Mexican brass. Maybe it's because it fits del Rio so much. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a good horn section. I don't know. But this is my favorite theme in WWE right now.

2. CM Punk/Killswitch Engage



Let's get it out of the way right now. "Cult of Personality" is the better song, no matter what my Twitter followers may say. However, I think this song fits Punk better. I don't know, it might be my Pavlovian reflexes kicking in, just hearing that opening riff and thinking, damn, Punk's gonna come out and yell "IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME", but yeah, "Cult" is going to take a little getting used to after hearing this one a million times and then some.

3. Beth Phoenix



Even if all the other Divas theme songs weren't utter rubbish, making this sound like the song Tenacious D wrote "Tribute" about, I'd still love this song. It has that really cool Mellotron-sounding keyboard intro that gives Phoenix that special aura that she has as the presently undisputed War Queen of the Divas (until Kharma gets back, that is). Then the guitar riff that comes up afterwards is just bad ass.

4. Sheamus



Is this song on here because it's become a meme? (Shameful thing lobster head, too many limes)... maybe. Despite it being a transparent attempt at marrying nü-metal with Irish conceits, I dig it, even if I wasn't shouting TOO MANY LIMES, TOO MANY LIMES at it.

5. Daniel Bryan



You don't mess with the classics. Bryan's theme song makes him the heir to Ric Flair (Also Sprach Zarathrusta) and Randy Savage (Pomp and Circumstance), and yet it gives him a different feeling than both of them. Ride of the Valkyries portends a storm coming, a wild, turbulent ride where you, the opponent, are in for hell. That, in a nutshell, explains the offensive attack of Bryan, whose rough and tumble dive-to-the-outside trappings coming into the pain brought by his submission array. Wow, I just totally got all philosophical about a theme song.

6. Mark Henry



I just love a song that promises the splitting of wigs. I don't feel like I need to defend this choice.