Divas Division Deserves an Attitude Era

Okay I know women were part of the original Attitude Era, but they weren’t at the forefront, the driving force. The current phase of the Divas’ evolution sees a genuine contrast of styles and characters vying for recognition as the division’s best. I’ve said before, the reason current WWE programming seems tepid is down to a lack of competition. The Monday Night Wars were so enthralling because WWE and WCW pushed the standards higher and higher. The main roster has no rival now. This isn’t true for the Divas.

The Divas Division has utilised the different branding (main roster and NXT) and created a mini-war of their own. With it the women have seemingly been given greater creative freedom – just like Vince McMahon afforded his chosen stars back when WCW took the upper-hand. It’s no coincidence that Triple H – the King of chosen Kings – is the force behind NXT. It has its own voice and continues to make its own stamp.

What we’re seeing now is an Invasion of sorts. Unlike the disappointing WCW Invasion angle that presented the outsiders as inferior, this one has inverted the rules. The NXT crew appear more dominant, better equipped. It’d have been a hard sell to do it any other way. Anyone watching the WWE Network will know women’s matches there have a higher degree of technical application and last for more than three minutes. They actually wrestle – and dare I say it – sometimes it’s better than their male counterparts.

Within this micro Monday Night War the NXT edgier attitude has seeped through. Suddenly it’s not all so vanilla. Paige – the division’s outstanding performer – has slotted in perfectly. She was never going to be the next Bella twin. This future Hall of Famer was always going to redefine the term “Diva” for a new generation. It helps this transition that she now has wrestlers that can complement her ability on the show.

Sasha Banks and Charlotte have unique styles and personalities but contrasting personas are vital ingredients for the Diva Revolution – their Attitude Era – to work. Not to mention some recognised star power. WCW and WWE were flooded with big names, having the daughter of Ric Flair in the mix doesn’t harm things (Wooo!). In an Attitude Era pretty much anything goes but everyone needs to be different. Current WWE is too safe, too manufactured, too plastic. The new Divas are anything but.

The current roster has to step up to the challenge or face extinction. They must have been worried for some time, watching excellent NXT shows and wondering if they could cope with such energetic brutality. To be fair, so far they have taken the bull by the horns and added to the excitement. Brie Bella looks convincing grappling with the NXT additions. This is a testament to the desire to evolve and adapt the exiting ladies have.

Obviously the Divas Revolution can’t be a true Attitude Era. The WWE world is too PG for that. But it can alter the current tone. The happy music, cheery skips, and matches that look like two girls getting choreography wrong, can be scrapped. In NXT when a submission move gets locked in (like the Bank Statement) it’s hard not to wince. Attitude is one part that the fresh characters are bringing along with the damage their bodies are now absorbing.

Like an era there has to be an end goal. For the Attitude Era it was securing the win during the Monday Night Wars. For the Divas it will be ensuring that their division never returns to being an afterthought or the segment of a PPV where everyone takes a toilet break. As Charlotte said recently, she wants to headline WrestleMania. That sounds far-flung now but Ronda Rousey now headlines the male sport of MMA. Why can’t a Divas Championship one day close the greatest show on Earth?

There is no reason. If the women involved continue to make the strides forward at the pace they currently are the paying public will demand more Diva matches higher up the card.

Viva la Revolution.

They were Right to Bring The Undertaker Back

 

The title above is half a sentence. It should read: They were right to bring The Undertaker back but they’ve told the wrong story.

WWE needs a boost, there’s no doubt about this. Weekly ratings are continually low, which I fear will continue to be the case whilst WWE Creative flounder through Raw episodes three hours in length, and the winter season is always a lull before the road to WrestleMania kicks off via the Royal Rumble. An injection of the Phenom ensures there’s less of a plateau.

The episode of Raw that saw a massive in-ring brawl continue to the backstage area was one of the best moments the Monday night show has produced since the Attitude Era. That’s no exaggeration. It had believable tension and brutality. It felt like something was unfolding naturally. We were witnessing an incident. Unfortunately the script to accompany the action isn’t as strong.

The Undertaker needed to return as a heel. Don’t boo me, it makes sense. He’d already received the massive pop – as a returning legend is always guaranteed – when he turned up at Battleground. After which WWE should have placed the product over sentiment. He’s played the bad guy before, he could again. Brock Lesnar is – or was, depending how this story plays out – over with the fans. More over than anyone could have ever reasonably expected. Current planning ruins this.

The blocks were in place for a heel Undertaker appearance. It’s more believable he was getting revenge for his brother’s (kayfabe) broken ankle than some annoyance regarding Heyman’s eighteen month bragathon.  To whine about Brock boasting now makes him appear weak. It also damages the growing powers of Bray Wyatt having The Undertaker declare this is his real return.

The chances are The Deadman will get his revenge at SummerSlam, if anything it gives WWE the option for a third and final showdown further down the line (WrestleMania perhaps, if Sting never shows up in a WWE ring again?). And this probability adds further weight to an evil Undertaker plan. To beat Lesnar he had to go to dark places, tap into a side he’d long since abandoned. It makes for a more plausible story.

It’s only the appearance of a more viscous side that will make Brock’s disappearance post-SummerSlam more believable. Only bad guys cause long-term injury in the WWE. Heel tactics also mean less wrestling, and witnessing the way the Tombstone Piledrivers were delivered at Battleground (awkward and cumbersome) leads me to believe the less in-ring action the better for the Man in Black.

The WWE could do with the ‘Taker ratings boost right now, it just needs the right sort of ‘Taker to maximise the potential of the Beast Incarnate.




Clive Balls's memoir Balls To You is available here from the Amazon store.

WWE Extreme Fools

The fools I refer to in this instance are, of course, WWE Creative. They managed to save a Wrestlemania Main Event, where the world was braced for the crowning of Roman Reigns, by giving us a good contest and a Seth Rollins cash-in. It played out perfectly and left viewers with a great sense of occasion.

Only WWE Creative has the ability to quickly undo all their good work. The slippery slope started at Extreme Rules. In a quick defence, it has to be acknowledged such a concept is hard to pull off in the PG era, but there are ways to get around it while providing plausible entertainment. To keep the theme relevant the envelope has to be pushed or shocks delivered.

There’s certainly no room for a “Kiss Me Arse” match. I’d argue this stipulation never needs to find its way to any card, let alone one that is supposed to be Extreme. But it’s what we got. To make matters worse they handed the victory to Ziggler and immediately halted Sheamus’s intimidating return. Already we know he’s not unstoppable.

The Russian Chain Match should have been renamed: Cena’s Continuing Chain of Wins over Rusev Match. WWE Creative has worked hard at removing all the fear surrounding the Bulgarian Brute. An extreme setting allows for an upset. Instead the action was very PG, the result very predictable. Thankfully we could look forward to an end of the rivalry. Oh wait, WWE wanted to drag it out to drive home how Super Cena had the number of Mother Russia.

You know a PPV is failing when Big Show takes plaudits for match of the night. That’s what happened at Extreme Rules as the always excellent Seth Rollins and the Viper couldn’t save a convoluted main event.

Payback offered WWE Creative the chance to do just this: pay us back for dropping the ball. Instead they further compounded certain problems and made new ones. They restarted the campaign to bury Damien Sandow. The Macho Man act was more than cringe. It was disrespectful to the legend that was and the man made to play “Macho Mandow.” Aaron Steven Haddad, the man who plays Damien Sandow, must have been caught with his pants down and in the wrong person’s wife. It could be argued Creative are playing to his comedic strengths and re-establishing The Ascension. But there were better ways to achieve these two aims.

Sheamus and Dolph Ziggler did provide us with a good match with a finish that would have better suited Extreme Rules. The two Brits, King Wade Bad News Barrett and (Adrian) Neville, had the weakest of their recent bouts but it was a great match regardless. It shows how good the two performers are. They have a good chemistry and fill the blanks in one another. A perfect balance. Like how Barrett has several forenames and Neville would be happy to be given just one. However, they shouldn’t be fighting one another, and so often, it devalues the winning streak and prowess of two wrestlers deserving of pushes.

Before you say Barrett has just been made King, the less we say about the revived tournament the better. King of the Ring deserves to be one night and less rushed. Much like Elimination Chamber which we’ll get to in a minute.

In the “I Quit” match Cena passed out and Rusev never actually said the words in English. But Super Cena got the rub and following episodes of Raw have tried their best to undermine Rusev. To make things worse Lana has now teamed with Ziggler. Dolph must be happy that after years of always delivering he’s back to the upper-mid card as an arm for a female object of attention.

Payback’s main event did deliver. We saw original Shield do the Triple Power Bomb. Creative avoided a finish that saw Ambrose take the pin for Seth. And the extra characters, J&J and Kane, added rather than took away from the action. A sign of hope moving to the chamber that all is not lost.

As for the Elimination Chamber, the card itself looks very healthy. What is worrying is how this great event (the structure always provides top matches) was removed on grounds of cost and modern arenas unable to lower and raise the chamber. Yet, out of the blue, it was reinstated. Not even the wrestlers knew until the eleventh hour. I understand plans have to be fluid, always ready for change. But this isn’t a tweak, more a complete change in programme. And the lack of time between PPVs has harmed the effective build-up. WWE Network figures, and the constant chase of them, shouldn’t give rise to knee-jerk reactions.

Still, this aside, as I mentioned, it is a good list of matches they’ve produced. New Day is over in a way Creative couldn’t have dared dream of when their original gimmick was failing so badly. The prospect of a Tag Team Chamber match is more than mouth watering. I suspect it will steal the show and could be a spectacle spoken about for years to come. Hats off to each performer too. They haven’t had months to work out the spots and the dynamic. It’s just a bunch of hungry guys throwing it all on the line.

Another hungry guy is Kevin Owens. He has been the man in NXT and gives Cena a credible opponent (after the more than credible Rusev). The fact he holds NXT gold means if (when) he loses to Cena at the Network exclusive PPV he won’t go down clean. It’ll be a beating for Cena afterwards. A painful one that could kayfabe injury him.

The Intercontinental match has a strong field. The money seems to be on Sheamus. This is logical. I expect a Ziggler/Rusev programme to start following this Sunday’s match, Barrett has the King moniker to carry around, Ryback is still suffering from the strange choice to pit him against the ever-at-loose-end Bray Wyatt, and R-Truth is just fun-filler.

The weaker matches are the Divas triple-threat match. The only threat regarding this championship is that the main roster looks weak compared to the female matches witnessed on NXT. This isn’t because the main roster has worse Divas, just weaker bookings. Neville and Bo Dallas has all the hallmarks of a clean win for Neville. It’s about time Dallas joined his real-life brother in the Wyatt Family.

The main event will provide a great wrestling match. Rollins and Ambrose always deliver when in the squared circle together. The questions are around the support cast. Will Reigns accidently cost Ambrose? How will The Authority intervene? It’s highly likely (like, 99.9%) that Rollins will keep the gold all the way to SummerSlam, a bout with a Beast awaits him there, but with the abilities on display in Elimination Chamber’s WWE World Heavyweight Championship match mean a few twists can still be delivered.

Let’s hope they make us smile and not groan.

Remember when Titles Had Meaning?

Currently in WWE the World Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar makes fewer public appearances than Bin Laden did before his demise. As such the main belt is void of screen time, an act that threatens to devalue it. The second tier titles, the United States and Intercontinental championships, should have been used to cover the gap. Instead these once illustrious titles have been floundered further by WWE creative. It used to be so different. It used to be so much better.

Regardless of storylines and the characters involved, during the boom periods of sports entertainment championship gold meant everything. The gravitas of results revolved around which side of a rivalry ended the night with a belt held aloft. From the dawn of the new brand of wrestling, sports entertainment as we now know it, in the 80s, personalities that transcended the ring and fell into popular culture came into being. Characters like Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. Their defining moment came at the start of 1990 when WWF champion, Hogan, faced the Intercontinental Champion, The Warrior, at Wrestlemania VI.

What added to the bout, one already soaked in electricity, was the two main titles. It was like a pro-wrestling unification bout, the type only seen before in boxing rings. Hard to call, a unique chance to see the two great titles face off. The belts weren’t an added gimmick, they were revered and desired. They made a win all the more credible. Of course, Warrior triumphed that night, vacated the I/C title, but not before holding both belts high above his head with pride.

Moving through the 90s the titles still had great value. So much so that Vince screwed Bret (or Bret screw Bret, depending on your take) to keep his main belt from appearing on WCW television. An era when the WWF Womens Championship was dumped in a bin on WCW Nitro by Medusa, a shock at the time, a title that disappeared without fanfare. Before that The British Bulldog defeated Bret Hart for the Intercontinental Title in a packed-out Wembley Arena. That was when 90,000 Brits believed it was a belt worth holding. Nowadays it’s a tool to place a ceiling on the mid-card.

Back then belts were an extension of a performer’s power, a visual representation that validated them, never better emphasised than when Ric Flair brought the Big Gold Belt from WCW to WWF. Now they feel like awkward afterthoughts. Something the WWE hates to accommodate but does so to shift kids’ replica merchandise. The last time they had genuine importance was after the Invasion storyline. They went to great lengths to enforce how important championship gold was. They had, after all, just bought WCW’s history; they had to drive home how important each championship aspect was. It culminated in belts becoming unified, separated, and unified some more.

For example, Chris Jericho became the first unified champ by holding the WWF belt and WCW world heavyweight title. That became the unified belt and then singular WWF title again. Due to the brand extension they soon brought the big gold belt back, in doing so it saw the I/C title, US title, European Championship and the Hardcore Championship all being unified, across a period of time from Survivor Series 2001 to No Mercy 2002, into the World Heavyweight Championship. The US and I/C titles did re-emerge at Judgement Day 2003, but by then the stage had been set to devalue the once highly regarded belts.

Recently we saw the World Heavyweight Championship – the Big Gold Belt’s ghost title – unified again, this time by Randy Orton. WWE tried to remind us the great lineage of both titles, successfully reminding us how mistreated all the current titles have been in recent years. Now Lesnar holds the belt without making any appearances for months. I’m all for the main belt having reduced screen time. It makes it feel more special. But an absence of one month is enough. One PPV, tops. Never more than this. It should be defended at every monthly event that requires subscribers to pay more or headlines the network during that period. Now the WWE World Heavyweight Title doesn’t feel special, it feels unnecessary.

In its absence the secondary titles could have been used to fill the void. It was a great chance to return their former value. The higher mid-card could have evolved to the main event scene, like Warrior did with his I/C title in 1990. With the I/C title becoming the new top title, the US champ could have become a good number two, like the Intercontinental title of years gone by.

Instead we witnessed Sheamus holding the belt without ever really defending it. It was prop, not authentic. And Ziggler went on a losing streak while holding I/C gold. Even though he was the holder of such an illustrious title, there was no way WWE creative could allow him to overcome Seth Rollins. In doing so they told the viewers that the I/C champ was good, but not that good. That a higher level existed beyond the title.

To enforce this, Ziggler himself overcame the current holder, Luke Harper, this week on Smackdown. Telling us that Ziggler is now in the top group. The Intercontinental Championship should be validation of the top group by them holding it, not by the champ jobbing to them. Top tier and the upper mid-card shouldn’t face off on regular programming, especially to the detriment of titles. Only Rusev holding the US title has stemmed the tide for now.

The WWE needs to address its current title problem. It’ll take time but the long term benefits are worth the efforts required to restructure its current stance. Would a ladder match for the I/C title tomorrow have the same aurora as Shawn Michaels vs Razor Ramon did? No. And it’s not for a lack of talent, but the title has zero importance now. Does anyone actually care who the WWE Champion is now? No. And it’s not because WWE lacks main event star power. Better titles creates bigger buzz around PPVs. Prestige on the belt gives holders a step closer to immortality, and instant validation with the WWE Universe.

A competition without a main prize isn’t sport at all. It’s not even entertainment.