First off, this isn't about considering whether Lita would be treated well if the WWE brought her back for one more angle. Lita is already a WWE legend. She will be in the Hall of Fame one day. If she was brought back for another storyline or feud, she would be featured well. This is about whether or not Lita would have made it if she was just starting her WWE career around this time.
You go back over a decade to Lita's debut. If people in the WWE were to say that they didn't really expect Lita to connect well with the fans when she started out, I would probably believe them. She wasn't being pushed as hard as AJ Lee was to get her connected to the fans. Lita was connecting with the fans through using her high-flying moves to get involved in matches against the guys. The WWE, however, were the ones who put her in that position to do these things and gave her the green light to do it. And they made the decision to be consistent with her and move her up the ladder after that debut with Essa Rios. Where did she start? In the periphery. Where were they consistent with her? In the periphery. I bring that up to point out that Lita is not an example of a credible jobber becoming very over, then moving up to being a periphery diva. Lita climbed that ladder of success as a periphery diva. She started at the bottom of that type of career and worked up, if you want to look at it that way.
Essa Rios was part of the light heavyweight division. Lita then transitioned to teaming with the Matt & Jeff Hardy, who were one of the top teams of the tag division. Those two divisions were strong back then. Lita went from being paired with a guy in the light heavyweight division that was being pushed well to teaming with a tag team that was being pushed even better. And Lita was allowed to continue her high-flying ways with Team Extreme. She was also allowed to continue to mix it up with the men.
Lita definitely benefited from the company being more open to male-female violence back then. Not only did you see Lita hitting moves on men, and occasionally beating them, but she took some beatings. Austin and Triple H destroying her in the main event of Raw seems to be remembered just as much as Lita beating Trish Stratus for the title in the main event of Raw. And how many finishers from men had she taken throughout her career? Fans respect seeing that. Being willing to do it is only part of the deal. The WWE has to allow you to do it. And they did.
What kind of company do you have today? I don't even need to consider too much about the diva division. Lita was a female-wrestler periphery diva. The diva division today is still not about letting female wrestlers be the centerpiece and only one female-wrestler credible jobber has ever become very successful, and her story has not gone well. This is about whether Lita would have had a successful periphery career today. So what is different with the company today as compared to 2000?
First, you have no light heavyweight division and your tag division is nowhere near what it was back then. These are the divisions where Lita's career really flourished when she started, not even so much the women's division. If Lita were to debut in this era, who would she be paired with? A midcarder? Midcarders aren't being treated too well.
Second, it is extremely rare for the WWE to have male-female violence today. Having Big Show run over AJ Lee last year was probably the first big step in the development of AJ Lee as a periphery diva, but not much bumps from the guys for AJ since then. And even less for the other divas. As I said before, it was Lita hitting these high-flying moves against the men and trading blows that really helped her to connect with the fans. If you take that away and still try to find someone to pair Lita up with today, she would most likely end up like Rosa or Natalya.
Speaking of AJ Lee, the WWE already has a periphery diva in her that they are investing a lot in. If Lita was showing interest in making it in the WWE today, would the WWE even waste time considering grooming another female wrestler in the periphery? It is true that Chyna was already there when Lita debuted, but Chyna benefited from a hotter company than you had today and from the green light to mix it up with the men, much like Lita. The company is not as hot today. They have to rely on The Rock, a star from that time, to bring them results. They have the headache of trying to figure out what to do with their guys to make stars like The Rock and Brock Lesnar. AJ Lee is the most well-pushed diva you currently have. I don't think the WWE would even bother trying to develop another female wrestler as well as her right now. Their top priority is probably finding the centerpiece that will save their diva division.
Would Lita even get to debut in this diva division? The WWE seems content with using eye-candy divas to serve the purposes female-wrestler credible jobbers once served. Just a few weeks ago, they released Buggy Nova. She was a female wrestler who had a unique look. Lita was a female wrestler who did not look like the typical diva. That could be an indicator of whether Lita would even have gotten called up in this current division.
Would Lita have succeeded in this current diva division? The conditions that helped her show what she can do back then are not here today. You have no light heavyweight division, the tag division is mediocre, male-female violence is not really there anymore, and the company is simply not as hot as it was back then. The WWE already has a top star they are developing in the periphery. Their treatment of female wrestlers is getting worse, not better. It is questionable whether or not Lita would debut, let alone be pushed properly. Even though Lita debuted and succeeded in the first dark age of the diva division, this dark age is a different creature. I honestly do not believe she would have made it today. Her best shot might be the WWE deciding Alberto Del Rio needs a valet and Lita debuts right alongside a main-eventer. How likely is that? And it certainly wouldn't look like the career she did end up getting. The career she did end up getting and what she did with it does deserve to be respected. It may be a long time before any female wrestlers get those kind of opportunities again.
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