Would Trish Stratus Have Succeeded Today?

I started with Mickie James, went to Lita, and I might as well end this little series of speculating whether past major successes in the diva division would have still succeeded today with Trish Stratus, the greatest centerpiece the division ever had and Hall of Fame inductee this year. I almost wasn't going to do it. I was going to just tack it on to what I was saying about Lita. Let me give the basic idea of what I would have said.

Would Trish Stratus still have made it today? Of course! She is the kind of woman they want to be centerpiece. She succeeded during the first dark age. It is with her that the WWE took the division out of the first dark age. She was a solid worker who became over. The WWE would love to have that kind of woman now.

After thinking about it, I realized that the answer might not be that simple. Trish and Lita both debuted in a dark age, but it was a different one from what you have now. Just like Lita benefited from a hotter company and male-female violence, so did Trish Stratus. I am not going to list all the things that Lita benefited from then that are not here now, which in turn might also apply to Trish Stratus. The career Trish Stratus had was different from that which Lita had. Trish was the centerpiece. This is not about simply whether Trish would get over or not. This is about whether Trish would still become as effective a centerpiece as she was.

Just like a quarterback needs reliable receivers to throw the ball to, the centerpiece needs good credible jobbers to help her look good. That is what really made me think twice about whether Trish Stratus debuting now and being developed as the centerpiece would have the same impact as it did over a decade ago. The diva division started with the use of female wrestlers as credible jobbers. When the WWE started pushing Trish as the centerpiece, that practice continued. After Trish left, the practice continued for a while. As centerpieces started failing, eye-candy divas started to become more numerous and solid in the ring, female wrestlers started to become more scarce, and a credible jobber developed herself to be the most over diva, the practice soon ended. Eye-candy divas are now used as jobbers to the centerpiece and interim centerpieces in a way that they have never been used before. That is a drop in standards.

How would that change impact Trish Stratus today? A decade ago, she had a ton of solid workers to work with her. That helped to bring the best out of her. Every woman she traded the title with had good wrestling credibility, a lot more than the current Diva's Champion. No offense to Kaitlyn. She still has time to improve. Nevertheless, how respectable a worker would Trish have become without solid workers like she had? How respectable would the division look?

There's also the issue of no centerpiece working out in about 6 years. What does that do to the WWE's enthusiasm to develop a new centerpiece? How about the woman being developed as the centerpiece? If she does not have confidence in how the WWE is going to treat her, based on the poor treatment the division has been getting, you can imagine her not being committed to this mess. Trish Stratus did not really have this issue a decade ago. She was inheriting the diva division from Sable. Sable did not flop as centerpiece. She just left at a time the WWE did not have a woman on the roster they were willing to develop as centerpiece. Commitment has been an issue lately. Who is to say that Trish Stratus would not have confidence in this diva division and quit for something better?

Do I think the WWE would be able to take the division out of this dark age with Trish Stratus if she was debuting now like they did a decade ago? No. This dark age did not just start when Eve left. By my analysis of things, the problems started when standards started dropping and women pushed to be the centerpiece could not deliver. Trish Stratus getting over will not be enough to fix anything. The WWE needs to start hiring and utilizing female wrestlers like they did a decade ago. Only those eye-candy divas who demonstrate a great talent in the ring should be used as credible jobbers. Leave the rest as periphery divas. Without good credible jobbers, you are not going to have a respectable women's division, no matter how Trish works out.

I am not going to do another blog entry for other past successful divas. Let me just rush through some. Eye-candy divas who got over years ago would most likely have trouble in this PG era where eye-candy divas are ineffective and not used properly. Chyna would most likely not be wrestling men regularly if she debuted today. Stephanie McMahon, just based on who she is, would succeed in any era they decided to bring her in.