TNA rotates centerpieces. The WWE has been rotating centerpieces on Smackdown for over a year now. It isn't unheard of to rotate who your top star is for your company, show, or a certain division. With how centerpieces have been getting injured, leaving the company, and flopping for the last few years, you might make the assumption that they have been trying to rotate centerpieces in their diva division ever since Trish Stratus left. That is not true. There have been women the WWE wanted to develop to follow in Trish's place, but situations would frequently come up that spoiled things. And interim centerpieces are not the same thing as true centerpieces. Those are the filler when the centerpiece is not around. The WWE has definitely not tried to run a system of rotating diva centerpieces purposely.
What would be good about this? The woman holding the title would be getting pushed well while she is the centerpiece. They will try to push that woman to really deliver. Layla's last title run was long, but it was pretty poor in terms of how she was featured. Natalya's run with the title was a little better than that, even though it wasn't too long. What happened after she lost the title was an example of the women holding the title not necessarily being featured well. Eve and Brie Bella had poor title reigns while Michelle McCool was still centerpiece. In a system where they are actually trying to properly feature the woman holding the title, you would have much better title feuds. That might even lead to the WWE raising their standards for match quality. Maybe.
What don't I like about this kind of diva division? I really don't like the idea of rotating centerpieces in most situations. If someone proves that they deserve that position, they should have it. The only times they should lose it are when they are leaving the company, are no longer capable of bringing the results you would want out of them, or someone else comes along who shows even better potential. But there is more to it than that. Look at how Smackdown is run now. They may no longer have one top star who frequently dominates the main scene whether or not he's holding the title, but rotating stars is not hurting anyone. Sheamus had a long run with the title. Is he buried now? No. Is Daniel Bryan? No. Even Randy Orton is not completely buried. All of these guy's had a run as top guy of Smackdown in the last few years, but Alberto Del Rio is currently the top guy. The men's division is an open division. A lot of opportunities all over. Look at the problem TNA has with rotating centerpieces in their women's division. Women who looked great at one time now are treated as jobbers or can't even get featured at all. And you want to bring that to the WWE diva division? That is a closed division. Far less opportunities than in the men's division.
Of course, the WWE is much better with pushing their women with periphery angles than TNA. Even the lowly periphery positions are better than not being featured at all. Rosa may be paired with lower-midcarders, but she still can get featured without actually wrestling. If the WWE makes it so that the woman losing the centerpiece position still has a periphery angle right after to keep her interesting for a while, this might be a fair way of handling things. When the WWE gave up on pushing Maryse as centerpiece of Raw's diva division, they did move her off to a periphery angle with Ted DiBiase. Better than nothing. If I remember correctly, at the time she quit, she still was being featured well on NXT.
Should the WWE do this? It would give more women better opportunities, even though the woman who proves herself better than the rest may end up being treated just like the rest. Then again, this could be a way to audition these women to see who should be the next centerpiece. Of course, you can't expect these women to deliver when being pushed mediocrely. Push them well. I don't think the WWE is likely to do all this. I still think they want to pick the woman they want and develop her to succeed in the same manner they did with Sable and Trish. And as shown with Michelle McCool, you don't have to make that great connection with the fans prior to getting the most important position in the diva division. They will develop you to make that connection. With the power to do that, why should the WWE settle for rotating women who will always still end up losing their momentum?
Last thing, the return of the Bellas seem to have some fans thinking that truckloads and truckloads of former divas and female wrestlers from all over will be coming to the WWE. Really? Really? Unless the WWE plans to run an all-diva brand, they cannot possibly bring back as many women as people may think. And what do you do with these women? Like I sometimes say, 9 out of 10 of the women in the diva division can be female wrestlers, but if that one woman left out is an eye-candy diva pushed as the centerpiece, the diva division is still alive. And when the WWE fails with the centerpiece, you can see what happens to the quality of the division. To put it simply, bringing back all these women or hiring whoever will mean nothing if the WWE's overall goals are the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment