The playbook and play sheet are the plans the coaches devise before a game. Things still come down to the quarterback and other players on the field to make things happen, but it always helps to have a strategy. And there are different plays for different situations. Let me just talk about in terms of the end of the game. If a team is in a situation where they are hanging on to a lead, they will most likely be calling plays to just run out the clock to make sure the other team does not have a shot at getting back the ball and scoring. Running plays are best for that. Passing the ball and no one catching it will lead to the clock stopping. That is how the game works. This is a situation where you would expect them to play conservatively. If you are on the other side of that, if you are the team trying to score with just a few seconds left in the game, your strategy would obviously not be to waste time. This is the situation where you want to pass the ball and get out of bounds, which stops the clock. Passing also gives you a better chance of gaining big yards. Two different situations, two different strategies, but essentially still part of the same playbook.
What does this have to do with the diva division? In my mind, I still don't think people will buy me if I say that this is essentially the same diva division you have always had. It goes back to that discussion of the status quo. The same status quo may not lead to the same exact thing in every situation. Just like the situation in a football game, or just about any sport, will have an impact on what the coach chooses to do, the situation in the diva division is going to determine what the people running the WWE choose to do. The guy that coaches when the team is down by 6 doesn't need to change when the team is up by 6, but his strategy in the two situations is likely to change. Same playbook, just different section you are going to.
You can say that determining what situation the diva division is in is like reading the landscape of the division. What is the WWE trying to do at this certain time? Their strategy when the centerpiece is around is going to be different from when the centerpiece is injured and not going to be there. And all that is different from when you are without anyone at all that you want to push as the centerpiece on the roster. Look at some of the sections you can have in the WWE's playbook for the diva division. Everyone talks about the golden age. You have only had one of those, but it is possible to get there again. You might even try to argue that the diva division was starting to head into one before Sable left. That is a situation where the centerpiece is working out, solid credible jobbers are helping to make the division look solid, and you have other periphery divas to help add more flavor to what is going on. You have had two dark ages, including the one right now. That is when the division just collapses and they go more to angles in the periphery and don't try too hard to feature respectable women's wrestling. You can also consider that a transitionary period, moving from one centerpiece to another. You had a short transitionary period between Trish Stratus leaving and Candice Michelle getting pushed, among other instances. That was neither a golden age nor a dark age. At the same time, I consider that time between Trish and Lita leaving and the collapse of the division around 2011 to be the era of failed centerpieces. The WWE wanted to develop a new centerpiece very badly. No major periphery divas were being built. It is synonymous to a coach wanting his quarterback to just take repeated shots in the end zone for a touchdown. Don't run it. Don't settle for a field goal. Don't settle for short yardage. Touchdown or nothing. If you are near the end of the game and need a touchdown to win, you can understand doing this (Hail Mary). But why would the WWE put themselves in this position? Were they about to go out of business and needed a successful diva centerpiece that badly? No. Their actions were really arrogant. And none of those centerpieces working out led to them losing interest in things and things collapsing. To put it simply, what the WWE wants to accomplish with their diva division at a certain time will determine how exactly they handle things. And how much success they have with it will determine how great the diva division looks, if it looks great at all.
Let me bring up another situation in a football game to talk about another idea. It's a major game. A trip to the Super Bowl is on the line. A team was down by 5 points in the final minute in the game with no timeouts. They just scored a field goal (3 points). What now? Typically, after a score, you kick the ball back to the other team. But why would you do that in this situation? This team is still down by 2 points and another field goal will win it. They have a good chance. They cannot kick the ball back to the other team and pray that a miracle happens for them to still win. There is the onside kick. That is an attempt by the team that just scored to kick the ball in a manner that they recover it and get their own offense back on the field. They know they have to do the onside kick. The other team knows they have to do the onside kick. The commentators know they have to do the onside kick. The fans know they have to do the onside kick. Everyone in the world that knows football knows the onside kick is coming in this situation. If this team wants to win this game, and they obviously would, the onside kick, the play that gives them the best chance to do it, is what they will attempt. Exactly how will they attempt it? Can't be sure about that. Will they be successful? Can't be sure about that. But you can be sure that they are going to try.
Some people might say that you cannot predict the future. Obviously, you cannot predict things to 100%. But there are just certain things you can anticipate happening, especially of certain conditions are there. If that team wants to win that game in the example I just gave, onside kick is coming. If they don't want to win, for whatever reason, they can kick it back to the other team. People can say that you can never know what the WWE will do. The same idea for the diva division. Thing is, if they still want to push the same diva division they always have pushed since 1998, if they want to keep that same playbook, if they want to take that status quo back to that landscape of a golden age, then you know a few things for sure. They want an eye-candy diva as centerpiece. The best a female wrestler can be is a periphery diva. Women with wrestling credibility will be used as credible jobbers. Exactly how will this play out? Whom will they choose to be what? What storylines will they use? Can't be exactly sure. Will they be successful? Can't be exactly sure. Nevertheless, I think the things you can be sure of are important to keep in mind. As long as they want to keep the diva division going, that means they will do certain things you can be sure about.
Are they ready to end the diva division? I still don't think so. Ending the diva division would not be like a football coach not going for the onside kick in that example I gave and choosing to just give up. It would be more like tossing out the playbook and coming up with something that stands a better chance of working out. Go back to the example I gave from Coach. Their playbook getting leaked led to them not going with the same plan and developing something new. They had to if they wanted to succeed. The diva division does not work anymore. It is not because anyone broadcasted the WWE's plans. It just doesn't lead to consistent success.
In the end, you can also say that this all goes back to the to not take things out of context. Whatever page in their playbook the WWE is on, that is going to determine how the women are being treated. I have spoken about this before, so I won't go too much into it. Would Lita or Trish have succeeded today? How about Mickie James? How would AJ Lee have been pushed if she debuted in the era of failed centerpieces? You cannot answer these type of questions without paying attention to the situation or landscape of the diva division at the time. Reading the plays the WWE is making means a lot when analyzing the diva division.
I started with a tangent, so why don't I do one more tangent? When I was young, I wanted to be an ecologist. I liked animals and nature. I was so eager to go in that direction, I turned down going to Brooklyn Tech, which is one of the more prestigious high schools in New York City and not that far from me on the subway, and went to the High School for Environmental Studies, which is less prestigious and a much further subway ride. Much further. Streetlights would sometimes still be on when I woke up to go to school, and then they would be coming on again some days as I was getting home. I transferred somewhere else after two years, although I don't regret my time there. When I eventually went to my 4-year college, which ironically was in the same neighborhood as HSES, my campus didn't offer Biology as a major. They offered Natural Science. I took that. I found myself surrounded my pre-med students. I was getting either a C or a C+ for my major classes in my first two semesters. Those two things combined with the fact that I would have eventually have had to go to the campus all the way in The Bronx to take courses only offered there led to me just tapping out and switching to English. I liked to write. My mother didn't think I could get a job with an English degree, so I had to choose a double major. Social Science seemed practical and I hoped it would leave me with enough free electives for a minor in Latin, something else I had grown fond of. The minor plan didn't work out. And that is the story of how I ended up with a double major in English and Social Science.
What does that have to do with anything? Did I feel like boring you? Am I just in a talkative mood today? Or is this just a convenient way to bring up a little comparison? Ecology and sociology are very similar. Both have to do with studying living things and how they interact with other living things and their surroundings. You can probably list the obvious differences, but let me bring up one. In sociology, you don't just have to sit back and watch people do things or examine numerical data endlessly. You can interview people to get a sense of what is going on. In a lot of ways, talking to people is probably more important than just studying stats. In ecology, you obviously cannot interview what you are studying. Someone might walk up to Katy Perry and ask her what makes her roar. If someone walked up to a lion and asked him that and he opened his mouth up wide, I don't think you should just stand there and wait for his answer.
When I analyze the diva division, I analyze the diva division. I may read what people are saying in interviews and even dirtsheet reports now and then, but what ultimately defines what that diva division is about is how these women are being pushed, not what is being said in interviews. A lot of people go more by what people are saying than what people are doing. They don't even analyze what people are saying, just accept what people are saying. Whether I have a bit of an ecologist left in me or not, I think I would rather analyze things directly than just do interviews or believe in what others are saying.
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