I know very well that there are various positions in basketball. Honestly, I cannot tell the difference between any of them. It honestly looks like all these guys are doing the same thing when they are out there. Pass the ball, shoot the ball, rebound, and all that stuff. In football, you can easily tell the difference between the players. You can tell easily from how they line up and what clear function they are serving. What I am going to talk about now will not be about centers and point guards. If you know even less about basketball than I do, that might be a blessing.
What I notice when I am watching the games is that most teams, especially the good ones, have one star player. This is the guy that frequently scores the most for them. The Heat have LeBron James. The Thunder have Kevin Durant. The Knicks, although they are struggling this season, have Carmelo Anthony. Many say Brook Lopez was that guy for the Nets, but he is injured right now. The coach may sometimes center his game plan around that one star player. Aside from that star player, there are other starters that are also relied on to score, defend, make rebounds, and so on. LeBron James has many great players around him. With Brook Lopez out, many players have stepped up in his place. I cannot pick out one guy that has really taken that spot. Outside of those star players, there is the bench. Basketball is a fast-paced game. Those guys out there need a rest now and then. In football, one quarterback can typically play the whole game. The same goes for certain other positions in a football game. In basketball, the guys on the bench are important to keep the momentum going, or at least make sure the other team does not do too much damage. It is sometimes the guys on the bench that have to get a team back into a game. If a coach decides to rest all his starters for a given game, that means the bench will see even more playing time. When you get down to it, all these guys are important to the success of the team.
How does that relate back to the diva division? First of all, doesn't it look like all those women are doing the same thing? That is especially the case now that eye-candy divas are getting pushed as credible jobbers. And yet, they all really do not have the same position in the division. They are not utilized the same. The star of the division, the "LeBron James" of the division, is the centerpiece. Those other star players around the centerpiece, those are the periphery divas. They may not be pushed as the central focus over time, but they are important to having a successful division. If one star cannot come through for you, it is important to have others around. And the bench? Obviously, those are your credible jobbers. They get used to put over the centerpiece. They get used as filler. Outside of that, they would be lucky to get anything good before getting lost in the shuffle again, or going back on that bench.
Right now, you are in a dark age. Your star player is not around. You have to rely on your other starters and your bench more. That is exactly what happened during the first dark age. Other periphery divas saw more time and even credible jobbers were getting used more. With Sable not around, many women benefited. This dark age, obviously, is worse than the first. Why? The WWE has failed to properly develop and feature other stars. Prior to developing AJ Lee as a star, the WWE didn't really have stars in the diva division. They had women they were attempting to make into stars, specifically the centerpiece, but none worked out. And none of the other periphery divas around right now are being featured well. And the WWE is not making as good use of their bench right now as they did during the first dark age. Credible jobbers were featured better back then. I would say the situation you have now is similar to the situation the Brooklyn Nets currently find themselves. Their centerpiece is out for the season. No one player has stepped up to fill that void. That is not a bad thing. You have a nice team effort to keep this team in the playoff race. Problem with the diva division now, the team effort you are getting is not leading to much success. I blame the coaches more than the players for that. Did I say that what has happened to the division is similar to the Nets this season? Maybe similar, but a better comparison might be to the Lakers. They have lost their top star and are doing horribly. Why even bother bringing up the Nets? Who says I can't put in a cheap plug for my favorite NBA team?
You want to talk about the bench getting the job done when the starters are struggling? That would be what Mickie James was doing in that diva division after Trish and Lita left. For years, the most over diva on the roster was neither the centerpiece nor an eye-candy periphery diva. It was the woman being used in that supportive role off the bench. There is no rule in the NBA that says a guy coming off the bench cannot one day be a starter if he earns it. How many credible jobbers have ever earned their way to being either the centerpiece or a periphery diva? None. You want to talk about what is best for business? You sometimes have to talk about what is best for the team. If that team is going to be a success, you have to utilize the players properly and give them what they earn. Mickie James should have been promoted up the ranks. Instead, the WWE stuck with a failing game plan. If that diva division was a basketball team, the coach would be fired.
How about relating this to the men's division? I think it can describe what is going on recently very well. In recent years, it feels like the WWE is banking everything on just a few stars. Everyone else is on the bench. They get used to fill up space and put others over. Occasionally, they get great pushes for a while, like Cody Rhodes and Goldust had last year, but it doesn't last. The WWE likes to have one centerpiece. That is their star player. For years, that has been John Cena. Will that change soon? Maybe. Aside from John Cena, there are other stars that the WWE pushes pretty well. You have Randy Orton and Daniel Bryan. Batista has returned into that spot. CM Punk was on that list. The WWE seems to be adding names to the bench, not to the list of stars. Mark Henry was a guy I thought they would push better. Big Show just seems to come and go. Some fans talk like the WWE is itching to completely bury Daniel Bryan. How stupid would that be? They need stars right now. I don't think they want to completely stifle him. He is more over than they would like, but trying to completely ruin him would be like shooting yourself in the foot. Right now, he is not the centerpiece. He is not pushed as the star player. He is pushed as a star next to that star player. And the star player happens to be struggling. If the WWE really cared about what was best for the team, they would be giving more guys better opportunities.
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