Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Paige Gets Title Shot Against Charlotte

Charlotte has moved on from Nikki Bella. A match was held on Raw to determine the new #1 contender. Paige vs. Brie Bella vs. Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch. All three groups represented, as well as Paige, the odd diva out for a while now. And Paige, not too surprisingly, won. She will go against her former stablemate, Charlotte.

The story here has been pretty inconsistent so far. Paige did a promo a few weeks ago slamming just about every woman in the diva division. She walked away from her team. It was obvious she was turning heel. Once again, the WWE takes what should have been a simple story and makes it complicated. They had Paige trying to get back with PCB. And they even had Charlotte and Becky let her rejoin them. Paige then attacked them after a loss on Raw recently. There was also the whole minor issue with Natalya. That was fine, but the angle of Paige trying to rejoin PCB was just stupid.

Earlier this year, the WWE had Randy Orton come back for revenge against Seth Rollins. The Authority wanted Orton back in the group. Orton pretended to rejoin the group so he could wait for the right moment to strike and get his hands on Seth Rollins. That is how the WWE played it and it worked fine.

This story in the diva division is not the same. Charlotte and Becky Lynch were already sour on Paige after her promo. They weren't open to bringing Paige back. But the WWE just has them accept her back. It reminded me of the whole "frenemies" angle with Paige and AJ Lee last year. That was not developed properly. Wanting to build up to something is one thing. What the WWE did was essentially pull the trigger, act like they didn't, and then pull the trigger again a short time after. All they had to do to keep Paige busy for a few weeks was have her feud with Natalya, then move on back to Charlotte and Becky Lynch. No need to get the group back together so Paige can turn on them again.

Speaking of that feud between Paige and Natalya, there were rumors that Paige was losing back then because of some issue she had using profanity. I am not going to talk about that much, but I will say that what bothers me more is the WWE allowing their own workers to use certain words on WWE programming. Stephanie McMahon herself has used "bitch" just last year. I am not offended. I am annoyed. The WWE wants to do family entertainment, including targeting kids, then they allow their workers to do things like that. There is also guys using the middle finger. If a worker does it in private, some interview, or something like that, I do not see it as such a big deal. But as far as the product itself goes, what does the WWE want it to be? The WWE just comes off like they can do whatever they want. That is arrogant. If you are going to target kids, there are things you should not be doing. I am sure more fans have seen and heard profanity watching Raw in recent years than even knew about what Paige did.

As far as Paige goes, what does the WWE want her to be? I am still not convinced they want her to be a star. She can go the path of AJ Lee, the top female wrestler of the diva division, or she can go the path of Melina, a woman who got a push like this just to put over another credible jobber and got lost in the shuffle soon after. Aside from that promo she gave weeks ago, there has been nothing too spectacular about this push. The WWE is either not serious about pushing her as a top star or they have gotten lazy. They might think that fans buzzing about the diva division this year means more people are into than there actually are. You still need to put work into these women. You can't just shuffle them all around in various feuds. AJ Lee got a huge push in the periphery a few years ago. The Bellas got it last year. I am not saying there needs to be a diva getting pushed that hard every year, but I do not see Paige being pushed like that.

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