Friday, June 23, 2017

The Sloppiness Of The Raw Women's Division

Both the Raw and Smackdown women's divisions have their issues that are resulting in fans getting irritated and women not realizing their full potential in terms of how they are being pushed and how well they are connecting with the fans. I talked a lot about the issues with Smackdown recently. I cannot let Raw off the hook.

A couple weeks ago, Raw had a very dumb interaction for their women that I briefly mentioned. Alexa Bliss defended the title against Nia Jax in a pathetic match. But that was not even the issue. Mickie James and Dana Brooke were out there because they are also not on good terms with Alexa Bliss. They end up going after her. Nia Jax pushed them out of the way because she wanted Alexa for herself. She attacked them again. The segment ended with Mickie and Dana just getting in the ring with Nia and letting her destroy them. That was bad writing. After Nia Jax already knocked them around a few minutes earlier, why would Mickie and Dana just get in the ring to stand there like they could trust her? Why wouldn't they at least try to get revenge? They could have even just stared down both Nia and Alexa from outside the ring. Mickie and Dana just looked stupid with that kind of writing.

And the stupidity continues. This week on Raw, Sasha Banks and Nia Jax had another match that was nothing to get excited about. Once again, however, that was not the issue. Another brawl broke out. It seems all the women hate Alexa Bliss. Emma came out to get some of Alexa, who did walk out on the other two heels the week before in a tag match. Nia Jax held Alexa for Emma. Emma accidentally hit Nia Jax. A little while after that, Emma and Alexa just shrug off their issues and attack Sasha Banks. I know two enemies might put aside their differences to attack a common enemy, but Emma was just focused on going after Alexa Bliss a few moments ago, how could you just shrug that off so easily? Alexa Bliss was her immediate target, not Sasha Banks. Mickie James and Dana Brooke then come out to go after the heels. Bayley runs out after. I was watching this segment on Monday. Part of me expected Bayley to attack Mickie James and Dana Brooke? Why? Because it would match the rest of the stupidity going on here.

There are various reasons why none of these women are as over as they could be. I think two of those reasons came up in this very segment from Raw.

First, the WWE's writers are not doing a proper job building characters, relationships, and feuds. Fans just don't know what to make out of a lot of what they are seeing. Emma comes out there focused on getting Alexa Bliss. Next thing you know, they seem to be on the same side again. You also have Mickie James and Dana Brooke together. That's fine, but they could have done a much better job creating that relationship to make it easier for fans to care about it.

The second problem I saw on Raw was that things are just congested. This has been an issue I brought up for the Smackdown women. Too many feuds and PPV matches involving too many women. That problem has really taken over on Raw recently. Things started out as Alexa Bliss vs. Nia Jax, with Mickie James and Dana Brooke also involved in the story. That was fine. The WWE could have done something good with those four women. Next thing you know, Sasha Banks is in the story and the spotlight seems to be on her more. Emma returns and is thrown into the story. This week, Bayley runs out. Is Alicia Fox going to get involved next week? This is just not good. The WWE has added way too many women to this thing and created a mess.

Let me focus on Bayley. I would be the first one to say that the WWE has not treated her right since she debuted on the main roster. And she looked terrible in her feud with Alexa Bliss. But she lost the feud and the WWE looked like they were moving on. She has to take a backseat. Either find her another angle or rest her for a few weeks. It isn't fair to other women to have her pushed back into the picture. I said the same thing about Sasha Banks. She deserved a proper title run. But if the WWE was unwilling to do that and just continued the endless feud with her and Charlotte, that was just unfair to other women. In this case, it was unfair to Bayley. Even when Bayley won the title, Sasha Banks was out there. What face woman was sharing the spotlight with Sasha when she won he first title? This is one of the reasons Bayley has not worked out better. She has not had that individual spotlight properly on her when her push started. But it is unfair to keep sending her out there when there are other women that could use some proper attention.

Not only can you talk about congestion in terms of women in this picture, you can talk about creative congestion. Everyone dislikes Alexa Bliss. Not only does she have a title everyone would like to have, but she has done things to ruin her relationships with various women, even though the WWE is sloppy with that. You also have the fact that everyone has to keep an eye on Nia Jax because she will attack both the faces and the heels. So what is the feud that is going on right now? It is not clean at all. The WWE can try to toss together some multi-woman match for Great Balls Of Fire, but they have not set this up properly at all. What is the story? All these women want the title? All these women want revenge on Alexa Bliss? Should the focus be on Nia Jax? Things were already messy even before Bayley ran out this week. What is her story? And will it properly fit in with anything else? Then again, stories don't seem to matter here. Everyone is just going to fight each other.

How would I do things? First, Sasha Banks should be the one getting a singles feud against Alexa Bliss. She has the freshness. It could have started this month and gone to Summerslam. There was no need to have this congested mess. If the WWE wanted to toss all the women together for a #1 contender's match, they could have just done that by now and without all the sloppy half-developed angles that they have been throwing out there.

Second, Mickie James, Dana Brooke, and Emma should be doing something separate. Emma is returning from her injury, so it would be nice if she could get some proper focus on her. Mickie and Dana have that partnership that can really be featured a lot better. Dana and Emma used to be partners. The story just seems to write itself. Instead of having all these women focused on either going after Alexa Bliss or defending themselves against Nia Jax, create an interesting storyline away from that which might help the character development of these women. The story could either lead to Dana turning on Mickie James to go back to Emma or Dana finally knocking her former partner to the curb. It would be something the audience would have an easier time getting behind than the sloppiness of the last few weeks. And Mickie James vs. Emma would be a good singles match, certainly better than just Emma vs. Dana Brooke.

What about the other women, namely Nia Jax and Bayley? They can either feud with each other or just take a backseat for a while. It happens. It happened all the time in the diva era. It just becomes hard to come up with an angle for everyone on a consistent basis in the women's division. If you force yourself to do it, you end up with the sloppiness you now have. What is wrong if these two women are just supporting players in another feud? Be there as tag partners for the Alexa/Sasha feud or to put these women over to give them momentum in the feud.

The WWE needs to fix the problems. Come up with clear angles for these women and stop trying to give them all something to do. It is just not practical. It makes it harder for fans to connect with a lot of what is going on.

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