Thoughts On AJ Lee And On The End Of The Women's Championship

I did not really want to talk about AJ Lee, or any other NXT diva, again until they were moved up to the main rosters. Every week, I still see people comparing AJ or some other diva to Mickie James. All the talk about AJ being there to replace Mickie is circulating around. If you ask me, that sounds like an interesting topic for discussion. Why should I just watch people compare AJ to Mickie James and not join in?

I am not going to start with comparing looks, charisma, wrestling ability, or any of that just yet, although I have been noticing a few things. I will wait until she wins NXT3 and is moved to a main brand. I am going to start with just talking about there starts in the WWE. If people actually think this woman can replace Mickie James, she has to have the ability to get over on her own. That being said, I see that AJ Lee has two advantages Mickie James did not even have when she had her debut angle in 2005. First, the internet was already high on AJ Lee before she really did anything in the WWE to earn it. Before the final period was put at the end of NXT2, fans had already voted AJ as the winner of NXT3. Mickie James had years in the indies before her debut too, but neither that nor internet pre-debut love for some other reason set her up to be what she became. Many women have wrestled outside of the WWE before debuting. Not all get AJ Lee's level of hype from the fans before they even do a thing in the WWE. If this woman was actually at the level in the ring of a Daniel Bryan or Kaval, I would probably still roll my eyes at having any of them shoved down my throat as I have seen from a lot of fans, but I would grant her the hype more easily. The second advantage that AJ has that Mickie did not is that AJ is being booked very well for her own sake on NXT. Correct me if I am wrong, but was AJ not booked in the first main event of NXT3? Was AJ not booked to WIN the first main event of NXT3? The WWE is doing that placement, not the fans or AJ's wrestling ability. I don't think Mickie James ever even won a main event on Heat, let alone a televised WWE program. The WWE is booking AJ special. She is on a show where she does not have to compete with any other top face diva, or any diva with more overness than her for that matter. Kaitlyn is a close second. She may pull off an upset to win this thing, but I have my doubts.

I did not compare talent or anything from the wrestler's end that gets them over. What I compared was booking and how fans view wrestlers before they officially debut. It is really the internet that will decide the winner of this. How will AJ do on one of the major shows? One thing is for sure, if the WWE has a heavy hand in building her and keeping her over before she is fed to McCool, and she loses much of her overness when she is moved back down, AJ Lee sure has not proven to be a Mickie James.

I also see a whole bunch of topics and videos about people complaining about the retirement of the Women's Championship. Maybe if I still wrote a diva blog, I would have been more eager to join in. But it seems like another interesting topic to talk about.

How do I feel about this villainous move from the WWE? I don't care. All I see is people talking about how the title was built on the backs of women like Moolah, Trish, Ivory, Mickie James, Lita, and others. I hear people say that Moolah must be rolling in her grave for what the WWE did. Really? I think Moolah had enough reason to roll in her grave if she saw the direction women's wrestling was heading in the WWE before LayCool even broke a belt in half. After everything I have seen in the last 12 years, all the downs and supposed ups, retiring the Women's Championship is not that big of an insult at all.

Why continue to drag two titles on? Smackdown's diva division is dead. Raw's diva division is not exactly full of women who could legitimately replace Moolah. Too many women do not have the credibility to deserve the title. Some still get it. Others never will, whether they develop the credibility and overness for it or not. Women who do get it might possibly be getting it to really just put over some other woman or build their own credibility before they job later. Look at what they did to Melina. I will not go off here, but her last title reign was even more pathetically booked than Mickie's run as Diva's Champion. And they pretty much screwed over a diva or two who was under Melina. Would you have rather they killed off the Diva's Championship? Two reasons why they would not. It is the newer of the two titles. Why kill it so fast? Moreover, and building off that first reason, it represents the direction the WWE wants to send their women's division. See the pretty butterfly?

Do not like the direction the WWE is going? There you have what I say the real insult is. You want to keep the legacy of great past divas alive? You do not do it by shoving around a title they were booked to have from person to person until you build enough credibility in one to make them a legend. You do it by showing proper respect to your female wrestlers and valets, rewarding those who can bring results properly, giving them ample time to work in and out of the ring, and actually allowing them to be sources of entertainment again, not sources of building credibility. It is boring. The past divas worked to give the fans a show. That is another way you keep the legacy alive. Stop caring so much for titles and more about entertaining the fans. That is what it is about. When Moolah looks down at the WWE, what she should be most proud to see is two female wrestlers ripping the arena to shreds and the crowd cheering in approval, whether a title is on the line or not. That is something she could have said she helped to inspire and build. Booking and titles should not get in the way of that. Sadly, it is.

To sum it up, screw the title. Your higher priorities should be seeing these women respected properly and demanding to see real entertainment from them that goes beyond laughing about how they provide a "bathroom break" and all that. In itself, the title really is not either respect nor entertainment.