Can You Pander To The Internet A Bit More?

Cena DQed Barrett and Punk? Why? For not being PG enough on a kid's show. Lawler even brought up the PG thing himself.

Earlier in the night, Daniel Bryan had a backstage segment where he was making out with Gail Kim. The Bellas, who have been trying to get a little intimate with him (I've caught the PG flu myself), walked in and a catfight ensued. But they brought up that the Bellas were whores (there goes the flu) for the guest hosts and Gail is an "afterthought" on Raw. Bellas being sluts and Gail being underutilized are all talked about much by the internet. Tons of jokes about this stuff. No need to shed tears for these women. The WWE is not really attacking their own image. The Bellas are whores because the WWE frequently used them with the guest hosts. Gail Kim is irrelevant because the WWE books her as that. The WWE is making jokes of how they treat their own divas. I can smell the ratings.

Since I'm on the subject of divas. Maryse continues to get more proper attention on herself for her own sake than Natalya. Natalya retained her title, but it is only a matter of time before she does lose it and gets sent back to the end of the line. Problem is, there is no longer a tag team for her to valet for. Looks like she may just end up fodder in tag matches and in building up other women. But she was getting over, you say? The WWE doesn't care. I would like to see if she can stay over when the WWE does drop her. Melina? I would have been surprised if she did win the title. She was just in a filler feud. They killed her off pretty easy. LayCool came out right after the match. I changed the channel, so I have nothing more to say on those two. I am actually a little surprised that the WWE used so many divas tonight somewhat relevantly. Alicia didn't do anything in her match and Tamina just stood around. But I doubt this means that the WWE is going to improve their diva division. Gail/Bellas is a minor diva feud. Natalya is a face Diva's Champion who is not meant to be centerpiece of her brand. McCool looks to be almost ready to get it back. Maryse is getting more time to let her character shine through storylines and actually winning matches now and then. I just realized that I forgot about Eve tonight. Is she to be the new Gail Kim. Is it her time to be an afterthought? Didn't she come out for commentary for Natalya vs. Maryse last week, got in a minor exchange with Maryse and pinned Melina prior to that? Where was she in either the title match or the mixed tag?

Back to my main point. WWE's got jokes? There was a HHH-feel to this crap. I'm not saying he is necessarily pushing this stuff, but I frequently notice that he loves to make little jabs at things only certain fans will understand. Why do I hate this? Little subtle jokes that pander to the internet? This is supposed to take the place of good midcard feuds, a better diva division, and a better tag division. Just because you are making fun of how your PG rating is upsetting fans, how your placement of divas by guest hosts are making them look like whores, and not using a former Women's Champion relevantly at all makes her look insignificant (which is what the WWE wants at the moment anyway, that does not mean you are fixing it. This is about as stupid as two political parties promising more working together, but only having it amount to sitting together at some huge speech that's coming up. Less of the symbolic and more of the meaningful.

But maybe change will come? Maybe this is all the sign of it, not just a mocking of it. The WWE's stock fell sharply today. Actually, it started falling sharply as the markets closed last Friday. The gravity of the situation was not felt until today. Was that the wake-up call for the WWE? Thing is, as the overall stock market has been steadily improving over the past year, WWE stock has been going down, even before today. PPV buys were down in 2010 as compared to 2009, as well as overall ratings for the shows. This is a sign that something should be done. Is the WWE's response to join the internet in laughing at it's own product? And TNA will still fail to take advantage.