State Of The WWE Women's Division: May 2017

The brand split is less than a year old. It took a while, but you could start to see individual identities arise for the separate women's divisions on Raw and Smackdown. Raw was the more serious women's division. It got featured better at the major PPVs since the brand split. Only the NXT elite held the Women's Championship. History was being "made" right and left. Meanwhile, Smackdown was the last stand of the diva era. I don't mean to imply there is anything wrong with that. They let women that obviously were not hyped very much for their in-ring work get title reigns. But whatever you want to say about those identities, the trades last month shook it up.

Let me start with Raw. Alexa Bliss won the Women's Championship last night from Bayley. Ever since this title was created last year, only the NXT elite held it. That would be Charlotte, Sasha Banks, and Bayley, three of the 4 Horsewomen. Alexa Bliss may have come from NXT, but she's not considered elite in the ring. I would say giving her the title was a terrible idea. The WWE should have maintained their standards. Alexa Bliss isn't as terrible in the ring as Dana Brooke, but she is not considered as great in the ring as she should have to be to win Raw's Women's Championship, especially after the women on Raw spent over a year creating that respectable identity for that title. And for someone like her to have already won more titles in less than a year than Becky Lynch has won since coming to the main roster 2 years ago is terrible, especially in this era that is supposed to be more about female wrestlers, like Becky Lynch, than divas, like Alexa Bliss.

I cannot see the WWE handling things right from here. I still believe Sasha Banks should have been the one turning heel and going after Bayley for the title. After Alexa Bliss finishes with Bayley, they can still go to Sasha Banks, but what would be the point? Sasha Banks is going to put over women's wrestling and talk about how women like Alexa Bliss are ruining the women's revolution? The WWE really needs to move away from those kind of storylines. Sasha Banks is pretty much a face RTC Ivory. Not only that, fans were anticipating that heel turn for Sasha Banks. I am not always a believer that a heel turn fixes everything, but they probably should have gone through with that for Sasha Banks. They teased it and never followed through.

Aside from that, Raw has the angle between Emma and Dana Brooke going on. It may not seem like much, but it is a storyline. Creative depth is a good thing, especially when handled right. Problem is, I don't know if they have the roster depth to make this angle good. They already dug up Alicia Fox last week as a jobber for this angle. After a while, though it may just go nowhere. It might end up like the angle between Carmella and James Ellsworth. It started out with some actual segments. Ever since, you just take it for granted that Ellsworth is there and will get knocked around by the women. I can see the angle between Emma and Dana Brooke eventually just lead to something mediocre. Nevertheless, still something to talk about.

Mickie James and Nia Jax are getting nothing to talk about. A feud seems obvious, but I don't like it. Mickie James deserves better than this. It just gets hard to book Nia Jax after a while. You can't always have her look so dominant. And she's also not a great in-ring worker, which makes you wonder if she even deserves to look so dominant. This would just be a very terrible feud. Mickie James needs help establishing her character. An angle in the periphery might be better for her than a feud, whether she wins or loses. At the same time, I wonder if the WWE even has space for this women's feud on Raw.

Over to Smackdown. The WWE has not given Charlotte the Women's Championship there yet. That is shocking. The WWE has overrated her a ton, including handing her history on multiple occasions. And they pass by the opportunity to do it again by making her the first woman to have held both titles? That just seems unlike them. They are obviously high on Alexa Bliss, but Charlotte has been featured as above her. Moreover, they did not even make enough out of the potential angle they had of Alexa Bliss and Charlotte racing to make history. The whole thing started and ended in less than a month. I just would have expected more out of them.

Charlotte did have a title shot last week against Naomi. This was the main event of Smackdown. Yeah, that seems like something the WWE would do for Charlotte. But this match had no business being in the main event. The last time Smackdown had women in the main event, it was a steel cage match, it was the culmination of an angle they were running for weeks, and it featured a return. Charlotte vs. Naomi had only been going on about 2 weeks before this match. It was hardly an interesting feud. It didn't have time to be an interesting feud. And then Natalya, Tamina, and Carmella attacked the two women. No offense, but is this the female Job Squad? It is hard to take any of these women seriously. And even when they win matches, they never seem to go anywhere. And the WWE decided to have Smackdown end with this group standing tall.

With all this, you can see Charlotte turning face. Is it a good idea? As far as Charlotte goes, she is not great when it comes to showing character. The WWE will have to help her with how she is portrayed to make the character work. As far as depth goes, they needed to do it. Your faces were Becky Lynch and Naomi, who has a history of injuries, whether you want to blame her for the injuries or certain women she has worked with. Nikki Bella is a face, but she is not around. Your heels were Charlotte, Natalya, Carmella, and Tamina. Terrible face/heel depth has been an issue with Smackdown's women's division before. But they made the right decision to do a face turn. Did it have to be Charlotte? It just seems like the most convenient option. I am not going to criticize them for what they did.

One thing Smackdown has been good about is creative depth. They frequently have had multiple angles going on for the women. Where is that now? All the women seem to be stuffed into this angle involving Charlotte. The only other thing you have going on is the debut vignettes for Lana, which looks like another throwback to the diva era. I don't think debut vignettes should really count. Smackdown has lost one of the things it has done right with their women. Will Charlotte bury the division? Or will Smackdown eventually get on track again and have multiple proper angles going on for the women?

Overall, the two divisions really do seem to have lost their identities. Don't get me wrong, both identities were imperfect. There was still a lot of room for improvement. But it seems like some of the things the two brands were doing right have been hurt. Raw doesn't feel as respectable as it used to be. Smackdown might become too centerpiece-driven. And I do think overall match quality will be hurt. I never believed the WWE could sustain what they were doing last year, but it will be interesting to see if fans keep on buying into what is going on as much as they did last year.