The Status Quo Of The Diva Division: What Is It?

What is the status quo of the WWE diva division? What is that diva division about? What is going on in that WWE women's division during the diva era? So many ways to ask the question, and also so many ways to answer it.

Let me start with something the status quo of the diva division is not. The status quo of the division is not simply this "diva" image. I bring that up because I have seen some people bring up Beth Phoenix in the same discussion as CM Punk because she is not the typical diva and defies the status quo in that regard. I have spoken about divas with "anti-diva" looks and gimmicks before. The WWE is not against having women like that, and has sometimes even developed women like that to be stars. I am not denying that there is a stereotypical image that is associated with the divas. Fine. But what about the image? It is how the WWE pushes these women that defines what the diva division is about.

That being said, the status quo can be put very simply. Whatever the WWE wants, that is the status quo. Whatever those individuals in power want to accomplish and are trying to accomplish, that is what defines what things are about. Whomever they want to build into top stars, that is whom they will develop to be top stars. Their agenda defines the status quo. You can even talk about the status quo of their agenda to really understand what they are about, but that might get confusing. Regardless, putting things like this is not exactly very specific. Are things really that random and fickle? Is everything simply a whim of Vince McMahon? A lot of things, possibly, but everything? John Cena would not be where he is if everything was random. Even though the WWE does choose what it wants, there is some consistency to what they are about.

Going for that more specific answer, what is the diva division about? Some people might say that the status quo of the diva division is not the same in recent years as it was under Trish Stratus and Lita. Things back then were better. The WWE had better women's matches and were pushing their women better. The quality was great. Most fans would grade it very well. Question is, was the status quo about maintaining that great quality or giving something the fans would grade very well? Was it about treating their women well, especially the female wrestlers? Or was something else going on?

When the diva division started, it was about developing Sable as the centerpiece. They would use female wrestlers to put her over. Chyna was the only female wrestler they were developing as a success, and that was in the periphery of Sable. You had a few other eye-candy divas being featured for their looks and not really being developed as serious wrestlers like they were trying with Sable until she left. When she left, the WWE really didn't develop a new centerpiece for a while.

When Trish Stratus arrived and the time was right with her, they started developing her as the new centerpiece. They used female wrestlers to put her over. The only female wrestler being developed as a success was Lita, and that was on the periphery of Trish Stratus. You had a few eye-candy divas being featured well. Does this story sound familiar? This is the same diva division they were running prior to the dark age that came after Sable left.

What has happened in the diva division since Trish and Lita left? What has the WWE tried to do? Their main goal for years was to take another eye-candy diva and develop her as the centerpiece, following in the line of Sable and Trish. Candice Michelle, Maryse, Michelle McCool, Kelly Kelly, and Eve Torres have all been given that kind of push. It was not until a year ago that they pushed a female wrestler as a periphery diva. That would be AJ Lee. The WWE has continued to push female wrestlers as jobbers to the centerpiece and interim centerpiece when they are not around. However, with more eye-candy divas becoming solid in the ring, they are now starting to get the types of pushes that female wrestlers once held on a regular basis. Aside from that, the goal has not really changed. The means has not changed. Eye-candy centerpiece and women with wrestling credibility as credible jobbers.

Let me get to the answer. What is the status quo of the diva division? The WWE is trying to take an eye-candy diva and develop her to be the primary star of their diva division. They choose whom they want that centerpiece to be, whom they want the credible jobbers to be, and whom the other stars of the division will be. Go back to Trish and Lita being around. If the status quo back then was really about maintaining a certain high-quality diva division, whether in terms of treating their women with a certain level of respect when they push them or always trying to please their fans, it makes you wonder what happened. However, if the status quo really did revolve around getting the woman they were pushing as the centerpiece to work out, it really is no mystery as to why the diva division has fallen. If the WWE cannot get what they want, they will not do better with what they do have for the sake of treating their workers right or giving the fans something that really interests them. The status quo back then could have been due to a number of reasons, but when there is a connection between how things are now and how things were then, that connection should be seen as the status quo of the diva division. That connection is developing an eye-candy diva as the centerpiece. The status quo has not changed.

Some people may completely disagree with me when I say that the status quo has not changed. How can I look at how the division is today and say that things are the same? The agenda is the same. Moreover, the same status quo may not always lead to the same results. Let me give two examples.

First, imagine a football team that wins the Super Bowl one season. The following season, they keep everything exactly the same. They don't cut any players and don't bring in any new players. The coaching staff stays exactly the same. Every position in the organization stays the same. They even keep the same playbook. And yet, they fail to even make the playoffs for that season after they had done so well. What went wrong? In terms of who they had and the plays they were doing when they had that great year, they maintained the status quo. The state of affairs for them remained the same. Problem is, age, injuries, and other personal problems may have become an issue for some of the star players. Moreover, the other teams may have gotten better and be better prepared for this team. A winning status quo one season leads to failure the next. If that team was smart, they would not cling to an arrogant belief that doing exactly what led them to that Super Bowl win one season will do the same for years to come.

Second, let's talk about SpongeBob! Did you ever see that episode where Squidward has enough of SpongeBob and moves to a community of people just like him, who also have the same tastes as him? When he first gets there, he loves it. He gets into this routine of always doing the same thing every day. Soon, he loses his smile. He gets bored with it. He goes a little crazy. He eventually leaves. What went wrong? Wasn't this pretty much Squidward's dream status quo? It definitely pleased him at one time. Some people just get tired of the way things are. If the status quo is so monotonous, a status quo that was enjoyable at one time may become painful in the future.

What has changed in the WWE diva division is not the status quo. What has changed is the ability of the status quo to get the job done, in terms of pleasing the WWE, the fans, and treating many of these women well. Just because the division was so great under Trish and Lita, that does not mean it was the WWE's goal to please people who say it was great. As I have said before, you cannot confuse an opinion of the status quo for what the status quo actually is. The same status quo may not always bring absolute results. That diva division is about making stars out of whom the WWE wants to be stars. They want a woman with that "diva" image as their centerpiece. That is what has defined the diva division from the start. Things are currently in a dark age, with AJ Lee getting the spotlight, but will the WWE eventually go for another eye-candy centerpiece?

Spoiling The Women's Division

When someone spoils you, they give you that kind of treatment that you just love to have. Some people might feel guilty about getting that special treatment. Other people might love it so much that they don't want to lose that treatment. If you have ever seen a very spoiled individual, you know how annoying or demanding they can get.

Look at the state of that diva division. The last few years have not been pretty. And yet, the WWE will not give up on it. What can possibly be their motivation for wanting it to continue? There definitely is motivation. The WWE diva division has definitely been successful. They have had successful centerpieces. Sable and Trish were successful centerpieces.

The diva division started with Sable. She was definitely over back then. I don't usually watch old segments or matches on Youtube, but I did pass by a segment involving Sable from just before I started watching wrestling regularly. They were giving her (and Sunny) an award for helping an issue of Raw magazine be the highest-selling issue ever. That's an indicator right there that sex sells. That image sells. And they ran with this woman as the first centerpiece when the diva division started. That success they had with Sable, seeing her work out as the centerpiece, is what you can say started to spoil the women's division.

If the WWE got spoiled with Sable, they got spoiled rotten with Trish Stratus. She lasted longer than Sable and was able to develop her in-ring ability even further. How many times was she Babe of the Year? Once again, shows that the image sells. The WWE was once again having success running that same diva division that started with Sable. Trish even got inducted into the Hall of Fame before Sable. After seeing how much success they were having, it is not hard to imagine why they tried to make a new centerpiece after Trish and Lita retired, not even bothering to develop a new periphery diva with a female wrestler.

And all those attempts to create a new eye-candy centerpiece failed. That raises the question, if Sable or Trish had flopped, would the WWE women's division be better today? Without that success that continues to motivate the WWE to push this same diva division and try to make it still work, would you see a better women's wrestling division right now? If the image had not sold, I think it is easy to believe the WWE would not be motivated to try to push it. To be a little more specific than that, what if the women themselves did not connect with the fans and failed in the same way as those women the WWE has attempted to develop as the new centerpiece. I am talking about getting injured too much, deteriorating wrestling ability, not being committed, and never getting the overness to match how you are being pushed. Obviously, this is just speculation. You can't know for sure what the WWE would have done. If Sable had flopped as centerpiece, I believe you would have had a good chance of the WWE not bothering to continue to push the diva division. They might have went back to pushing female wrestlers to be the top stars of the actual women's wrestling division. They liked what they had with Sable and continued it with Trish. If she had not worked out? I can't answer that one. No opinion there. I think it could really go either way. They had a number of female wrestlers on the roster at the time to still continue running a respectable women's division and make a star out of one of them, possibly Lita. On the other side of that, they started doing Diva Searches during Trish's run as centerpiece. Had Trish started to not work out, they could just wait for one of those eye-candy divas to get solid in the ring and develop her to be the centerpiece. No matter what, having more failed centerpieces than successful ones has not motivated the WWE to give up the diva division.

Let me throw a wild card into the discussion. What if a female wrestler accomplished what Mickie James did back when Sable or Trish started out? What fans don't realize, Mickie James was a credible jobber who got over on her own at the time when centerpieces were failing. They never stopped pushing her as a jobber to the centerpiece and interim centerpiece. Would things have been different for a female wrestler who accomplished this at a time the WWE was less spoiled with their diva division desires? If a woman accomplished this when Sable was the centerpiece, I think the WWE would have been more open to giving her the better career that she was earning. I would like to believe the WWE would have a more open mind back then. Moreover, the company was hotter back then. They had a better midcard, which would lead to periphery divas featured better. Things being so much better back then is what made the first dark age not as painful as the current one. And if this happened when Trish was centerpiece? I am talking about earlier in her centerpiece run. Mickie James obviously debuted during Trish's end of her centerpiece run. Once again, I have no real answer there. If the WWE was really eager to build a new eye-candy centerpiece after what they had with Sable, a female wrestler they are using to put over Trish may become a nuisance if she started getting over. All these years of failure sure are not making it easier for credible jobbers to succeed.

I am not trying to say that Trish and Sable should not have succeeded or did not deserve their success. The whole point of this post was just to talk about what can be the WWE's motivation for keeping the diva division going like this. And they definitely have had success with the diva division to be motivated. It is not really so much these two women that have spoiled the WWE, but the success of these two women. It is the success the WWE have had with these women. I don't blame these women. It is up to the WWE to see what the problem is and try to fix it. They are to blame for not moving on from that success they had in the past. It is not leading to success now. They are spoiled.

Speaking of Mickie James, I came across an article from Bleacher Report last week that said Mickie James has flopped in TNA. Really? The writer talks about how poorly Mickie James has been used. Fans were eager to see her join TNA, then no one cared a couple weeks later. She has been overlooked for Velvet Sky, Gail Kim, and Tara. I'm not even going to post the link to the article. Search the subterranean depths of Google, if you care to read it. I don't recommend telling a teacher something like that when she asks you to cite your source.

First of all, Mickie's TNA career isn't even over yet. Second, about a year and a half ago, there was a report that Mickie James was the most searched female wrestler on Google in 2011. She accomplished that while in TNA. That is an indicator right there that Mickie James has drawn interest in TNA. How can anyone read that report and make the general conclusion that no one cared about Mickie James a few weeks after she joined TNA. She joined in 2010, people stopped caring by the end of the year, and she still had enough people interested in her in 2011 to look her up and see what's happening with her? If you can get fans to be interested in you like that, despite the mediocre treatment, you are not a flop. She has delivered for TNA. Third, even though I would be the first to say that booking accomplishments are not what it is about in pro wrestling, Mickie James accomplished things in TNA that the WWE would never allow her to have. They would never have booked a credible jobber to win as many title reigns as Trish Stratus. Mickie James has now held 9 major women's titles. Yeah, in case you missed it, she won the TNA Knockouts title again. She has also held the WWE Women's Championship, Diva's Championship, and TNA Knockouts Championship. The only woman to do that. That is going to be her legacy. That is something for her and her fans to be proud of. If she had not come to TNA and done that, what would her legacy have ended up being? Lastly, why should you criticize Mickie James as a flop in TNA when rotating women like this is just how TNA does things? They rotate everything in and out. What looks like a huge success one moment will look like a flop in a short time. I don't remember Gail Kim having any angles while Brooke Tessmacher was feuding with Madison Rayne and Tara. Recently, Gail has just been used to put over other women, who will most likely be rotated out themselves in a while. Where is Brooke Tessmacher right now? Mickie James is a flop because she is being treated like pretty much all the other women in that KO division? I don't think so.

I always say that a wrestler's job isn't to get me to like him or live up to my standards. Their job is to connect with their audience as best as they can. That is the best way to become an asset to the company. If they can't do that, they should try to make other talent look good that can get the job done and support the company in other ways. That writer who wrote that article obviously has standards I don't agree with. Yes, if you look at how TNA is using Mickie James, it would be easy to say Mickie James has flopped. The fact is, this woman was not supposed to succeed in the WWE in the first place. After that, she had a career where she should have flopped. And she still maintained the overness. In TNA, she has succeeded in drawing interest for the company and has created a title legacy for herself. I will not deny that this woman deserves better, but she has made use of her opportunities to still accomplish things. In the end, I once said that TNA appreciates Mickie James more than the WWE. I still stand by that. The problem is, TNA also cares about several other women in the same way. Unlike the WWE, you can say TNA won't get "spoiled" on anyone.