NXT Divas taking the WWE by storm?
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| Paige and Emma at NXT Arrival |
As part of NXT month on Talk Wrestling World, today I've decided to give you a full analysis of the female talent in WWE's developmental centre NXT. For month's now I have been gathering my thoughts on the division and I have to admit I've been tempted to write up this post for a while now, but I really wanted to save it for October. I think everyone will agree with me that the divas over in NXT are highly putting the main roster divas to great shame. From the storyline's to the character's to the actual matches, the divas of the future are shining bright and today I hope to take you through why their doing so fully analysing the talent and where the WWE are going wrong with it's main roster talent.
Match length
A big problem I and many other's have is the length of the diva's matches. I'm sure everyone is sick and tired of hearing me rant about this but it's something that frustrates me so much. If we look at the main roster divas and the length of their recent matches, it pretty shocking. At Night of Champions, Nikki Bella, AJ Lee and Paige battled it out in a triple threat match for the diva's championship, however the match only lasted eight minuets. A couple of week's ago Brie Bella went one on one with Summer Rae in what was literally in several seconds. On a more serious note, two month's ago the WWE showcased it's second biggest PPV of the year, Summer Slam, and the first diva's match of the night was for the championship and saw Paige and AJ Lee go at it, in a five minuet match up. Five minuets, for two diva's who to be honest the fan's had been waiting a long time to see feud, square off for the only female championship. Now a short match doesn't technically mean a bad match, but in this case it is. It's evident that the best female matches in the company have come from the lengthy NXT divas matches, and the weakest have come from the short main roster divas match ups. If we cross over to NXT and look at the match lengths there, Paige VS Emma for the NXT women's championship came in at around 14 minuets and the match up at NXT Takeover between Charlotte and Natalya lasted just over 16 minuets. Being a fan of women's professional wrestling and living in such a male dominated time in pro wrestling I think it's really important that the women of today get to showcase their talents's just as much as the men do. Diva's like Bayley, Charlotte and Natalya have all proven in the NXT matches that women can do exactly what men can do in the ring, and it's a shame that the diva's over on the main roster don't get to showcase that. In fact the match up at NXT Takeover between Natalya and Charlotte is being considered one of the best female matches in the history of the WWE. The fact that their are such short matches it mean's that story telling is almost impossible, how on earth are these girl's suppose to tell a story in the space of two minuets if not under.
Storyline's
I honestly think storyline's play a big big part in how we view a superstar or diva, and if we look at the NXT diva's storyline's and the main roster diva's storyline's there's a big big difference. On the main roster everything seem's to be like one big soap opera. If we take the AJ Lee/ Paige feud for out first example,the storyline first mainly focused on the sexual tension between the two, with kiss teasing each other and the title hardly being in the picture, talking of the championship over the past thew month's it's gone back and fourth between the two and there's been no sign of importance of the title and it's just something to throw about. Another example is the Bella twins storyline witch has consisted of hardly any actual wrestling, instead we've had story's of what took place between the two in high school, for example Nikki sitting a test for Brie or Brie stealing her sisters prom date. Any actual wrestling between the two has literally come under one minuet. Crossing over to NXT and it's a completely different scene. The girl's over there are chasing the same thing's the guy's are and it so refreshing to see that. Take the storyline between Charlotte and Bayley. It's all been about Bayley gaining the respect of a diva she was yet to defeat. The build was amazing leading up to NXT Takeover two, with Bayley picking up strong win's over the like's of Sasha Banks and Alexa Bliss. It was about Bayley and Charlotte fighting for the NXT women's championship and as I just said Bayley gaining the respect of her opponent. At Takeover the two went one on one for the championship and after a strong match lasting around 11/12 minuets Charlotte managed to retain the championship but at the end of the match the two shook hands and Charlotte showed her respect for Bayley. The lead up and the ending of the storyline was strong and gripping. No stupid promo's or segments. Nothing about their past or sleeping with each other's boyfriends, it was all about wrestling and becoming a champion. What I've noticed with NXT is that they don't completely focus on the storyline's more so the actual wrestling. The work on the storyline's are limited but their doesn't need to be anything major in the storyline's and NXT has proven that.
Gimmicks and Diversity
On the main roster the diva gimmick's seem to very very limited. Your either, a bitch, a total diva, a jobber or crazy. There's no diversity when it come's to gimmicks. At the moment the division is full of crazy chicks, including, AJ Lee, Alicia Fox and Paige, and I have to admit it worked at first with AJ but it's just become boring and stale now. It's the same thing from every diva week after week, and instead of wrestling it's a battle of who can be most crazy. It's different one someone can actually pull it off but girl's like Paige have proven they really can't pull of the crazy gimmick and it's just awkward. The NXT diva's on the other hand all have something different and at the moment there's actually no one with the crazy gimmick and they all just seem to be pro wrestlers fighting for a shot at the championship. We have Charlotte, the genetically superior, Alexa Bliss with her bling girl gimmick, Sasha Banks aka the Boss of NXT, and Bayley with her childlike, hug life gimmick witch works. All the girls have a gimmick they can pull of perfectly and suits their personalities. It's convincing, intresting and entertaining. Nothing seem's forced and it flows well, with everyone's gimmick complimenting everyone else's. There different and it's what keeps it intresting, there's no stupid stereo typical female gimmicks.
Booking! Booking! Booking!
Up next is booking. I could do a whole post on this subject so I'm gonna try my best to keep it as limited as I can. The main roster booking for the divas is flat out terrible to say the least. Every week it seem's to be the same thing. Alicia Fox VS AJ Lee with Paige at ringside, Paige VS Naomi with AJ at commentary. The end result is always so predictable and most of the time I find myself using the divas match ups as a bathroom break because there's no point watching the match because you already know what's going to happen. With total diva's contributing to this, you already know on a Monday at least one of the divas matches of the night. I get that it's a big deal enough for the WWE to start having more than one diva match on RAW, but with it being so predictable there really is no point. Let's go back a thew weeks were on the Sunday Naomi and Cameron where the main attention on Total Divas, and the following night on RAW the two had a match because of the tension shown on the latest episode of the reality show. But the problem is, we've seen their feud start and end month's ago, we don't need them to go at it again for no reason. If we look at NXT however, this past week Becky Lynch one on one with Sasha Banks witch made so much sense. It's evident that Banks is next in line for a shot at the NXT women's championship and they are slowly building her up as the number one contender and show casing her skill.
One thing we also need to talk about is what happen's to an NXT diva once she reaches the main roster and the booking according to someone's skills. If we take JoJo for example she did some work on RAW a while back when she was apart of total divas and even participated in a PPV match, even though she lacks a lot of experience the WWE thought it was okay to through her into a match up with people way more experienced than what she was. However at the moment the NXT have her working as a ring announcer purely because she's not ready to start competing in the ring. There's also divas like former stunt double Kendall Sky who has been with the WWE for a while now and has been training for quit some time is clearly a big talent and if any of you have seen her work from live show's you will know she's a strong competitor, but it's clear they haven't got her competing in the ring yet because she isn't as polished as divas such as Banks and Bayley. Ask yourself this, if Eva Marie or Cameron heck even Rosa where on the NXT roster would they be competing yet? What frustrates me also is what the WWE do with the divas from NXT when they come up to the main roster. Over in NXT Paige was known as the anti diva. With feisty attitude and bags of experience she dominated the roster and was apart of some of the best female matches the company has seen in recent years, in fact many fans were comparing her to the like of Hall of famer Lita. However since coming up to the main roster her character change has been completely shocking. She's now just another typical diva with some added piercings and darker hair. I have to be honest, if I had just watched her matches from the main roster I wouldn't of seen the big hype about her. Another prime example is Emma. Emma is by far one of the most gifted female wrestlers the WWE have. Once again she was apart of some of the best divas matches in the company and can do some pretty awesome stuff in the ring we don't see the women do on the main roster. But since getting the call up she's been apart of nothing major and we haven't seen a fraction of what she can do in the ring. I remember reading another article and it saying she's basically the female Zack Ryder and that statement couldn't be more true! It honestly make's me so mad to see what they have done to her, she has so much potential it unbelievable!
I think it's more than evident that the NXT divas are taking over the WWE. They are showing the WWE universe what real female talent is and that the women in the business are capable of doing exactly what the men can do and more. It all they have to do is focus more on their female. But what do you think? Let me know what your thoughts are on today's topic by leaving a comment a bellow or sending me a tweet at @TezangiVictoria.
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