KB’s Review: The Other Women

Over the last few months, the WWE women’s division has exploded all over again. I know we’re all familiar with the Women’s Revolution (just ask Stephanie McMahon and the Bella Twins as I’m sure they’re more than willing to explain it to you, in extreme details) but things have gone all over the place again. With names like Ronda Rousey, Charlotte and Becky Lynch as the biggest names in the world all of a sudden, there is a fresh set of eyes on the division all over again. But what about some of the other names who aren’t getting the focus?

Last night on Monday Night Raw, new women’s boss Alexa Bliss (a frighteningly good fit for her now that she’s on the shelf) tried to drive a wedge between Bayley and Sasha Banks. While it didn’t seem to work at first, it triggered a brawl with Banks and Bayley cleaning house. The two were mentioned as a tag team, which has been the unofficial case for a long time now as they’ve been teaming on and off for several months, which came after several months of them feuding.

On the same night, the Riott Squad jumped Natalya with Rousey making the save, playing off their issues over Ruby Riott breaking Natalya’s father’s sunglasses. Over on SmackDown Live, Asuka and Naomi are feuding with Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville, both of whom are just kind of wandering around the show until someone needs to beat them up. How long has it been since any of the four of them did something significant?

Remember when Banks used to be a big deal. Take a stroll down memory lane if not:

Sasha Banks vs. Charlotte - WWE Women's Championship Match: Raw, July 25, 2016

Adding them up, that’s ten women with one big story between them: a case of broken sunglasses. That’s the majority of the division with a grand total of nothing to do and spinning their wheels for months at a time. You have something special with the top three women in the division, but considering two of them are on different shows and the third is on the injured list, it’s about time that something needs to be done with some of these women, all of whom are worth pushing in one way or another.

So what can be done? Well first of all, send some of the women to the other show. I know there’s this weird WWE mindset of not being able to change the rosters other than at the designated Superstar Shakeup period, but, as usual, WWE forgets that they can do whatever they want. Just trade Banks and Riott for Naomi and Asuka straight up (or any combination really) and see how much better things get in a hurry. It fixes so many things at once.

Above all else though, it offers all of them some fresh matches. How many times have we seen some combination of Bayley/Banks vs. the Riott Squad? It’s been done to absolute death and I for one never need to see them fight, or even breathe the same air, again. There comes a point where anything that could have been good from the two of them stops mattering and we passed that point…oh I’d say a good six months ago or so at minimum. The matches aren’t interesting anymore and seeing them on the same graphics again makes my eyes roll.

On top of that, there’s the more important issue of getting some fresh stories and much needed character development for a lot of the people involved. Think of Bayley and Banks in particular. How exactly have they changed in the last…oh let’s say year or so? They’re fighting the same people, wrestling the same matches, cutting the same promos, and doing the exact same things they’ve done time after time. There was that one time where Banks said that she was in love with Bayley, which lasted all of a week before it was dropped never to be mentioned again.

They could do something at WrestleMania. Like this historic one:

NXT Superstars take over the WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal Match: WrestleMania 34 Kickoff

Now of course I’m not saying that we need that kind of a story every single time, but when is the last time that either Bayley or Banks ever mentioned becoming Women’s Champion again? Neither of them have had a televised Women’s Title shot since Elimination Chamber, back in February. Instead it’s just been the same feud with the Riott Squad (whose last title shot was much more recent, only taking place in March).

It’s like WWE would rather make sure that there aren’t enough stories going on at the same time. Consider this year’s WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal. Do you remember that? It was won by Naomi (who did the annoying slide back in and win finish rather after it looked like Bayley had won) and then…a grand total of nothing significant happened. There was a quick feud with Natalya, though no title shots or anything. Oh but she did have a dance off against Lana. That’s totally something right?

As you can see, the problem seems to be the huge divide between the title picture and everything else. Alexa Bliss and Rousey dominated the Raw title picture over the summer and since then it’s mainly been Rousey vs. Jax or some one off match. On the SmackDown side, you had Carmella beating Asuka twice in a row (I’m not even going to get into that one, as Carmella went from beating her to a dance partner in a comedy act, because that’s all Asuka’s year and a half undefeated streak was good for) before moving on to the Lynch vs. Charlotte feud.

The stories don’t even have to be big. Natalya vs. the Riott Squad over the sunglasses sounds lame (because it kind of is) but what’s better: having them fight over nothing or having them fight over Riott breaking something that Natalya’s late father gave her? I’m just saying to let them do something so that they’re not wasting everyone’s time and coming off as pure filler. It’s been proven time after time that the women can become stars just like the men, but there’s not much that can be done if they don’t have anything interesting to do.

Who knows? You might even get a star like Lynch, who can talk like this:

Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair to clash in TLC Match: SmackDown LIVE, Nov. 27, 2018

I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? You might just get stuck with someone else like Lynch, who has gone from just another one of the women to one of the top stars in the company (there’s a real case that she’s the top star in all of the company right now). They could then go on to draw money and become stars in their own right. Why would you want something like that though when there’s the option of having them on a treadmill, doing the same things that haven’t worked well for them for years now and aren’t getting anyone anywhere?

You’ve already seen what happens when you give someone like Lynch, who has all the talent in the world and has for a long time, the chance to go somewhere. Why can’t you let that happen with a few others? WWE has already put in this much time and effort into them both in NXT and the main roster. Why suddenly stop now when the division is hot?

Lynch, Charlotte and Rousey are all awesome and there’s a very real chance that two or three of them could headline WrestleMania 35 and break the glass ceiling that no one thought could be reached. However, that doesn’t mean that WWE should stop focusing on the rest of the division and basically leave them to rot. Why not do a Charlotte vs. Bayley match? Or Lynch vs. Banks? What about Asuka vs. Rousey? Do you think any of those might draw some interest? All of them could, but it’s not going to work without putting in some extra effort before we get there.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his Amazon author page with 28 wrestling books. His latest book is the the Complete 1997 Monday Night Raw Reviews.

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