Tuesday, November 24, 2015

The WWE Divas Revolution has the same old double standard

I got the idea for this column while watching Charlotte defend the WWE Divas Championship against Paige on last night's RAW. The ending and post match stuff was particularly lame and leads me to believe that though the WWE is trying to sell this as a revolution, Vince McMahon's decades old preconceptions about women's wrestling are still in effect. And that is that women wrestlers can't do the same things the guys do. The match itself was OK but nothing special. It wasn't any better or worse than Sunday's Survivor Series match. The WWE is still under the false impression that if they give these women longer matches, the match quality will improve. But that depends who the wrestlers are. At this point in her career, Charlotte is unable to deliver a four star match. But they insist on pushing her for other reasons. As we have seen with Roman Reigns, the WWE fails to learn from their mistakes. Fans simply won't accept a top babyface being forced on them. It puts Charlotte in an untenable position. She can't succeed. And as we saw at last week's contract signing, she's getting desperate and it backfired on her. At this point, they need to get the belt off of her. But as I said a couple of months ago, she never should have been put in this position in the first place and going back to NXT would probably help her in the long run. I thought they might get the belt off of her last night. But instead they did a lame double countout followed by Paige applying her PTO (Scorpion Crosslock) finisher on the announce table. Double lame. It's the second time they have had Paige do that. When any of the guys use the announce table, it's usually for a choke slam or something similar. It looks painful but once the monitors are removed, the table collapses easily. I can only assume that Vince believes that women shouldn't do those moves on the table. We know some of them can do those high impact moves because Becky Lynch, Sasha Banks and Bayley have done them on NXT. But Vince's sexist double standard still rules on the main roster. Until that changes, the Divas Revolution will continue to sputter. Of course Michael Cole tries to sell the Paige's move as devastating. No one buys that. After it was widely criticized the first time they had Paige do that move on the table, one would think they wouldn't repeat it. I can only assume they like the visual and one thing Charlotte is good at is screaming in pain. But it doesn't make any sense for Paige to use that move on the table. Her DDT variation would be more effective. But it doesn't come with the same aesthetic. Check out last night's match for yourself.

1 comment:

  1. I actually saw that match, a friend of the boarders I live with has a PS4 and has a subscription to the WWWE network off his PS4. Wild stuff to me, this technology today to me still amazes me to no end. Yes, I saw the match and it was pretty lame. Charlotte is just not that good of a wrestler. Paige was way better. To bad. Things need to change for the women to get their fair share of the glory and fame in the WWE.

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