#GiveDivasAChance: The Movement WWE Never Saw Coming, But They Should Have

This week the WWE Universe, wrestling fans, and both former/current talents alike stood up for a cause that the WWE almost certainly never saw coming. A trending hashtag soon became a movement that continues to grow and make waves within WWE and beyond. That movement is of course #GiveDivasAChance. A movement trying to bring equality for WWE’s female wrestlers AKA the WWE Divas.

For WWE whom have consistently undervalued their WWE Divas for much of the last decade it’s a movement that must seem like it came out of left field. However, if they had dug deeper, if they knew the WWE fans I know, they would have seen it coming a longtime ago. What fans you may ask? Well WWE Diva fans of course, and believe me I know WWE Diva fans, because I am one myself, but it was not always that way…

WrestleMania 28

I have watched wrestling throughout my whole life starting in the late 80’s through till today. Around WrestleMania 27 it was announced WrestleMania 28 was coming to my hometown of Miami, FL. I had been to WrestleMania 24 in Orlando, FL before so of course I was gonna go again this time. Late in the year 2011 and leading into WrestleMania 28 Daniel Bryan really caught my eye, not just because he could wrestle really good, but because of this at first innocent little love storyline he began with a new Diva I did not know at the time named ‘AJ Lee’.

The storyline was nice at first, but after Bryan won the World Heavyweight Championship his ego grew out of control and he turned Heel. He began to mistreat his storyline girlfriend AJ, and as messed up as that was, it was really entertaining to me the way Bryan played off of the innocent AJ. Well when I went to WrestleMania 28 I realized that this Daniel Bryan guy was crazy over as I heard the YES chant live for the first time in a sold-out stadium, I was pumped. Then Bryan lost his Title to Sheamus in 18 seconds after kissing AJ and the crowd fell silent.

This is the moment where my Diva fandom truly begins, and I think this is likely true for many others also. The next night Bryan broke-up with AJ by telling her he wished she “had never been born”, AJ was left in tears thus beginning what I consider the greatest transformation of a Diva character ever. AJ went from a sweet and innocent little girl, to a love obsessed crazy chick in the blink of an eye and everything she did had me hooked on wrestling for a reason I had never been before. I was hooked to watch a WWE Diva perform!

AJ Raises The Bar

I mean sure I was a fan of Lita, Trish and other past Divas, but they were never THE reason I watched wrestling. AJ Main Evented RAW while in the middle of a love triangle, then she had a wedding on RAW, then she began to run RAW! It was amazing, and I was not the only one hooked. On Twitter (which I had hardly ever used before this) I met and became good friends with countless other WWE fans who were just as hooked on AJ as I was. Some were female of course, but to my surprise there were many other men like me just as hooked, ones that were watching WWE to see AJ above all else. This was something I had never seen before, and it was of great comfort to know I was not only not alone, but far from it.

I realized that there was an entire segment of fans I was almost blind to before, hardcore WWE Diva fans. They were perhaps the most passionate I had ever seen, and it was a fanbase that was growing rapidly with AJ’s amazing performances. I really began to notice the short end of the stick the other Divas as a whole got writing wise though, and I realized that besides AJ the WWE seemed just as blind as I was to the hardcore Diva fanbase that wanted so desperately for them to do more with the all the Divas. However, unlike the others AJ had become so popular that WWE had no choice but to give her the screen time she not only deserved, but had earned through her amazing performance in any role WWE gave her.

AJ raised the bar for the Divas without even wrestling very much at all at first, she did it by showing that a woman could captivate an entire fanbase with her acting and mic work. She got over more then most men were, and she even broke a glass ceiling that had locked individual Divas out of having WWE Merchandise for years when her ‘Love Bites’ T-Shirt came out right around the time that she was finally given a chance to show her skills in the ring. Skills that were honed in indy wrestling, just like many of the most beloved and talented male wrestlers had honed their skills. These are the things true wrestling fans respect, and I truly think AJ made herself an equal to the top men on the roster in every way.

‘Total Divas’ / NXT

Still, WWE did not see this as the complete Diva wrestling revolution it could have been. If they had pushed other Divas in the ring at the same time as AJ with just as much effort, they could have elevated the entire Divas division. WWE for the most part only pushed AJ herself though, and soon after AJ was champion during her initial 295 day Divas Title run WWE’s plan for the other Divas was clear, that plan was ‘Total Divas’. A reality show which could give time to showcase the other WWE Divas and help them gain popularity. The show indeed made the Divas on it more popular, but being popular as a reality TV star does not legitimize you as a wrestler and thus did not really help these Divas gain respect from wrestling fans.

The good thing is though many of the Divas on the show have realized this, and for the most part they have trained hard to become better wrestlers then ever to try and prove their haters wrong and rise to the level of the bar AJ had set. Through the show and in the ring they have become stronger and more popular then ever, many having their own merchandise now too. However, these Divas biggest doubters seem to be many top WWE brass themselves, because none of these accomplishments have really helped the amount of TV time or quality match time these Divas have got within WWE, and without that time they can never truly get over with hardcore wrestling fans.

‘Total Divas’ main draw back is it’s largely made-up of drama filled “reality” storylines that have nothing to do with wrestling and more to do with Divas personal lives. However, WWE has allowed itself to become lazy and instead of writing separate wrestling based storylines for the Divas to satisfy WWE’s wrestling fans, they have mostly tried to use shoehorn in absurd storylines from the reality TV show into their wrestling product. Predictably this has hurt the Divas division as a whole and stunted the growth that could have happened if they had actually put effort into Diva storyline writing and gave them the TV time to make those storylines work.

Seeing these missteps the hope amongst the Diva fan faithful then seemed to shift to Divas from WWE’s developmental territory NXT maybe being able to carve out the TV time and storyline writing respect from the main roster writers. They consistently put on great matches, and got interesting wrestling based storylines down in NXT, so maybe they would get the same once called up? What many do not know is that the only reason that NXT Divas get those chances to shine is because WWE COO HHH runs NXT, but he does not have final say on what happens on the WWE main roster shows. As a result we have seen extremely talented former NXT Divas like Emma, Summer Rae and Paige be completely misused when they are called up from NXT. Also, despite proving they can put on great long matches in NXT when given time, they are forced to work the same short matches on the main roster as any other Diva when they do get called up. Not to mention the lazy storyline writing these Divas have to somehow try and make work.

That lazy writing is no more apparent then right now either. With AJ Lee out with an injury for the past several months, the WWE has decided to have Nikki Bella and her fellow ‘Total Divas’ cast member Paige feud for the Divas Title. However, WWE has absolutely no direction for the storyline other then the Nikki and her sister Brie are going to try and bully Paige in simple school like prank ways that are quite honestly degrading. Add this to the fact that the segments in the feud have become shorter and shorter.

The Last Straw Breaks

Meanwhile the extremely passionate hardcore Diva fanbase including myself have become more and more disgusted by this. The last straw was this week when the Divas got a 30 second match on a 3 hour long RAW show. Was this the first time this had happened? No, but this was one time too many, and as if a dam broke, Diva fans were angry all at the same time and we took to Twitter banded together behind the #GiveDivasAChance hashtag. Then an even more amazing thing happened, regular WWE fans, ones that maybe are not such hardcore fans of Divas joined us, they did so because diva fan or not they knew it was right and that this needed to change.

Never have I been prouder to be part of the WWE Universe or Twitter then this moment. I almost instantly saw this all as newsworthy and I am also proud to say that I was one of the first people to report about it, and I did so right here on PWMania. When I went to sleep that night and woke-up the next day, I saw that a twitter trend had become a movement, and that everybody had started reporting about it. Most amazingly it was still trending. Then as the day progressed AJ Lee took to twitter and called out Stephanie McMahon for the lack of equal pay and TV time for the Divas. This was followed by Vince MaMahon trying to quell the fire of the movement by saying he had heard us and to keep watching, but still the movement raged on as it continues to now because WWE fans don’t want words, they want actions.

They Should Have Saw It Coming

WWE should have seen this coming, they should have seen that if they gave a Diva a chance they might just become one of the top stars in the company like AJ did. They should have seen how excited fans are for Divas matches in NXT, how often those matches are amazing because they are given time to be amazing and because their storylines are wrestling based, not reality TV based. They should have seen the double standard they have created within their own company, and listened to the discontent of their main roster Divas whom are jealous of their NXT counterparts, because they get a chance to shine, while they themselves do not.

How could a company as big and successful as WWE not realize all that you ask? The fact is maybe they did, but they did not care, because they did not need to care. Sometimes a company only cares when it is made too. WWE was blind to their now very large and passionate Diva fanbase as I once was myself. However now they see us, now they can’t ignore us, because we are holding their feet to the fire and their choice is to burn in the fires of public opinion or make a much needed change and give the Divas the respect they deserve by letting them shine and helping them to do so.

As Owen Hart once said “Enough is enough and it’s time for a change.” Make the right change WWE, and #GiveDivasAChance.

What do you think? Comment below with your thoughts, opinions, feedback and anything else that was raised.