WWE: Is Kelly Kelly's Time at the Top Over?

Make no mistake about it: In 2011, no women was pushed any harder by the WWE machine than Barbara "Kelly Kelly" Blank. Over the past year, the former bikini model enjoyed a lengthy Divas Championship reign, tons of airtime and the chance to grace the cover of the enormously popular men's magazine Maxim, the most mainstream project for any WWE diva in quite some time.

It wasn't difficult to see why WWE strapped the rocket to Kelly's back after she was given the Divas Championship in June of this year after winning a title match in a round of fan voting. The former bikini model has worked incredibly hard to improve as an in-ring performer, has never been a problem backstage and with her ample figure, very pretty face and long, lustrous blond hair, she is practically the embodiment of the look the image-obsessed WWE seem to require in their women these days.

But despite having a terrific 2011, Kelly faces an uncertain future heading into 2012. She lost the title to frequent foe Beth Phoenix at the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view, and has, barring a booked-on-the-fly title match that few cared about, been absent from the title picture ever since.

Granted, this is probably for the best. Phoenix and Kelly have now faced each other a whopping four times on pay-per-view over the past year and while their matches were usually decent, fans have surely grown tired of this worn-out series and are salivating for something new.

WWE management has apparently figured this out, too, and they have spent the last few months inserting former diva search winner Eve Torres and ex-Smackdown diva Alicia Fox into the title picture instead. Rumours abound that former LayCool member Layla El will also be getting a strong babyface push on the Raw brand when she returns for injury in the next month.

Regrettably for Kelly, her airtime has been severely limited, too. In recent months she has mostly been stuck in short and meaningless backstage segments with Big Show, Alicia Fox and others. Yes, WWE is getting the poor girl to travel all over the country simply to appear in 30-second backstage segments in which she is seen playing a video game.

So is Kelly's time at the top over?

Well, with her in-ring ability (which is decent by diva standards) and good looks, there will always be a strong possibility of her getting time in the spotlight again. It may also help her that Eve and Alicia, due to their own deficiencies as performers, never truly caught on in the lead babyface diva role. Over time, management may return to Kelly simply because, in a struggling women's division that lacks depth, there is no one else.

It seems that unless the former Divas champion annoys the wrong person backstage or management grow tired of her (which, given their fickleness when it comes to their female performers, isn't entirely out of the question), she should probably be guaranteed some sort of push for the rest of her tenure.

Interestingly, it's also very possible Kelly herself has grown tired of WWE, if there is any truth to the recent rumours about her wishing to pursue a modelling and acting career outside of wrestling.

After a lengthy title reign, there is a limit to what else Kelly can achieve in the company, and she would certainly not be the first diva to grew bored of the WWE and attempt to parley her wrestling success into a career in the mainstream.

Summarily, Kelly may never reach the same level of success as she did in 2011 again. Of course, she may gain the title again and have some level of prosperity and still be featured regularly on television. And of the more pessimistic predictions? Well, at worst, Kelly will watch as her career in WWE grows staler and staler and fades slowly into obscurity.

But hey, if it's any comfort to her even if this does happen, this seems to be the fate of the entire divas division these days.