WWE Divas: How Beth Phoenix Has Once Again Become Irrelevant

With her good looks, work ethic, connection to the fans and WWE management finally getting behind her, it seemed the former Women's Champion Beth Phoenix was destined for great things in 2011 after spending years being under-used and overlooked in a company that often forces the real women wrestlers to play second fiddle to whichever Hooters Girl or Hawaiian Tropics models they just signed.

Indeed, after Kia "Kharma" Stevens temporarily left the promotion due to her real-life pregnancy earlier this year there was a large gap for a feared female monster heel that most expected the talented and muscular Phoenix to fill. Certainly, the strong fan reaction to Kharma's savage beatdown down the model brigade indicated the fresh concept held great appeal, and Phoenix could easily step into the angle play such a role to perfection.

Alas, this didn't happen.

Despite a promising start in July when she shockingly turned heel on Kelly Kelly delivering a brutal beatdown to the then Divas Champion, Beth (along with tag team partner Natalya), then regrettably found the second half of her 2011 marred by inconsistent and sloppy booking, limited airtime and a terribly muddled storyline which saw her and Natalya and vow to rid the divas division of inexperienced models like Eve Torres, Alicia Fox and Kelly and then proceed to...well, lose all the time and start dressing and acting like models all the time.

Oh, and they were seen randomly jogging around the arena once for reasons that were never explicitly stated.

Indeed, the booking of the tag team "Pin Up Strong" was some of the most puzzling and perplexing booking from WWE in 2011 (and considering how the company has badly botched angles with CM Punk, Triple H and others this year, that is really saying something).

The two girls were described by the announcers as monster heels, bully's who could crush smaller girls like Kelly and Eve on a whim and tear the women's division apart if they wanted to. Sounds like a great idea, doesn't it?

Which makes us wonder why exactly Phoenix proceeded to lose to Kelly on two straight pay-per-vews and, when she finally did win the gold the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view, needed a huge amount of help from Natalya at ringside to do so.

Even after winning the Divas Championship, the shoddy treatment of Phoenix continued throughout the autumn and winder. She was allowed to pin new challenger Eve Torres clean twice on pay-per-view in October and November, but WWE seemed more interested in advertising Kelly's Maxim cover shoot than they did in promoting any of the Divas matches.

Indeed, the Raw before the Eve/Phoenix match at Survivor Series was notable for the upcoming bout not being mentioned at all, a truly startling piece of booking, even by the already low standard s of the WWE's women's division.

She also lost to Alicia Fox in an atrocious non-title match in under a minute on Raw two weeks ago, a bout notable not only for its ridiculous booking, but Beth suffering a serious facial bruise courtesy of a botched somersault leg drop from her green foe.

The Alicia/Beth feud hasn't been mentioned on television since, which makes us wonder if it has been dropped entirely. Knowing WWE's awful track record when it comes to booking their women, this wouldn't shock us one little bit.

Worst still, the fans seem to have lost interest too. Phoenix, who once garnered strong reactions from fans due to her unique look and impressive power moves, has been regarded with complete and utter silence by fans in the arenas. WWE have made in clear they don't care about her, and the fans have swiftly followed suit.

It is blindingly clear that after the botching of her title win and run, she's no more over than the rest of the generic, interchangeable models and is completely irrelevant in the company now. This is regrettable, not only for Phoenix, but for WWE's stagnant women's division as a whole.