WrestleMania 28: Why Eve Torres and Beth Phoenix Should Have Won

At WrestleMania 28, the heel tandem of  Beth Phoenix and Eve Torres lost to Kelly Kelly and Maria Menounos after the Extra host managed to pin the Divas Champion with a sensational roll-up maneuver.

The match, while not a classic or anything close to it, was largely fine. WWE management astutely decided not to put the girls out there for too long, meaning the gaping flaws of Menounos and Kelly would not be exposed to the masses.  Although, thankfully, the bout wasn't so short—like the calamitous Sheamus-Bryan match that happened earlier in the evening—that it became a joke.

Menounos, for her part, should also be praised for working through two achingly painful broken ribs that she incurred while training for ABC's reality show Dancing with the Stars.  It would have been incredibly easy for her to cancel the gig and rest up, but to her credit, she didn't.

However, despite the match looking to be a success on paper, I believe the result was a grievous mistake on the part of WWE.

The sad fact is, the result of this match helped absolutely no one. Menounos will not be sticking around (although, another in-ring appearance for the promotion at some point in the future shouldn't be ruled out) and it remains to be seen how the underutilized Kelly benefits from the win, either. She was strictly a supporting character here, in both the buildup to and during the match itself.   

Indeed, Torres and Phoenix were the ones who desperately needed to pick up the wins here. 

The overlooked and underutilized Phoenix has been stale as Divas Champion for months now, barely appearing on Raw and Smackdown and becoming an afterthought to the point that many fans forget if she was even the champion of the divas. Defeating Menounos here would have put her back on the map, for sure, and helped revive her badly floundering career.

Instead, the former Shimmer star has now been pinned by non-wrestler Menounos twice (here, and WWE's Tribute to the Troops show in December last year) and looks like more of a joke than ever.  She desperately needed to get her heat back on the Extra host here, but, alas, it didn't happen.

Diva Search winner Eve Torres was also in the position of needing momentum as she attempts to get her new femme fatale heel character off the ground. The loss here did not help her at all, either.

In fact, Torres coming out on Raw tomorrow and annoyingly bragging about how she defeated crowd favourites Kelly and Menounos would have caused the fans in attendance to despise her more than they already do. A win here would have been a boon to her already promising career.

Summarily, many may have dismissed the divas tag match as an afterthought and something not deserving of promotion or proper time, but it has its place on the card. It's just too bad WWE made such a huge mistake in booking the ending, which could have led to somewhat of a decent rejuvenation for WWE's stale and stagnant women's division.