WWE: Four New Ladies Who Could Save the WWE Women's Division

As many of you out there well know, the WWE Women's Division is pretty much in shambles.

Gone are the days where Mickie James and Trish Stratus competed for a the Women's Title in a long-running, compelling angle. Gone are Lita's theatrics, Molly Holly's technical expertise, Victoria's well-roundedness.

In their place, we have bikini models, pretty faces who can't work a lick, and a handful of talented women (i.e. Beth Phoenix, Tamina, Natalya) who get lost in the shuffle.

However, with the rise to prominence of performers like AJ, the (hopefully soon) return to action of Kharma, and the addition of some key new players, the women's division might soon return to prominence. Instead of being a bathroom break, women's matches might be worth sticking around for on Raw and SmackDown.

Red-blooded American males who watch WWE want to see beautiful women, indeed; however, it is obvious that we want talent to go with it. Kharma, specifically, is a good example of this phenomenon: she's a big, brutish, homely-looking woman who gets massive cheers whenever she comes on TV, even after being MIA for over half a year. Why? Because she's good at what she does.

So, today, I'm going to look at four ladies who could very well be the future of the women's division, beautiful women who are more wrestler than model. When combined with talents like Phoenix, Natalya, Tamina, and AJ, these ladies could make women's wrestling in WWE relevant again.

WISH LIST: Angelina Love, Daizee Haze

The rumor mill has Angelina Love supposedly coming to WWE, but her no-compete clause from TNA is still in effect, so she won’t be available for a little while longer. However, once she signs on (barring a change of heart,) given her background and her skill set, she might make some noise fairly quickly.

Her skill set is very good, and she has excellent promo skills; not only that, but she’s not too hard on the eyes either, which is always a plus for WWE. The only thing that worries me with Love is that she may get branded as a TNA performer, and we’ve seen many a career get ruined (Chris Harris, Monty Brown) or severely stunted (Christian after his return) when they’re marked with the “stink” of TNA.

I have heard nothing regarding Daizee Haze coming to WWE; however, with her good friend and running buddy Sara Del Rey coming on board, I can only hope that Daizee might follow her lead at some point soon. From what I’ve seen of her, her promo skills are outstanding and her ring work is excellent (which is to be expected from an Indy queen.)

If Haze comes along, I could even see both her and Del Rey form a partnership along the lines of Beth Phoenix and Natalya’s “pin-up strong” gimmick, taking issue with being seen as simply “Divas” instead of as “wrestlers.”

I’m keeping my fingers crossed with this one.

#4: Sophia Cortez

Cortez is one of the performers coming up on this season of NXT, and from seeing some of her work, it’s obvious why: she is a ruthless in-ring performer whose gimmick (apparently she’s the “anti-diva” in FCW and has a nasty edge to her) would work nicely with WWE’s current direction.

I'm not sure yet if she's a heel or a face, but it seems like she could go either way in her gimmick; WWE doesn't have a lot of dual-threat Divas (people who can be either a face or a heel and do both well,) but it's entirely possible that Cortez could be one of them. 

She’s more a wrestler than eye candy—though she is an attractive lady, no doubt—and could make an impact on the main roster once she gets called up.

#3: Buggy Nova

....Damn.

Sorry, I just had to get that out of the way.

There’s one thing you can say about Buggy Nova: she’s different. While so many of the other girls are wholesome and All-American pretty, someone like Buggy Nova stands out. She’s got tattoos, she wears crazy make-up, her hair is all different colors; someone who knows her body of work better can correct me if I’m wrong, but she’s basically the female CM Punk.

She’s AJ with a gothic edge.

Let’s not forget how much WWE fans (and management) have taken to performers like AJ and CM Punk, and extrapolate that to someone who combines the best qualities of both. AJ is the voices-in-her-head crazy chick; Buggy is the full-on, current-day Lita crazy chick.

You may notice something in common with all of those people I’m comparing Buggy to: they all got massively over with the fans. As has been evidence by performers like Kharma today (and to a large degree, Chyna back in the 90’s,) the red-blooded American male fan actually might like the off-the-beaten-path crazy chick more than he likes the bubblegum Kelly Kelly types. If Buggy keeps up her edginess, she can do great things in WWE.

You know why else Buggy can make it big? She can go in the ring. Watch some of her matches online: she has better in-ring skills than many of the guys on WWE’s roster, plus she wrestles with an attitude (as should be expected from her gimmick). Her promo skills are solid—not Mickie James good, but she’s solid—and can only get better.

If WWE lets Buggy Nova (currently performing as Natalie on FCW) keep what made her special in the first place, she’ll be making noise in no time.

#2: Raquel Diaz

If I had to lay significant money down on one woman who will absolutely be Divas Champion, it would be Raquel Diaz for a couple of reasons.

The first one is the gimmick she portrays. If you’ve seen the newest episode of NXT online, then you no doubt noticed Diaz’s interesting introductory video (if you haven’t seen it, fast-forward to around the 29:00 mark.) Her character seems to be a combination of Nicki Minaj (with the bangs and off-kilter method of talking) and arrogant model in the mold of The Beautiful People (which could provide a logical way for Angelina Love to debut in WWE.)

I’m actually surprised WWE hasn’t tried to pattern a Diva after Minaj, as she’s certainly one of the more…bizarre ladies in show business today; I actually think the gimmick of vain, crazy beauty queen would be a compelling gimmick, so I’m looking forward to seeing what Diaz can do with it.

The second reason I see Diaz being a big star in WWE is the more obvious one to most fans: she’s Eddie Guerrero’s daughter. WWE loves its pedigreed wrestlers (Ted DiBiase Jr., Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton, The Rock, etc.,) and Diaz will be no exception, especially since she’s the offspring of one of the greatest performers in pro wrestling history.

Listening to her introductory promo on NXT (as well as some other ones she cut in FCW) it’s obvious she’s inherited her father’s speaking ability as well as some of his swagger, though she’s not nearly on his level yet (then again, very few people in wrestling’s history are.)

WWE needs to be careful how they debut her, though. It’s obvious from what I’ve seen so far that they want to bring her in as a heel; while in some other instances a second or third-generation performer is curiously not given the family name onscreen (i.e. Michael McGillicutty, Husky Harris,) it actually makes sense for WWE not to use the Guerrero name here. I don’t care what gimmick they give her, if Raquel Diaz were to be named Raquel Guerrero, the daughter of Eddie Guerrero, she would be cheered wildly by the fans no matter what she did.

Regardless, Diaz is going to be a major player in the Divas division: she has the look, she has a good gimmick, she can talk, and she has the bloodlines.  There’s only one person I could see making a bigger impact…

#1: Sara Del Rey

If you’ve been following the news of the wrestling world recently, you probably knew that Sara Del Rey was going to be No.1 on this list.

Del Rey has been a major player on the Indy circuit for 10 years now, and it shows in her work. She is a fantastic in-ring performer on the level of a Trish Stratus or a Mickie James, and has a definite mean streak in the ring. She also has the crazy chick gimmick going for her that seems to be all the rage these days.

Plus, as we’ve seen with the recent WWE successes of performers like CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, being an “indy star” no longer has the extreme stigma that it used to in WWE. Plus, with the recent walk-outs of people like Maxine and The Bellas (as well as the ongoing Kelly Kelly drama), a wrestling lifer like Del Rey is not a risk to up and leave, and is therefore someone who can be counted on long-term.

The main reason for Del Rey being ranked above Raquel Diaz, though, is more because of Del Rey’s long-term benefits to the company: in addition to performing, she is going to have a big role in training the female performers in WWE to become better in the ring as opposed to just pretty faces.

It’s obvious to anyone watching WWE these days that the Divas division has been in a bad way for quite a while now; a division that used to feature Trish Stratus, Mickie James, Molly Holly, Victoria, and Lita (all excellent workers) now features Beth Phoenix (when they feel like it,) Tamina (sometimes), Natalya (when she isn’t farting)…and that’s it. Del Rey, hopefully, will be able to restore some of the lost luster to the women’s division and make Divas matches more than just the bathroom breaks they are now.

If she can pull it off and make Divas matches worth watching again, then Sara Del Rey’s impact on the company will be as big as anyone’s.