Beth Phoenix: What Type of on-Screen Exit Will She Get When She Leaves WWE?

As you have undoubtedly heard by now, Former WWE Divas Champion Beth Phoenix is finishing up with the company shortly.

Per reports, Phoenix is, like so many wrestlers before her, potentially interested in getting into acting. Bryan Alvarez also claimed in the most recent (subscribers-only) F4W Newsletter that WWE's shoddy treatment of its women's division may have also played a role, too (like so many women in the company, the supremely talented Phoenix has been woefully under-used and neglected by the creative team for years now).

So after a nearly eight-year run in WWE, Phoenix is ready to move on to the next stage of her career. It's a major loss for WWE, which really can't afford to lose any more talented women than they already have (popular babyface Diva Kelly Kelly was officially released on Friday; developmental star Shaul Guerrero is reportedly on her way out, too).

Taking out what her exit means for the company's already floundering women's division, however, just how is WWE intending to write Phoenix out of the storylines?

Well, by the looks of it, Phoenix has found herself caught up in the Kaitlyn/Eve/Layla saga and this will lead to her exit. 

Per the storyline, Kaitlyn, the No. 1 contender to Layla's Divas Championship, was attacked by a mystery assailant backstage at Night of Champions (Kaitlyn was due to have her match later on in the show). A torn tendon in her foot left her unable to compete, meaning Eve Torres got the shot instead. She later went on to win the Divas Championship from Layla in a good match.

Of course, questions remained about just who had attacked Kaitlyn backstage, with the finger of suspicion pointing firmly to Eve, the one who benefited most from the NXT Diva's injury. Interestingly, Kaitlyn hobbled out on last week's Raw (after Eve and Phoenix had defeated Layla and Alicia Fox in a short tag match) and announced that while she couldn't specifically name her attacker, she did remember two significant details: the person was a woman with blond hair.

Cue everyone looking wearily at a shocked-looking Beth. “The Glamazon” later swore blind on Twitter that she was innocent, but Assistant GM Eve suspended her indefinitely on this week's SmackDown anyway. Fair-minded GM Booker T, whose authority supersedes Eve's, later reversed the suspension, however.

Coincidentally, Beth had a tremendous match with Natalya on that same show, raising interesting questions about just why WWE decide to wait until she's about to leave to use her to her fullest potential.

Torres and Phoenix later had a short, but decent match on Raw, with Phoenix coming out on the losing end. The issues between the pair are far from the resolved, however, by the looks of things. Beth is still maintaining her innocence and Eve is clearly up to something (oh, come on, you don't really buy this "turned over a new leaf" angle, do you)?  

How will this angle end?

Well, we have to consider that Divas Champion Eve isn’t in the clear yet. Indeed, one possible swerve could be that she attacked Kaitlyn and wore a blond wig to shift the blame onto someone else. This could lead to Beth taking her revenge on the woman who framed her—likely at Hell in a Cell—and ending her WWE run as a beloved, victorious star, similar to Trish Stratus’ poignant retirement from wrestling at Unforgiven 2006.

Hopefully, WWE will do this.

It would be nice gesture on WWE's part and a reward for Beth’s years of good service. It would also be a satisfying payoff to the first real angle that WWE’s women’s division has had in a long while.