Preview and Predictions for WWE Divas Division in 2015

For the WWE Divas division, 2015 is replete with questions.

Can Charlotte be as successful on the main roster as she has been at NXT? Will Total Divas overshadow the in-ring product? Will Naomi be able to mark "become Divas champ" off her to-do list?

The road ahead for WWE's female wrestlers is filled with the same obstacles that it always is. Paige, AJ Lee and company will have less stories and ring time than their male counterparts.

Still, fans can count on the year bringing moments worth celebrating. A number of young Divas are poised for career advancement. Revisiting unfinished feuds will lead to some memorable showdowns.

The following is a look at what to expect from the Divas in 2015, from where The Bella sisters head next to the division's struggle to find its identity.

Storylines and Feuds to Look out for

Nikki vs. Brie

The Bella sisters will collide again.

For one, WWE loves to keep Nikki and Brie in the spotlight. In part, thank their prominent role in Total Divas for that. 

The fact that their story never came to a true conclusion in 2014 is another reason to expect a Brie-Nikki feud. Brie has to eventually become jealous of her sister's success. Perhaps she eventually reveals that she's been suckering her sister in by pretending to be aligned with her over these past few months.

However WWE arrives there, Brie vs. Nikki is a match that would fit right in on a WrestleMania or SummerSlam card. This would be Hell in a Cell all over again but with the title on the line this time.

Old Guard vs. New Guard

Charlotte and Natalya will revisit an old feud as well.

The spark those women created at NXT Takeover is something WWE will want to tap into again. Their dynamic is too perfect not to go to again as well. 

Natalya is the veteran; Charlotte is the up-and-comer. Both women's famous lineage makes for easy storytelling. And WWE knows it will be getting a top-quality match when it pits them together for a third time.

The series is now 1-1. The rubber match is on its way.

Return to the Throne, Return to the Ring

Tamina Snuka has been out of action since June with a torn ACL, per WWE.com. When she's healthy enough to compete again, what direction will WWE send her?

A feud with AJ Lee has a lot of potential, but it never came to fruition when the pair split. Having Tamina be the brick wall the rookies from NXT hit is a smart idea as well. Otherwise, the company can promise fans hard-hitting, fun action if it pits her against Paige.

Paige is sure to be a big part of the division once again, especially considering that she has joined the Total Divas cast.

WWE pushed her out of the spotlight when the title picture got too crowded. Expect her to climb back into that picture in 2015. She's too talented not to bypass the majority of her peers. 

What hampered her last time around was lazy storytelling. WWE needs to find an angle to revive interest in her, perhaps letting her go on a Brock Lesnar-like tear through the division. 

Stars Primed for a Breakout Year

• Naomi
• Sasha Banks
• Charlotte

Naomi will win the Divas Championship before the year is over.

She has hovered around the title picture and will eventually break through. She's skilled enough in the ring to put together solid matches, her athleticism can wow even with the kind of short bouts the women get and WWE has an easy way to keep the focus on her—her husband, Jimmy Uso.

Brie Bella and AJ Lee are prime examples of how WWE often uses a relationship with a Superstar to get a Diva in the spotlight.

Naomi has been a key component in the feud between The Usos and The Miz and Damien Mizdow. Expect that to lead to her being a part of the top Divas storyline and eventually take home gold.

As for the NXT standouts, Banks and Charlotte continue to tear it up against each other. They prove with each match that they are more than ready to move to the main roster. WWE has already shown that it agrees, letting the two women clash on Main Event.

Count on their rookie years looking a lot more like Paige's rather than Emma's.

Charlotte has the unique advantage of having Ric Flair as a father. That will be key to her narrative early on, and Flair could even serve as her manager. She has an electric presence that will help her fanbase grow quickly.

Banks' ring skills will get her noticed and land her opportunities aplenty. WWE can confidently put her in the ring against anyone in the division and expect good results.

A feud with AJ would lead to memorable bouts, or she can be one of the key predators chasing down Naomi once she has the championship in her grasp. 

Divas Headed for Disappointment

• Cameron
• Summer Rae
• Rosa Mendes

When the next round of budget cuts come, Summer, Rosa and Cameron will have plenty of reason to be nervous about answering their phones.

Summer has regressed since coming from NXT. She looks less confident, her ring work isn't as smooth as it once was and botches are becoming more frequent.

She's had just one singles match on a pay-per-view, a battle against Layla at Money in the Bank. When that storyline with Fandango ended, WWE made no effort to showcase her. 

She, along with Rosa and Cameron, will find airtime hard to come by once the company promotes the top NXT Divas and Tamina Snuka comes back from injury.

Rosa and Cameron both benefited from their spots on Total Divas, but they looked so bad in the ring that WWE is more likely to have them make a stop at NXT than to give them any high-profile bouts.

Critics point out the flaws in Brie's and Nikki's ring skills all the time, but those women are light years ahead of Rosa and Cameron as in-ring performers. The latter two Divas enter 2015 with the same title Aksana bore last year—expendable.

Total Divas Set to Dominate Division Again

The impossible-to-pull-off integration of a taped reality show and a live pro wrestling one will continue in a big way.

The success of Total Divas tempts WWE to overlap what happens there with what happens on Raw and SmackDown. We have seen tension between Natalya and Tyson Kidd move from one show to the next, for example. 

With Total Divas now recapping what happened between Nikki and Brie Bella at SummerSlam, expect WWE to revisit that feud. It's not a sensible way to approach wrestling storytelling, but that hasn't stopped the company in the past.

Keeping either sister champion provides the reality show with plenty of material. 

Alicia Fox and Paige join the cast this season, so they are certain to experience some integration between WWE storylines and Total Divas as well. That's going to be a difficult task considering how different Paige's wrestling persona is to who she is on the reality show.

Count on the company trying to do so anyway.

Biggest Questions Ahead

How Will WWE Utilize AJ Lee?

AJ has been involved in every Divas title change since she knocked off Kaitlyn in June of 2013, per WWE.com. She has been champ three times in that span and has rarely been away from the division's center stage.

While AJ has every right talent-wise to be a title contender in 2015, WWE has to consider fresh options.

Other women have to get a crack at the title. And there has to be other stories for AJ other than winning and losing the championship. Will WWE realize that, or has AJ started to become the Divas' answer to John Cena?

How Does WWE Better Transition NXT Stars to the Main Roster?

Emma thrived at NXT. Her awkward, fun shtick made it easy to root for her. Once she got in the ring, she entertained with quickness, a creative move set and the occasional mid-bout dance.

Fast-forward to her move to the main roster. WWE stuck with her with Santino Marella and gave her a sock puppet of her own. She danced and goofed around more than the wrestled. 

Not surprisingly, she has struggled to gain momentum.

She's currently irrelevant, mostly appearing on Superstars. She's too good for that.

With Charlotte, Sasha Banks and Bayley poised for call-ups of their own, the company has to do a better job of transferring the success those women had at NXT to Raw and SmackDown. Otherwise, all the progress these wrestlers make at WWE developmental will go to waste.

The company deciding what it wants from the division is key to solving this issue.

A Question of Identity 

If WWE just wants the Divas division to be a supplement to Total Divas, an excuse to do photo shoots of pretty women and offer filler entertainment, then why hire and train women at NXT to be something else entirely? 

At NXT, women get longer matches and stories that revolve around championships and competition. Once they move to the big leagues, the bouts shrink and the stories veer toward the world of soap opera.

Triple H's vision is clashing with Vince McMahon's. It's frustrating to watch someone like Charlotte at NXT, to get attached and have high hopes for her, knowing that she will likely begin a story of frustration on the main roster.

WWE put little effort in the feud between AJ and Paige. It asked Charlotte's first match on Raw to be a two-minute loss. Rosa Mendes, Eva Marie and Cameron all got ring time despite not being close to ready as wrestlers. 

Decisions like that sour fans on the division as a whole. 

It can't move forward until it embraces women as warriors rather than eye candy, until the version of the division that we see on NXT doesn't get lost in translation on the way up the ladder.