Flood of NXT Call-Ups to WWE Main Roster Has Complicated Women's Division

WWE's recent main-roster additions have the fanbase buzzing and with good reason. That's because those additions are female, which has sparked new interest in the women's division of the company.

Ruby Riott led The Riott Squad of Liv Morgan and Sarah Logan to SmackDown Live, while the returning Paige brought Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose as Absolution to Monday Night Raw. Both factions made quite the impact upon their debuts and that's a good thing.

However, they have also managed to complicate things as well, which is not necessarily all that good at all.

It's not to suggest the company made the wrong move here. The female Superstars of SmackDown and Raw have done exceptionally well over the past year in terms of reinvigorating women's wrestling for the masses.

If that trend is to continue, then new blood must occasionally be brought in to stir things up. Otherwise the women's division will become stale and could slide in popularity with fans.

Considering WWE's poor track record of presenting women's wrestling as relevant in the past, today's viewers surely do not want to see it fail now.

But the way in which these six new faces came to the main rosters is curious.

When Absolution attacked Sasha Banks, Bayley, Mickie James and Alexa Bliss, the group put the division on notice—there's no disputing that. When The Riott Squad attacked Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, Naomi and Natalya, the same message was sent.

The new wave of women's wrestling was here and it was going to take over.

Even as the back-to-back assaults took place, though, fans must have begun to wonder why. Each faction took out the top four stars on each program, including the Raw and SmackDown women's champions. But if total dominance and devastation is what each group wanted, what would have happened if one of the women attacked had been injured?

Blurring the lines between fiction and reality, it would have affected any immediate storylines WWE had in mind moving forward.

The same was true of Samoa Joe. His debut on Raw was even more impressive because he put Seth Rollins on the shelf. No one wanted to see The Architect legitimately hurt, of course, but it did bolster Joe's image as The Destroyer.

However, this is not the men's division, which is loaded on Raw and SmackDown. This the women's division, which consisted of eight female Superstars on each program before Absolution and The Riott Squad burst on to the scene. Half of each roster has been laid out thus far.

If the other half is eventually taken down, who's left to work?

Where is the anticipation for these newer stars to prove themselves individually if they have already laid hands on every top star? Fans can draw comparisons to The Shield—and most surely have—but at least that group had one single mission in mind when they debuted.

Dispensing justice on those who deserved it may have sounded like a bizarre notion coming from heels, but it was a clear objective. Most importantly, it made complete sense to The Shield.

The only mission Absolution and The Riott Squad has had to this point is to overwhelm the women's division and then state their intentions to take over. The first part has been accomplished. But what about the second part? Will these new call-ups take over or just blend in?

Riott specifically mentioned Total Divas, claiming The Riott Squad was not on SmackDown Live as an audition. However, fans have heard this type of rhetoric before: from the leader of Absolution herself.

Paige was the anti-Diva, the woman who was different than everyone else. She took the example set by AJ Lee and expanded on it, giving fans something fresh and new.

When she joined Total Divas, though, fans saw through the gimmick and realized Paige's days of being different were over.

Fans may be excited about WWE's newest factions, but how long will it be before these Superstars begin to fit right in?

credit: wwe.com

Ultimately Absolution and The Riott Squad will take the same road any successful faction takes in professional wrestling. Things will go good for a while and could be great, but eventually selfishness and ego will bring it all to an end.

Like Rollins before them, one or more of these six women will realize there's more to WWE than just six-man tag matches.

There's only one championship for each women's division and only one woman can hold it at a time. There will come a day when unity will give way to glory. That's exactly what fans have seen before, and they know they will see it again. So is that the problem?

Have both of these groups followed a far-too-predictable path? Are fans already calling this one long before it ends? Has WWE made a splash with these six new faces or is just the same gimmick on a different day? The women's division on each program does need new blood to survive, but is this the right way to do it?

Only time will tell if the company has a hit with Absolution and The Riott Squad. Unfortunately for WWE, many fans have perhaps already decided that for themselves.

Tom Clark can regularly be seen on Bleacher Report. His podcast, Tom Clark's Main Event, is available on iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, Amazon Android, Windows Phone and online at boinkstudios.com.