Breaking Down the State of WWE's Women's Division Ahead of WrestleMania 36

The current state of WWE's women's division heading into WrestleMania 36 is...complicated.

While the women currently have unprecedented access to pay-per-view main events and high-profile storylines the likes of which were foreign to that section of the roster up until five or so years ago, there are also creative and in-ring inconsistencies that plague its overall success.

Ahead of wrestling's grandest night, dive deep into the WWE women's divisions across Raw, SmackDown and NXT, with this breakdown of the women's division in Vince McMahon's sports entertainment circus.

In-Ring Content

At this time last year, the women's division was as hot as it had ever been, thanks to a fantastic series of matches between Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair, as well as great showings from rookie Ronda Rousey. Since then, though, the division has taken a step or two back from an in-ring perspective.

Overbooking has badly hurt the overall quality of matches.

Look no further than last November and December, where a Triple Threat match between Lynch, Shayna Baszler and Bayley at Survivor Series failed to live up to the talent of the performers involved, and a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match pitting Lynch and Flair against Asuka and Kairi Sane massively underwhelmed.

Just last week at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, further overbooking and overthinking from a creative standpoint led to Baszler rolling through the competition in an attempt to make her look like an unstoppable badass ahead of her WrestleMania date with Lynch.

Again, the quality of the match was sacrificed in the name of a story.

The creative team behind the women's division on both Raw and SmackDown must find a balance between telling a story and letting the performers wow between the ropes. It was, after all, the superb work of the original Four Horsewomen of NXT that made fans sit up and take note of the revolution going on in women's wrestling.

Speaking of NXT, it's women's division is as deep and talented as it has ever been. With Rhea Ripley leading the charge, and Bianca Belair, Dakota Kai, Teagan Nox and Shotzi Blackheart close behind, the division is poised to produce star after star in the years to come.

We recently witnessed what those women are capable of when Nox and Kai wrote the latest chapter of their ongoing feud inside a steel cage.

Grade: C+

Character Development

Much like the in-ring produce, character development has been wildly inconsistent across the board.

Lynch is still the rebellious babyface, Flair is the entitled queen and Sasha Banks is the attitudinal Legit Boss. Bayley underwent a heel turn that had her delusionally claiming to be fans' role model, but the creative team lost interest in that particular character and since then, she has been portrayed as any cookie-cutter heel from the 1980s. 

Lacey Evans flipped from heel to babyface, completely disregarding her underhanded methods to become a strong female example for the ladies in the WWE Universe. Unfortunately, the total lack of depth makes her more of a caricature than a character.

Liv Morgan and Ruby Riott's returns fizzled out while veterans like Naomi, Carmella and Natalya remain nondescript creatively.

Surprisingly enough, Lana and Mandy Rose have been the most developed characters in the women's division this past year, thanks to stories that took place away from women's championships.

Lana has become the epitome of a self-centered brat, leaving husband Rusev in favor of Bobby Lashley, who gives her everything she wants and allows her to take top billing. Rose has shown that, beyond the Golden Goddess exterior is a woman with a heart, as witnessed by her interest in big Otis of Heavy Machinery.

Down in NXT, Ripley came from out of nowhere to build momentum for herself and defeat Shayna Baszler for the NXT Women's Championship, then stepped up to challenge Flair to a WrestleMania match. Positioned as the underdog, she is poised to prove that she is undisputedly the top star in NXT (and, maybe, women's wrestling) when she battles the second-generation star at WrestleMania.

Grade: C

Storytelling

Storytelling on the Road to WrestleMania has been rather nondescript and one-dimensional.

Over on Raw, Baszler is the unstoppable force set up to challenge the year-long reign of Becky Lynch as that brand's top female competitor. She has torn through every opponent to this point and looks, at least from outside, like the absolute top choice to put The Man to sleep at WrestleMania and capture the gold.

On SmackDown, Bayley has become a typical heel, all elements of her story stripped away and replaced by promos and cheating straight out of the Rock and Wrestling Era. With Banks, she has become WWE's equivalent to Mean Girls, without the character or humor that fueled that film.

There is so much creative inconsistency with her that she is literally in the midst of four or five ongoing rivalries that are not really all that compelling because she had already beaten all of her challengers in singles matches.

And then, there is NXT.

Ripley's feud with Flair has, to this point, been merely ok.

Flair has been the established pro, Ripley is the underdog champion of WWE's developmental program, looking to prove herself by beating the measuring stick for women's wrestling. Dakota Kai and Teagan Nox delivered a strong series of matches as best friends turned bitter enemies, introducing Raquel Gonzalez to the fans in the process.

Unfortunately, the overwhelming wealth of talent on the NXT roster has gone underwritten because there is only so much television time to go around and unfortunately, much of that time has been dedicated to putting over the women's title picture and not developing stories for the other extremely talented individuals on the roster.

Grade: C

Popularity

If there is one area the women's division excelled in over the last year and entering WrestleMania 36, it has been the positioning of its talent in order to generate genuine popularity.

Lynch has been, arguably, the most consistently over and popular star on the Raw brand, regardless of gender. She has paid off the trust placed in her by Vince McMahon and Co., becoming the top babyface in the company and, arguably, its top star.

The Man's star power and connection with the audience have earned her television commercials, video game covers and massive merchandise sales. And with good reason. She is charismatic, confident, cocky and cool. She is Shawn Michaels circa 1997, without the attitude and personal demons.

Flair is still incredibly over, her excellence between the ropes and entitlement from an on-screen personality standpoint keeping her connected with audiences.

It is NXT's Ripley, though, who has surprised in terms of overall popularity.

The 23-year-old Aussie has exploded from obscurity with the brand into being the alternative personality and total badass fans can sink their teeth into. The NXT women's champion has a unique look, does not hesitate to whoop the ass of anyone standing across the ring from her and does it in the rebellious style one would expect from the ripped-denim-wearing antihero.

As we witnessed at Elimination Chamber, though, not everything is rainbows and cupcakes when it comes to the popularity of female talent within WWE.

In that night's main event, Shayna Baszler shared the ring with five other women. 

Five women the fans could not possibly have cared less about.

Liv Morgan, Sarah Logan, Ruby Riott, Natalya and Asuka are so underwritten and underdeveloped as characters that fans' reactions to them reflect it. Natalya, in particular, is a disappointing case because she is as talented a professional wrestler as there is in all of WWE but the company's inability to find a character for her outside of her familial relations is damning.

The Riott Squad inexplicably broke up amid injuries to the leader, but their return to prominence on TV was accompanied by nothing in the way of compelling writing and the reaction from the audience reflects as much.

Grade: B

Overall State of the Women's Division Ahead of WrestleMania

The women's division is as deep, talented and ready to excel as it has ever been in WWE. The wealth of talent, from different backgrounds and varied styles, is awe-inspiring.

Its usage on Monday, Wednesday and Friday night is anything but.

For a crop of competitors as skilled as it is, its assessment is riddled with underwhelming grades in nearly every category. The in-ring content does not match the skills of the women competing. The character development has been nonexistent and the inconsistency of storytelling has stunted the growth of the performers themselves and the matches and angles they star in.

That every single woman from Lynch to Vanessa Borne is not massively over with fans is a damning bit of evidence against those in charge of booking the division.

WrestleMania 36 is slated to feature at least three high-profile women's matches and while that represents tremendous growth from where the spot was just 10 years ago, those matches also reflect just how disappointing, underwhelming and uninspiring WWE's efforts with its talent have been of late.

Hopefully, after 'Mania, things settle down and a greater emphasis is put on developing the talent it has on its roster before underwriting them to hell and leading them to obscurity.

This grade should be so much higher.

Grade: C+