WWE: Kelly Kelly, Beth Phoenix and the State of the Diva's Division

Is the Diva’s division entertaining?

I don’t know.

I certainly don’t hate it, but I also don’t mind throwing Kelly Kelly’s name into a Google image search every once in a while either (safe search off).

That is how the Diva’s division in treated.

Twelve girls come down for a six-on-six tag team match that lasts three minutes, and only half of them wrestle.

The match ends abruptly, no one cares who wins, they leave and the show goes on. It feels like the halftime show dancers at an NBA game.

This makes it is very difficult to rate Diva’s matches.

The IWC spends a lot of time analyzing wrestling matches, so it is hard to watch a Diva’s match without holding it to the same scale with which we weigh the men’s matches.

If John Cena vs. CM Punk’s 34-minute championship match (which had over a month of pre-match hype and huge ramifications) was an A+, what was Kelly Kelly vs. Brie Bellas five-minute match (with a weak, cliché back story)? An F?

Relatively speaking, it has to be.  

In Kelly and Brie’s defense, it was better than watching Mark Henry and The Big Show.

The IWC, myself included, complains a lot, but they don’t complain about the Diva’s division often—usually just quips about the division being weak, below average or a joke.

The IWC also has a lot of opinions about how to make wrestling better, but rarely do opinions on how to properly book the Divas pop up.

When they do pop up, they are interesting.

A WWE blogger named "Mark4BoogieMan” who hails from “My Secret Bunker In Hell” believes having Diva's Money in the Bank matches and a queen of the ring tournament would advance the division.

An article written on B/R in 2008 suggests giving the Divas better storylines and more mic time.

Perhaps adding more talented Divas and less bikini models could revive the brand.

Beth Phoenix and Natalya are generally considered the most talented wrestlers, but they get far less TV time than the Bellas.

The most compelling argument comes from B/R featured columnist Adam Well’s most recent post about how women are portrayed in the WWE.

He examines the feud between Kelly Kelly and The Bella Twins, where “serious issues like bulimia and anorexia are used as insults by heels” and “terms like bitches, hoes, skank and slut have been frequently used.”

At SummerSlam, Kelly Kelly will defend her title against Beth Phoenix.

Their match will be interesting for one reason—it represents the clash of the Diva “identity.”

Beth Phoenix is a talented, strong wrestler who is capable of putting on a good match. Kelly Kelly is the pin-up who isn’t a well-trained wrestler but makes up for her inexperience with beauty.

Who does the WWE universe prefer to see?

Phoenix could be the one who will change the Diva’s division from a glorified cat fight to a legitimate faction of wrestling.

But is that what the audience wants? Do we want more Diva stories? Don’t men love cat fights?

Maybe—just maybe—the Divas can’t be saved.

Maybe they don’t need to be saved.

As long as a majority of WWEs audience is men, there will always be a place for beautiful women to run around in very little clothing.

But maybe—and unfortunately—the shortcomings of the Diva’s division are a reflection of the shortcomings of modern America, where men love to watch the Laker girls at halftime, but wouldn’t watch a WNBA game if you paid them (myself included).

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