WWE: Is Kelly Kelly Due for a Major Character Change on Raw?

One thing is for sure: WWE’s babyface diva Kelly Kelly has had a year full of ups and downs.

She spent the earlier part of 2011 fleeing in terror from the monstrous Kharma, like a hopeless heroine out of a cheesy B-movie horror. Kharma had targeted the blonde bombshell for unexplained reasons, and the whole thing was turning into quite an intriguing angle before it was famously dropped after Kharma (real name: Kia Stevens) fell pregnant and had to be quickly written out.

A directionless Kelly was then lost in the shuffle for a while in random and forgettable women’s tag matches on Raw before fan voting awarded her a title shot against Brie Bella in a special “Power to the People” edition of the show in late June. Showing faith in their hard-working diva, management allowed Kelly to beat the villainous Bella twin to win her first WWE Divas Championship.

It was an emotional moment for the former bikini model, who wept openly after gaining the pinfall on her foe, helping get the long-marginalized Divas Championship over as a credible belt worth winning in the process.

Regrettably, her title reign got off to a disastrous start in her first title defence against Brie at WWE’s Money in the Bank in pay-per-view. Filled with mistimed moves, botches and laughable offense from both women, the match was an utter calamity and marred what was widely considered one of best pay-per-views in years. The condemnation for the bout got so scathing that the Bella sisters even took to Twitter in the days after the event to unprofessionally lash out at the critics.

At this point, Kelly seemed destined to join the likes of Ashley Massaro, Candice Michelle and Alicia Fox as another failed model-turned-wrestler push in WWE.

Thankfully for fans, Kelly’s next opponent was “The Glamazon,” Beth Phoenix. A crazed Phoenix turned heel on Divas Champion in July, proclaiming to the world it was now her duty to cleanse WWE’s women’s division of vapid, talentless models that had polluted it.

With the aid of the capable and charismatic Phoenix, Kelly’s struggling title reign blossomed into must-see  television. The two women viciously attacked each several occasions, tore into each other in heated promos and churned out some of the best WWE women’s matches in ages. Phoenix’s in-ring experience helped compensate for Kelly’s flaws as a wrestler, and the feud went over well with fans, as well as helping reverse Kelly’s fortunes as champions and shining a spotlight on WWE’s oft-neglected women’s division.  

After two successful title defences against Phoenix (at Summerslam and Night of Champions), Kelly finally dropped the title to her perennial foe at Hell in a Cell after some sneaky interference from Beth’s tag team partner, Natalya (she blasted Kelly in the head with a mic shot while the referee’s back was turned). Not that Kelly should be too mad; she performed better as champion than most expected and silenced the majority of her critics .

But the question is: Where does she go from here?

Well, all indications are, the former model is set for a radical change in character after losing the belt. Up till now, the photogenic Kelly has generally been the archetypal diva: pretty, perky and achingly shallow.  She smiles all the time, high-fives fans and is nice to just about everyone; just the type of girl you’d like to take home to your parents, really. While she showed some hints of aggressive during her feud with Phoenix, it was never truly expanded on—up until now, that is.

Last week on Raw, the night after Kelly had been robbed of the title at Hell in a Cell, fans saw a rather brutal indication of what is likely to be the new direction of her character. The mild-mannered, good-hearted Kelly may be a thing of the past, going by her shocking performance here. 

Coming out for a planned tag match with partner Eve, Kelly suddenly snapped and abandoned the match, going straight for Phoenix. An enraged Kelly viciously attacked the new Divas Champion, sickeningly slamming Beth’s head into the announcer’s table, all while screaming like a banshee. The flustered ref had no choice but to end the bout before it had even started, and the out-of-control Kelly eventually had to be pulled off from the fallen Phoenix by Eve and WWE officials.

Kelly continued to show her new change of character on last night’s Raw, when she teamed with Eve again to take on Tamina and Rosa Mendes. The match was poor (the clueless Rosa somehow managed to botch simply standing in the corner as Kelly hit a handspring elbow), but the former champion exuded a tremendous amount of aggression and rage in the bout and sufficiently got over her new character.     

Some have questioned whether she can be truly credible in this role (and certainly, her screeching sometimes comes off as more comical than dramatic), but I think it’s a fantastic and refreshing new direction for her stale character. Action-hungry WWE fans have grown bored of bland, one-dimensional divas that have stank up the division for years and years, and this new edgy, ferocious Kelly is surely someone that those fans can sink their teeth into and rally behind as she attempts to regain her belt from Phoenix.

Better still for Kelly, it seems WWE management are fully behind her, too. Kelly and Eve were both noticeably absent from the “No Confidence Vote” later that night at the end of WWE Raw. Reportedly, WWE avoided sending out several of their top faces (including John Cena and Randy Orton) because they knew the stars would get viciously booed when they, like everyone else on the roster, walked out on fan-favourite HHH. As the story went, WWE wanted to protect these wrestlers from fan disapproval. That WWE see Kelly as important enough to warrant safeguarding is certainly a good sign for her WWE future.

While she may have lost the title at Hell in a Cell, Kelly fans can rest assured: Her push is far from over.  And her new-found personality promises to make her the most interesting WWE babyface diva in quite some time.