Victoria Retiring? A Signal Of an End Of an Era

Sources are reporting that longtime WWE Diva Victoria will be retiring and gave notice of that as early as at the Survivor Series PPV.

In an odd coincidence, Victoria was the first one eliminated in the Divas match that night.

Her elimination, done by Kelly Kelly, was, at least for me, an odd representation of a sad truth—the Great Era of Divas is over.

Let the Diva Search Era begin.

Victoria is the last left from the time when the WWE cared about its women wrestlers, when they spent more time wrestling than being valets, managers, and eye candy. During this time Victoria was in street brawls, hardcore matches, and even, along with Lita, a part of the first and only Diva cage match.

The Divas even main-evented RAW in a women's title bout between Trish Stratus and Lita.

All who represent the era—Trish, Lita, Jazz, Molly Holly, Ivory, and now Victoria—will be gone, replaced by women found through a modeling contest. Hooray.

With Victoria's departure, only Beth Phoenix, Natalya, Mickie James, Melina, Katie Lea, and Jillian were not found courtesy of the DS. (I tend to put Kelly Kelly in the DS group because she was discovered thanks to modeling pictures—sort of the same thing). Only three of the women listed have yet to join Victoria and the others in jobberland. 

It sort of makes sense that this Divas Championship was created on Smackdown. With Victoria's departure, Natalya will be the only Diva on the SD! roster not a part of the DS, the only one who was not home-grown trained by the WWE. The women's title remains RAW exclusive and basically only has two—three, counting Kelly Kelly like I do—to deal with.

it is a bit sad to see the once physically-dominant, psycho Diva—find a video of THE RAW bikini conest to see the great lengths of a psychotic break Victoria went through; her attack on Christy Hemme and Jerry Lawler is epic—now become a comedic, stumbling joke and jobber.

Although I'm sure that Victoria, as the only real Divas veteran, is fine with her place, many wrestling fans are not. She will most likely not get the sendoff Trish Stratus got, meaning no shot once more at the women's title—and, as long as Michelle McCool is running the show at SD!, no shot at the Diva's Title, though many believe she was the most obvious contender from its creation.

For me, Victoria is the most underrated and underused "Superstar" on the entire roster. Whenever the end comes, and apparently it's coming soon, she will not get the kudos she has always deserved, and probably never will.