Total Divas: Greatest Enemy To A Real WWE Divas Revolution

Diva is a term used by WWE, an American professional wrestling promotion, to refer to its female performers

The term is applied to women who appear as wrestlers, managers or valets, backstage interviewers, or ring announcers. The slogan of the divas division is Sexy, Smart and Powerful.

In July 2013, the first season of the Total Divas reality television show starring WWE Divas premiered

The series gives viewers an inside look of the lives of WWE Divas from their work within WWE to their personal lives.

What should have been a great tool for introducing new viewers to the world of sports entertainment, a platform for Divas to gain more mainstream exposure and the emphasis for a stronger push of female talent on Raw and SmackDown has, instead, become the greatest enemy to a real and truly great Divas Revolution in WWE.

Unlike other WWE programs

most of the performers use their real names instead of their ring names, leading to Cameron, Naomi, Natalya, Jimmy Uso, and Tyson Kidd being referred to as Ariane, Trinity, Nattie, Jon, and TJ respectively. During the first season, Daniel Bryan was similarly credited as Bryan Danielson.

WWE’s self-proclaimed ‘Divas Revolution’ was a long overdue initiative to committing to portraying the women of WWE as more than just eye candy.

The movement, creatively spearheaded by Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, aims to portray WWE Divas as true athletes with the performance skills that rival, if not surpass, the men. The majority of the Divas on the main roster are involved in this revolution storyline and have been given ample time to prove themselves on WWE programming

The WWE Divas division has graduated from hair pulling and cat fighting to actual in-ring wrestling, and that’s a major victory

However, lately the fans have felt compelled to dish out the biggest pops (wrestling lingo for crowd reaction) of the night to the type of cat fighting they cut down for years. As some of the best female wrestlers in the world continue to prove themselves on the most-watched wrestling programs every week, women with little wrestling experience and all the sass are getting a big spotlight.

Somewhere along the line, WWE Creative got lazy

and began using the reality program to set up feuds that often lasted less than two weeks. Alicia Fox and Natalya may have had words on the show about hair, and, suddenly, they were working matches on Raw and SmackDown.

It was also not uncommon in the least to see a Diva or two who originally had one role on television switch for no reason other than to placate the supposed "reality" presented on that show.

Months of storytelling unraveled because on Total Divas

Paige comes across as a heel, but WWE Creative may have had her booked as a babyface at that point in time. So, suddenly, and without a lick of sense made, her character was altered because someone thought it was more important to line her up according to what the shownot what was followed by every wrestling fan watching WWE's two premiere broadcastsdictated, rather than everything that had been done to build, shape and mold her from the get-go.

The arrival of Charlotte, Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks in July 2015 was the emphasis for a renewed focus on women's wrestling in WWE.

Their arrival was supposed to reignite interest in the sport, especially on the heels of the phenomenal wrestling matches they delivered on a weekly basis in NXT.

But a true Divas Revolution cannot possibly occur

when WWE continues to revert back to their old thinking, erasing months of character development and cutting off stories because they want to focus on promoting Total Divas and the stories that play out on that show.

It’s almost been a year since #GiveDivasAChance trended worldwide

and things are right back to where they were in the women's division: no real heels or faces, no programs, and no evolution of the female characters. The Charlotte/Lynch story seems to be moving well, but you also had to stick Ric Flair in the mix of this program (or so you thought you had to).

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