Throughout the years there have been a boatload examples of major companies squandering opportunities when it comes to pushing women's wrestling.In your opinion what are the worst examples of blown opportunities?


My first one would have to be no major company from the late 80's//earl to mid nineties fully invest in using women from Japan as major stars. WwF experimented with this a little using Jumping Bomb Angels and Bull Nakano as champs for a short time but they didn't come close to using that talent base to the greatest extent possible. One wonder's how women's wrestling history might have changed if the likes of Manami Toyota were given a chance to become major stars in the US in their primes. You can't say  the crowds would not have bee interested in this either, the Jumping Bomb Angels got great crowd reactions. 


My second missed opportunity would be the Knockout's division from late summer 2009 until basically the tag match with Kong and Hamada vs Taylor and Sarita. That division could have been so great if they had just focused on the international/shimmer alum talents instead of giving the title feuds to ex-wwe talents like Tara and one trick ponies like ODB. The brief glimpses we got of this potential with Hamada's matches with Sarita and Taylor, and Alissa's matches with Sarita, Taylor, and Hamada were so great. A division based around the elite workers the division had at this point would have skyrocketed past the Gail vs Kong days thatTNA always seemed to hesitant to try and go past. Also someone like Madison Rayne would have gone on to be an even better wrestler if she had spent the early years of her TV career wrestling the likes of Hamada, Sarita, and Alissa on a regular basis. 
I mean just look at this match 

I struggle to think of a better sub 3 minute  match out there male or female. Imagine what they could have done with 15-20 minutes?

More recently. AJ Lee.

How you ask? Her anti-Bella pipebomb was the catalyst for change, as was challenging the WWE and Stephanie McMahon for equal recognition and reward. And of course what she accomplished on screen and changing the perception of what a female talent can be in WWE.

If the revolution came amidst Lee’s tenure and off the heels of her work, maybe it wouldn’t have felt so forced. Instead the revolution is a response to the criticism towards WWE around how they presented women and in lieu of the equality movement.

I don't know if a slut-shaming regressive promo would be the ideal basis for a women's resolution. I also don't think there is a huge difference between the wrestling ability of AJ and Nikki. Aj was a bette rpromo by a decent margin but Nikki, on the other hand, was a far better base and was able to wrestle a more engaging heel style.

I think the WWE took too long to highlight Layla. Even though Layla in ECW was a heel she clearly was superior to Kelly Kelly in most of their contests yet they keep trying to make Kelly kelly her superior.

Gail Kim after she came back. You had the one of the hottest stars in the women's division from a company who nearly became a rival. And she was still not treated like a big deal.

Emma should have been bigger then she was. But she was pretty much the Alyssa Flash of the WWE.

Aug 29, 2019 4:24:41 GMT X-zero said:

I think the WWE took too long to highlight Layla. Even though Layla in ECW was a heel she clearly was superior to Kelly Kelly in most of their contests yet they keep trying to make Kelly kelly her superior.

Gail Kim after she came back. You had the one of the hottest stars in the women's division from a company who nearly became a rival. And she was still not treated like a big deal.

Emma should have been bigger then she was. But she was pretty much the Alyssa Flash of the WWE.

I actually thought they way Layla career progressed was ideal for her. The fact that she wasn't thrust into the spotlight meant that she got more time to develop and grow as a wrestler. I don't know if she would have gotten to be as talented if she was pushed from the start.  

Speaking of Layla however  I think the SD women's division from spring/summer of 2009 was a missed opportunity. A division of  Melina, Gail,  and Eve as Faces with Michelle , Layla,  Natalya, and Alicia  as heels had a lot to offer. The trades that year really messed the division up.  The Melina ad Gail vs Michelle and Alicia tags were pretty fun.  

I post about it all the time, but fucking up Asuka so badly from Wrestlemania 34 onwards and never doing her vs Ronda.

Aug 29, 2019 5:15:31 GMT @admin said:

I post about it all the time, but fucking up Asuka so badly from Wrestlemania 34 onwards and never doing her vs Ronda.

To a lesser extent (since the damage was already done by this point) you can say the same with her booking post TLC 2018/Royal Rumble 2019. She was really starting to regain some of momentum before they stopped having her appear on SSD regularly. 

Aug 29, 2019 5:29:52 GMT dex said:

Aug 29, 2019 5:15:31 GMT @admin said:

I post about it all the time, but fucking up Asuka so badly from Wrestlemania 34 onwards and never doing her vs Ronda.

To a lesser extent (since the damage was already done by this point) you can say the same with her booking post TLC 2018/Royal Rumble 2019. She was really starting to reagin some of momentum before they stopped having her appear on SSD regularly. 

It is remarkable that someone who won the Royal Rumble, beat Charlotte and Becky in a TLC match, and beat Becky in a 17-minute championship match across a 12 month span still feels like she has been buried. Really shows how badly they've handled those periods in between.

Aug 29, 2019 5:55:47 GMT @admin said:

Aug 29, 2019 5:29:52 GMT dex said:

To a lesser extent (since the damage was already done by this point) you can say the same with her booking post TLC 2018/Royal Rumble 2019. She was really starting to reagin some of momentum before they stopped having her appear on SSD regularly. 

It is remarkable that someone who won the Royal Rumble, beat Charlotte and Becky in a TLC match, and beat Becky in a 17-minute championship match across a 12 month span still feels like she has been buried. Really shows how badly they've handled those periods in between.

And that whole 914 day win streak which were undone with those multiple loses to Carmella.

I always wonder what would’ve happened had Lita never got injured both in 2002 and 2005.

2002 because that completely cleared the way for Trish to be the top star of the division. I’m not saying she never would but it would’ve been interesting to see how they dealt with the two of them as top faces on an equal footing, not to mention how they would’ve dealt with Lita after they split the Hardyz. Not to mention they made Lita the #10 draft pick for Flairs Raw which was made out to be a big deal at the time and nothing ever came of it because she got injured like a week later.

2005 because after their Raw main event, the Women’s Title was seen as one of the most important parts of the show, sure they had released most of the Raw women’s division other than Lita, Trish, Victoria and Molly (and the diva search girls) but when Lita went down in 2005 it messes things up and went worse when Trish was our for the summer and only recovered for a short period from Mickie vs Trish to Lita’s retirement and we then got the focus on divas and turning models and diva search girls into wrestlers.

Aug 29, 2019 5:15:31 GMT @admin said:

I post about it all the time, but fucking up Asuka so badly from Wrestlemania 34 onwards and never doing her vs Ronda.

Io Shirai will be a much bigger star in WWE than Sane or Asuka will ever be. 

WWE will never push japanese talent until they give them characters and attire presentations that manage to de-japan them. Both Asuka and Sane's gimmicks are one dimensional tropes. Remember early to mid 90's when WWF had their 'new era' (I htink that's what they called it) and most of their new characters were tropes based on professions; Duke the Dumpster Drose, Repo Man, Mountie, Boss Man, IRS, The BErzerker, The Warlord, The Barbarian, Skinner, Max Moon, Damien Demento, Kwang, Bastion Booger, Adam Bomb? That is the type of character we seem to get from female japanese wrestlers. This style of one dimensional character is not conducive to long term character development.  Kari is a fucking pirate, Asuka is whatever you call that japanese character she wears the mask of, Io was going around pointing to that cat/tiger mask, Shoko Nakajima iks cosplaying as some weird furby thing? Bea priestly seemed to be required to develop some weird cosplay mask thing as part of stardom. 

Female japanese wrestlers seem to be very often embracing one dimensional cosplay characters. Developing characters can't happen while you are stuck in a silly gimmick. Also, weird niche anime looking stuff is not stuff that bot Vince likes, or believes the average western minded person can get behind. 

Io Shirai has been done a world of good by someone actually using nxt to develop a character/look that is what Vince is looking for. Nxt failed Asuka and Kairi by allowing them to do the same thing that niche computer nerd fans like and not have them develop different characters. 

Aug 29, 2019 17:14:35 GMT nazzer said:

Aug 29, 2019 5:15:31 GMT @admin said:

I post about it all the time, but fucking up Asuka so badly from Wrestlemania 34 onwards and never doing her vs Ronda.

Io Shirai will be a much bigger star in WWE than Sane or Asuka will ever be. 

WWE will never push japanese talent until they give them characters and attire presentations that manage to de-japan them. Both Asuka and Sane's gimmicks are one dimensional tropes. Remember early to mid 90's when WWF had their 'new era' (I htink that's what they called it) and most of their new characters were tropes based on professions; Duke the Dumpster Drose, Repo Man, Mountie, Boss Man, IRS, The BErzerker, The Warlord, The Barbarian, Skinner, Max Moon, Damien Demento, Kwang, Bastion Booger, Adam Bomb? That is the type of character we seem to get from female japanese wrestlers. This style of one dimensional character is not conducive to long term character development.  Kari is a fucking pirate, Asuka is whatever you call that japanese character she wears the mask of, Io was going around pointing to that cat/tiger mask, Shoko Nakajima iks cosplaying as some weird furby thing? Bea priestly seemed to be required to develop some weird cosplay mask thing as part of stardom. 

Female japanese wrestlers seem to be very often embracing one dimensional cosplay characters. Developing characters can't happen while you are stuck in a silly gimmick. Also, weird niche anime looking stuff is not stuff that bot Vince likes, or believes the average western minded person can get behind. 

Io Shirai has been done a world of good by someone actually using nxt to develop a character/look that is what Vince is looking for. Nxt failed Asuka and Kairi by allowing them to do the same thing that niche computer nerd fans like and not have them develop different characters. 

Eh, this is an interesting thought but I think you are being overly generous to the idea. Firstly, basically all WWE characters are one dimensional - even the ones that get the most screen time. What development have Roman Reigns, Brock Lesnar, Braun Strowman, Dolph Ziggler, Charlotte Flair etc. had in the past few years?

Additionally, what Io is doing now is pretty identical to Shinsuke Nakamura's heel turn - and they used him for a couple of months before he was forgotten about. Asuka could easily do the same sort of thing (and did so in Japan) - it's not because of any sort of talent deficiency. 

There are a lot of talents from the last half of the divas' era that could have been really good talents with the proper development who dfently should be looked at as missed opportunities. Talents like Kaitly, Eve, Summer Rae, and Maxine had a lot of potential.

Would Wendi Richter count? She was the building block for the ladies in the mid 80's. Once she was gone so was the woman's division.

Aug 30, 2019 20:47:26 GMT bodyslam said:

Would Wendi Richter count? She was the building block for the ladies in the mid 80's. Once she was gone so was the woman's division.

Moolah trying to make the division all about her, and fucking everyone who got in her way, resulted in some major missed opportunities.

To name a few...

Wendi having a long, productive reign as champ.
Mad Maxine's career as a whole.
Wendi vs. Mad Maxine
Wendi vs. Sherri
Possibly having those like Velvet McIntyre become champion.
The Women's Division refreshing itself with new blood like Magnificent Mimi, Candy Divine, Madusa, and Mad Maxine.

Maxine is a great shout. She was a stand-out during those proto-NXT days and always seemed like a natural infront of a camera which you can't always say about Pro Wrestlers. I feel like she could have been a fantastic utility character around 2012 to help flesh out mid-card angles and even get involved in the odd main event program.

I agree with nath that AJ should have been a bigger deal coming out of Raw 1000. It seemed like they latched onto the crazy bi-polar chick gimmick and putting her with Cena was basically a death sentence. I felt she did get back on track with her reign, but agree with Dex that her pipebomb fell flat.

The biggest for me was the short-lived WCW Women's Championship in 1996-97. It was AEW 23 years before it's time, with a big focus on Joshi. It could have been a wonderful base to showcase women's wrestling and provide some much needed variety to WCW, but it was DOA. WCW didn't know how to present the Joshi characters, so they put them all with Sonny Onoo, this stereotypical shady Asian character that would even make Mr. Fuji blush and it just seemed like there was no real direction. That remained the course until Madusa retired in 97 and they dropped the whole thing. The only women's wrestling you'd see is on a show like Worldwide with a young Molly Holly.

Aug 31, 2019 3:15:03 GMT Big Pete said:

Maxine is a great shout. She was a stand-out during those proto-NXT days and always seemed like a natural infront of a camera which you can't always say about Pro Wrestlers. I feel like she could have been a fantastic utility character around 2012 to help flesh out mid-card angles and even get involved in the odd main event program.

I agree with nath that AJ should have been a bigger deal coming out of Raw 1000. It seemed like they latched onto the crazy bi-polar chick gimmick and putting her with Cena was basically a death sentence. I felt she did get back on track with her reign, but agree with Dex that her pipebomb fell flat.

The biggest for me was the short-lived WCW Women's Championship in 1996-97. It was AEW 23 years before it's time, with a big focus on Joshi. It could have been a wonderful base to showcase women's wrestling and provide some much needed variety to WCW, but it was DOA. WCW didn't know how to present the Joshi characters, so they put them all with Sonny Onoo, this stereotypical shady Asian character that would even make Mr. Fuji blush and it just seemed like there was no real direction. That remained the course until Madusa retired in 97 and they dropped the whole thing. The only women's wrestling you'd see is on a show like Worldwide with a young Molly Holly.

Another problem was the talent they chose from Japan/Gaea  were pretty green  and basic at the time. Meiko Satomura took a couple years to egt close to the level people are familiar with now.
It's s shame though I would have liked to see Molly compete against some of the joshi women, I think she would have blended in like Debbie Malenko.

 

Aug 31, 2019 7:49:42 GMT dex said:

Aug 31, 2019 3:15:03 GMT Big Pete said:

Maxine is a great shout. She was a stand-out during those proto-NXT days and always seemed like a natural infront of a camera which you can't always say about Pro Wrestlers. I feel like she could have been a fantastic utility character around 2012 to help flesh out mid-card angles and even get involved in the odd main event program.

I agree with nath that AJ should have been a bigger deal coming out of Raw 1000. It seemed like they latched onto the crazy bi-polar chick gimmick and putting her with Cena was basically a death sentence. I felt she did get back on track with her reign, but agree with Dex that her pipebomb fell flat.

The biggest for me was the short-lived WCW Women's Championship in 1996-97. It was AEW 23 years before it's time, with a big focus on Joshi. It could have been a wonderful base to showcase women's wrestling and provide some much needed variety to WCW, but it was DOA. WCW didn't know how to present the Joshi characters, so they put them all with Sonny Onoo, this stereotypical shady Asian character that would even make Mr. Fuji blush and it just seemed like there was no real direction. That remained the course until Madusa retired in 97 and they dropped the whole thing. The only women's wrestling you'd see is on a show like Worldwide with a young Molly Holly.

Another problem was the talent they chose from Japan/Gaea  were pretty green  and basic at the time. Meiko Satomura took a couple years to egt close to the level people are familiar with now.
It's s shame though I would have liked to see Molly compete against some of the joshi women, I think she would have blended in like Debbie Malenko.

 

I've never bothered to look into it, but it wouldn't surprise me if they ran the tournament to give Madusa somebody to chase and as a friendly gesture towards Sasaki. I'm not sure what the deal was, but WCW seemed very generous towards Kensuke, even giving him a run with the US Championship and filming two different finishes so he could save face in Japan.

Still, you look at the cruiserweight division and how memorable it was despite WCW's best efforts. Imagine if they had have actually bought some talent in and what that could have done for women's wrestling.

Aug 29, 2019 4:55:40 GMT dex said:

Aug 29, 2019 4:24:41 GMT X-zero said:

I think the WWE took too long to highlight Layla. Even though Layla in ECW was a heel she clearly was superior to Kelly Kelly in most of their contests yet they keep trying to make Kelly kelly her superior.

Gail Kim after she came back. You had the one of the hottest stars in the women's division from a company who nearly became a rival. And she was still not treated like a big deal.

Emma should have been bigger then she was. But she was pretty much the Alyssa Flash of the WWE.

I actually thought they way Layla career progressed was ideal for her. The fact that she wasn't thrust into the spotlight meant that she got more time to develop and grow as a wrestler. I don't know if she would have gotten to be as talented if she was pushed from the start.  

Speaking of Layla however  I think the SD women's division from spring/summer of 2009 was a missed opportunity. A division of  Melina, Gail,  and Eve as Faces with Michelle , Layla,  Natalya, and Alicia  as heels had a lot to offer. The trades that year really messed the division up.  The Melina ad Gail vs Michelle and Alicia tags were pretty fun.  

I've wondered too what would have happened if those trades in June and October 2009 never happened. 2009 was one of the best years for SmackDown during that era while one of the worst for Raw, so naturally, the moves to Raw for Alicia & Gail and then Melina & Eve did damage to all 4. Alicia and Eve's rookie momentum as performers on SD came to a halt with the bad match formats of Raw, and they both won the Divas Championship a year later without any character build. Melina never had a compelling feud again after that trade, and Gail was never considered important again. Meanwhile, Mickie and Beth going to SmackDown helped give both of their characters life for the first time in a while.

I'd say 2009 SmackDown, particularly March (shortly after Michelle's heel turn and then Gail's arrival) through October (the second of the trades) was one of the most exciting times for the divas division and absolutely should have lasted longer. A group of fresh performers, some experienced and some rookies, not only putting on fun matches but the booking and commentary actually did a solid job with presentation. 

2009 and 2010 had some of the best televised matches of the divas era, a lot of credit going to the style that Michelle and Layla brought to the ring as heels as well as whoever the agent(s) were. The match quality week to week on SmackDown and Superstars was consistently very good and memorable. That two year period of Michelle as the top heel (whether it was teaming with Alicia or Layla) was one of the only times that divas tag team matches were actually good matches and worth talking about week to week (dex , the Melina/Gail vs. Alicia/McCool matches are a very good shout). I even remember a LayCool vs. Tiffany and Kelly on Superstars being good.

Gail and Melina brought a lot more to their matches as faces than Mickie and Beth did (Mickie vs. McCool at TLC 2009 was really the only time I can say Michelle had a PPV match that truly fell flat), so I think it would have been interesting to see where the division went had they been able to stick around on the brand. However, I think having Mickie and Beth on SD allowed some more in-depth storylines to happen because their involvement lent to LayCool's bullying antics a lot more than Gail and Melina would have.

Sept 2, 2019 14:59:59 GMT LS said:

Aug 29, 2019 4:55:40 GMT dex said:

I actually thought they way Layla career progressed was ideal for her. The fact that she wasn't thrust into the spotlight meant that she got more time to develop and grow as a wrestler. I don't know if she would have gotten to be as talented if she was pushed from the start.  

Speaking of Layla however  I think the SD women's division from spring/summer of 2009 was a missed opportunity. A division of  Melina, Gail,  and Eve as Faces with Michelle , Layla,  Natalya, and Alicia  as heels had a lot to offer. The trades that year really messed the division up.  The Melina ad Gail vs Michelle and Alicia tags were pretty fun.  

I've wondered too what would have happened if those trades in June and October 2009 never happened. 2009 was one of the best years for SmackDown during that era while one of the worst for Raw, so naturally, the moves to Raw for Alicia & Gail and then Melina & Eve did damage to all 4. Alicia and Eve's rookie momentum as performers on SD came to a halt with the bad match formats of Raw, and they both won the Divas Championship a year later without any character build. Melina never had a compelling feud again after that trade, and Gail was never considered important again. Meanwhile, Mickie and Beth going to SmackDown helped give both of their characters life for the first time in a while.

I'd say 2009 SmackDown, particularly March (shortly after Michelle's heel turn and then Gail's arrival) through October (the second of the trades) was one of the most exciting times for the divas division and absolutely should have lasted longer. A group of fresh performers, some experienced and some rookies, not only putting on fun matches but the booking and commentary actually did a solid job with presentation. 

2009 and 2010 had some of the best televised matches of the divas era, a lot of credit going to the style that Michelle and Layla brought to the ring as heels as well as whoever the agent(s) were. The match quality week to week on SmackDown and Superstars was consistently very good and memorable. That two year period of Michelle as the top heel (whether it was teaming with Alicia or Layla) was one of the only times that divas tag team matches were actually good matches and worth talking about week to week (dex , the Melina/Gail vs. Alicia/McCool matches are a very good shout). I even remember a LayCool vs. Tiffany and Kelly on Superstars being good.

Gail and Melina brought a lot more to their matches as faces than Mickie and Beth did (Mickie vs. McCool at TLC 2009 was really the only time I can say Michelle had a PPV match that truly fell flat), so I think it would have been interesting to see where the division went had they been able to stick around on the brand. However, I think having Mickie and Beth on SD allowed some more in-depth storylines to happen because their involvement lent to LayCool's bullying antics a lot more than Gail and Melina would have.

Eve and Alicia are like Kaitlyn  in that I really wish they had arrived in WWE when current NXT and the PC was around . Eve especially had a lot of potential but was never able to fully put it together consistently, and Alicia also had tons of potential but regressed as worker as time went on.


Eve's heel work was really starting to get better right around the time she left, we've talked about this before but the triple threat she had with Layla and Kaitlyn was really fun.