Melina and Mickie  were two talents who always had connection rivalry between them. Women's wrestling fans were always comparing the two and seeing how they matched up to one another. Now both are reaching the ends of their careers I thought it would be fun to do a final comparison.

Who in your opinion was the better overall talent between the two of them? Whose resume of matches is more impressive?  Who was the better overall wrestler?

Imo Melina was clearly the better talent between the two. Mickie James peaked with the Trish feud and was never as compelling as she was then throughout the rest of her career. As a wrestler at her best she was solid but she never really grew as a worker or tried anything new, even when in circumstances in which she was allowed to try new things and push boundaries. Mickie's best matches were never her opponent's best matches either. 

Melina on the other hand was someone who consistently improved and evolved as her career went on. Her work as MNM's manager was memorable and resulted in some fun matches against a green/not very good talent like Christy, and mediocre talents like Jillian. Her transition into a serious wrestler was pretty smooth and she instantly became one of the better/ore exciting female wrestlers on the roster, her main heel run gave someone like Candice their best match, and also gave Mickie one of her best matches. Her run as a face was super impressive imo especially how she worked around the restrictions WWE placed on women during this time period. Her face run also gave the likes of Beth and Michelle some of their best matches. 
One area Mickie might hold an advantage in is in terms of memorable feuds/moments/promos. Although that's not really Melina's fault as the effort put into women's feuds fell of a cliff after Trish retired. 

Honestly it annoys me that Mickie was the one from that era that got all of these opportunities past her first WWE run. I think Melina would have been way more memorable if she took Mickie place for Mickie's TNA run for example.  

Why do we have to choose? They should've had A WrestleMania singles match against each other. They were the first strongest highlights of WWE's women's division post Trish/Lita era.

Mickie had the better personality, better attitude that's why she got pushed better than Melina who the women's locker room didn't care much for.

I wouldn't really say Melina gave Candice her best matches when Candice only really worked in programes with Melina and Beth Phoenix after her marked improvement, and the matches with Beth at Unforgiven and the 2/3 Falls Match were far superior to the Melina matches anyway.

The retro love Melina gets pre-2007 amuses me - she wasn't really a 'great' worker until she was dropping the title to Candice. She was quite sloppy and nearly ended Mickie's career during their Falls Count Anywhere match. You can say she got a decent match out of Christy, but Christy also had 'good' matches (for what they were at her level) with Trish/Molly/Victoria, so there was some talent there with Christy unlike say with Ashley - who Melina did NOT have a good Wrestlemania match with. (I also think it's a diservice to call Jillian Hall a mediocre worker. She was a safe and boring worker, yes - but not mediocre)

The issue with comparing them is that Melina was kept as a manager during the time Mickie was able to really succeed as a singles wrestler and that's the difference between them, well that and their (early career) attitude. There is no denying Melina is the more exciting wrestler as time has gone on, whilst Mickie plays relatively safe. The other problem is that Melina's face momentum suffered with her injuries and her run when she returned to win the title at Summerslam was pretty poorly handled after getting jobbed out to Laycool.

I think it just becomes easy to hype and rate Melina as if you compare careers, she is more of an underdog and then in turn it becomes easy to bash and discount Mickie.

Both ladies are very evenly matched in character work, I would say Melina edges Mickie in terms of in ring skills but Mickie's had better booking oppurtunities and taken advantage of them quite well I'd say. I'd guess that Melina attempted to make up for poorer booking oppurtunities by upping the ring skills to prove herself, it was certainly evident with the face run against Beth.

On the topic of Melina and Mickie's wrestling abilities, I'd say Dex's assessment for both women is on the money. Mickie never tried to go outside of the box while that was what Melina was known for in the ring. I'd venture to say that without Melina and Michelle McCool, the upper echelon of divas matches from 2007-2010 disappears (and I don't just mean their work together). Both did a terrific job, in different ways, working within WWE's restrictions on the divas division and producing memorable matches on TV and PPV.

I'd just add that Melina's ring work and her "presence" (the entrance, the attires, etc.) was pretty influential to today's era of women.

The idea that "Melina" almost ended Mickie's career in the FCA match is sort of a reach. Accidents/botches happen in the ring, and from the footage, it's clear that it wasn't carelessness on either lady's part. Melina blocked a frankensteiner and Mickie clipped Melina's head on the way down. The same argument about "Melina's head being in the way" can be used for "Mickie not creating enough distance when she jumped." Regardless of what you want to say about either woman, they both were very careful in the ring for their entire careers.


On the Jillian topic: does her body of work really speak to her being better than mediocre, though? I'd say calling her average at best in terms of ring work is a pretty fair assessment. If this is in the context of matches with Ashley, then yes, Jillian pulled "better" matches out of Ashley than Melina did at WrestleMania. I think it's all a somewhat silly comparison though because Ashley was one of the most untrained wrestlers to ever step foot into a WWE ring - which was obvious from her matches but became clearer with everything that came out in her lawsuit against WWE. I do give Jillian credit for the way she protected Ashley, though, because again, Ashley should have never been in any of those matches.

With all of that said, I do think Candice, Christy and Maria's better/more impressive matches were with Melina. Some of Christy's final matches were with Melina so Christy had more experience by the time those matches happened, but with Candice and Maria, I appreciated that Melina found a way to put on some matches with them that introduced new spots.


As for Melina's attitude, I think some of the stories that have come out years later are pretty telling, i.e. Trish saying that Melina had nothing to do with the Trish/Morrison drama, and Kristal Marshall saying that it took her a while to realize that Melina was being unfairly targeted and was very misunderstood. That's not to say that Melina never had any disagreements with anybody - but that happens in wrestling ALL the time and for whatever reason, it was blown out of proportion with Melina and there were constantly fake reports posted.

There was even a pretty recent podcast that Kristal did where it was revealed that Melina going to "wrestler's court" had to do with her feeling awkward about a bikini contest at a house show during her first year on SmackDown, and she made a comment about wanting a beer...which, apparently was a no-no with SmackDown veterans - because we all know JBL and Chris Benoit were leading classes on the importance of being sober.

It's all a pretty sad situation if anyone has listened to podcasts and interviews Melina has done in recent years about how all of the rumors affected her + her depression and suicide attempt (which had other factors contributing to it, but she's made it clear how much the rumors and some of the bullying she experienced on SD in those early days affected her, too).

Sept 15, 2020 21:01:09 GMT LS said:

On the topic of Melina and Mickie's wrestling abilities, I'd say Dex's assessment for both women is on the money. Mickie never tried to go outside of the box while that was what Melina was known for in the ring. I'd venture to say that without Melina and Michelle McCool, the upper echelon of divas matches from 2007-2010 disappears (and I don't just mean their work together). Both did a terrific job, in different ways, working within WWE's restrictions on the divas division and producing memorable matches on TV and PPV.

I'd just add that Melina's ring work and her "presence" (the entrance, the attires, etc.) was pretty influential to today's era of women.

The thing about Mickie is that she never even changed things up when she had the opportunity to, when she was outside the WWE's restrictions.

Goes to TNA and has several 10+ ppv matches, with little to no move set restrictions. Wrestles teh same exact match she  always does.

Wrestles on the indies again in long matches with no restrictions, and still wrestles the same match 

Comes back to WWE  during a time where the women are being given more time, and less restrictions than ever before, and yet she still wrestles the same match with little to no changes. 

Even Trish who was sort of a formulaic worker (not as bad as Mickie though)  added some cool more modern looking spots to her routine for her big match with Charlotte, despite having no real reason to when she could have easilly just done her usual routine and still have gotten really good reviews.

Now it would be one thing if Mickie's routine had a history of producing great memorable matches from a workrate perspective, but the truth is that it just hasn't. Her peak match quality is just good/above average.  

You give Melina those same opportunities (the tna run especially) I don't know how anyone could say she wouldn't have outdone Mickie judging by her past track record.  

Mickie's style was really basic  even during the 2007-2010 era. Now it's even worse

Every wrestler has their super fans but Mickie always had people drastically overrating her. Even after last night's match which had a ton of botches I still saw a lot of comments about how Mickie deserved the PPV match more than Zelina, and praising her for her "incredible selling" which worked the referee into stopping the match when it was obvious she was gassed beyond belief. :lol:

Melina was always a more interesting and creative wrestler. Mickie got the instant adulation coming into WWE with the crazy lesbian character that people lapped up that she's been able to ride off for the next 15 years. Melina was always pushing the boundaries (during the period when the women were discouraged from wrestling properly) coming up with fun spots and new moves for her repertoire. Mickie was still doing the exact same stuff even when she was in TNA and had far more freedom and the opportunity to really show what she could do.

Melina has resigned with WWE by reports. She had come a little under fire for defending a sexual predator if I recall and I wonder how much water is under the bridge with her and JoMo who is married but I think she can be something as a trainer.

Think it is funny if they use her as an on air character that they have to go back 15 years ago for their women's division. They probably use her a a valet for a John Morrison face turn tbh.

Miz and Maryse vs JoMo and Melina....can ya feel it dudes. We're back in 2009.

This is a tough one for me.

Mickie clearly *was* better but I think you'd have to say Melina surpassed her as she perfected her craft. They're close in character/mic work, though I may even give Mickie the slight edge there. But Melina's ever-evolving ring work is what truly separates the two. She was a Sasha-like talent in an era that wasn't quite ready for her.

Despite being the top women of their era, both were criminally misused by the WWE, which refused to play to both their strengths. For Melina, that would have meant removing any and all restrictions on her in-ring affairs. For Mickie, that would have meant letting her continue to play wild, risky characters. Not a bland babyface with little mic time. (I sure as hell don't think Becky Lynch is one of the best ring workers in the company, but she's my favorite right now because of her fantastic character work.)

Man the Melina/Mickie debates on the WoW forum back on the day were wild. They both had hugely devoted fanbases for very different reasons. For me it's really hard to pick one because we just haven't seen enough from Melina. The few opportunities she was given she knocked out of the park, but they were very few. Mickie, meanwhile, was fairly stale but very consistent and always over If Melina really is coming back, and gets the chance to have some decent matches, we may be in a better position to judge. My instinct says that if Melina had gotten the same opportunities post-WWE that Mickie had, she's be better, but it's hard to say with any real confidence.