Natalya & Nikki – A Feud For The Wrong Time?

The WWE Women’s division is the best it has been for a long time, with great wrestlers returning such as Mickie James but also new talent such as Alexa Bliss – and this for me changes how WWE should be building story lines, it should be about talent and not how atrociously embarrassing and misogynist the feud between Nikki Bella and Natalya has become.

It’s the shaming that I truly do not like. Granted the Bella’s are or were never the first thought when you think of great wrestlers, but this whole attacking Nikki for basically ‘personal issues’ is not the right time, the right time being about 1973, for attacking how women live particularly in a division that is now truly based on talent compared to this time in 2012.(Anyone remember those classic Candice Michelle moments? No me neither). I don’t blame the women for this storyline but this is a storyline that should never have happened in this day and age.

Whatever decision women make in their lives, dating, having children, creating a career, has always been an issue for women in society. If you don’t date you’re a prude, if you do date you’re considered like chewed gum, used up, if you stay at home you’re lazy, if you work you care about your job more than family and women who don’t want children are still considered weird or ‘it’s just a phase’. And that internalised misogyny from Natalya is just awful to watch, the only thing that is redeeming is that she’s the heel.

Has the division really improved for this? I don’t hold out much hope for WWE, whose owner Linda McMahon tries to get elected for the Republicans and gave millions to a president who has no respect for women, I’m just grateful with these changes WWE no longer makes women bark like a dog. I understand that women need feuds but I doubt I would see a storyline about Randy Orton not being home making babies, and competition for the WWE title wouldn’t be based on misandry, it would be based on real competition.

In a time and place where views such as this are becoming normalised due to the rise of well what some have called Nazis, this is not the time for Natalya to sound like WWE’s own anti-feminist particularly when it is feminism that has enabled WWE to make a division that has never been so good and it has never been so clear the writing team is just men.

 

 

 

Notes On: No Mercy.

I’ve been meaning to write about wrestling for a while, and I know there are plenty of people doing it, but here is some thoughts on WWE’s latest pay per view No Mercy, if you haven’t seen it, there will be spoilers ahead.

The Main Event for me, highlighted more than ever the change WWE has had in the last decade, and the divide between talent more than ever – the impact of roster changes and where WWE gets its talent is more visible than ever and it’s becoming bitter. I may be wrong, but since the arrival of talent from different promotions, particularly from Ring Of Honor merged with talent from WWE’s own training camps the difference between the standard of the wrestling is so visible, for example, those trained in OVW.

John Cena can be a good wrestler, I’ve seen Cena have some great matches, his Money In The Bank match with Punk and his match with Shawn Michaels in London in 06′ are a couple that come to mind, however it is clear that Cena has become a little passé. No longer really matching the standard that WWE has put in place in the last few years with the introduction of excellent independent talent and sometimes it seems out of place – he is however still extremely popular with kids, I do think we are entering a new age of WWE, moving on from PGWWE.

I think this is also clear in the Women’s division as well, the changes over the last year to the women’s division is extensive with women such as Becky Lynch, Carmella and Sasha Banks coming in, making wrestlers like Nikki Bella really show up their technical weaknesses more than ever, she’s a capable wrestler, but not on their level and in this day and age it’s clearer than ever.

However where some have sunk, some have been swimming hard, and the match between The Miz and Dolph Ziggler was awesome. Miz’s character is grotesque, and WWE timed his pride before the fall perfectly, building this story brilliantly on Smackdown. Their skill was on show, Ziggler working through an injury (or faking it incredibly well either way it was good) and bringing that match to an end. Though many believed Dolph would lose and take some time to create a new gimmick, I’m glad this didn’t happen.

These were in particular the stand out moments for me from the pay per view, it actually had a pretty strong card and worth watching particularly for Ziggler v Miz match.