"WWE are keen to expand the Women's division, and are looking at introducing a women's division to the Smackdown! brand, based on work ethic rather than eye candy ala the RAW brand."
-------- If this is true does that mean Smackdown might start having a Women's Title in the not too long future? And if they do will the RAW Brand fight back by bring back the Lightweight Championship (last held by X-Pac I think) to compete with the Cruiserweight Title on Smackdown?
Homer Simpson: If they can send a man to the moon, why can't they make my shoes smell good?
Smackdown! brand, based on work ethic rather than eye candy ala the RAW brand
Guh? Unless they're shipping Molly, Jazz, and Victoria all to SD, there's no way they're topping the Raw brand unless they fork up the 6 grand to put tits on Ultimo and come clean about Spanky. Just because Raw added the less-than-impressive Gail Kim, it doesn't make the three I mentioned (or Trish... sometimes) any worse. Not sure what the eyecandy comment is about.
And if they do will the RAW Brand fight back by bring back the Lightweight Championship (last held by X-Pac I think) to compete with the Cruiserweight Title on Smackdown?
No. Never ever. Hurricane gonna fight Spike every week?
Originally posted by UbermonkeysUnless they're shipping Molly, Jazz, and Victoria all to SD, there's no way they're topping the Raw brand...
Not sure if they can top RAW, but Alexis Laree, Daffney, and Nikita have some decent in-ring skills. They're all in OVW now and i'm sure they'll be debuting in the next few months (I know WWE creative has been itching to pull the trigger on Nikita). Maybe move Lita over to Smackdown and she could be a good addition. Then we have Nidia and Shaniqua who still may be inexperienced as far as their in-ring work may be, but coming up thru the Tough Enough system, from the start they were training to be actual in-ring workers and not just to be valets and looking pretty like Torrie. (let's just try not to think about Jackie Gayda at the moment. yeah...)
But i'm not saying though that Torrie is simply eye candy now. Fit busts his ass training all these women and does a great job. Torrie included. She's no Trish but at least she's learning. I've heard Dawn Marie is trying to hone her in-ring skill as well. She trained abit in ECW and is traning more now.
I think a Smackdown women's division with more emphasis on the working would be good. I don't know about having another title though. It's just starting to get really cluttered.
It would break the line they're trying to draw with the brand extension, but I wouldn't mind seeing the Women's Title defended on both shows again.
Not sure if they can top RAW, but Alexis Laree, Daffney, and Nikita have some decent in-ring skills.
My memories of Daffney are cloudy (Hey! Where's Kloudy?) at best, but I know she could do a rana, so she's at least on Gail's level. When she's not singing for Evanescence, she has the weirdo personality without the volume all the way up like Victoria, and she could probably make it work again. She did help get David Flair "over", so who knows. She'll probably get a few vignettes to establish a character that never comes to pass, or something original like "Sable's biggest fan".
Maybe move Lita over to Smackdown and she could be a good addition.
Not unless Matt taught her how to wrestle...
Then we have Nidia and Shaniqua
I have way too much faith in Nidia being good some day, because Noble is sure to rub off on her in the same way Matt (or even Papi Chulo As Esse Rios) didn't on Lita. From what little she's done, Nidia can bump and had a solid character before this orgy bullshit as "Redneck Girl That Can't Dance".
Linda Miles has a good powerbomb (which puts her above Sable) and with that no-sell and double clothesline spot on Nidia and Torrie a few weeks ago, they seem set on giving her a touch of the Chyna push. I like her way better than Chyna in that I don't actively hate her. Not big on the character, she might go somewhere if they get her out of it... as well as out of the "She's Shelton!" crap with the APA.
I've heard Dawn Marie is trying to hone her in-ring skill as well. She trained abit in ECW and is traning more now.
I heard forever ago when Dawn was doing house shows before she debuted on SD in the secretary role that her ringwork was very solid and was surprising people. Seemed like her matches with Torrie were very forgettable, but it was against Torrie, so who knows. Being with Simon Diamond can't hurt her any. if you've heard her talk on Confidential, it seems like Dawn has a great deal of respect for history and wrestling in general and seems like the type that would try hard to get better.
I forgot Ivory before in naming Raw girls. She hasn't had a great match in seemingly forever but she's gotta outrank Trish just for experience alone. You could say the same about Jacquelyn too, but she really sucks.
I wonder why so few of the names that came out when WOW was running ever caught on anywhere? It seemed like from reading CRZ's reports that there were a few girls in there that could really go, or at the very least were marketable. "Riot" sticks out in mind right now for some reason. Also, the girls that WCW was stumbling on to fight Molly back when she was Mona were also good. Seems like Little Jeannie was ok... Brandi Alexander looked like a stunt double for Sherri Martel, but she and Mona had some good matches. There have to be some good female wrestlers out there that they don't need to stick in OVW for a chunk of their lives... they often fill up Heat with guys who don't stand a chance of getting a contract, might be a good place to give some indy women a shot as well.
Apropos of nothing ... wwedivas.com spells Linda Miles's ring name "Shanequa." Which means that in a few weeks we should expect her to change it to "Gregoryqua."
It seems silly to set up a SD women's division when they don't have the time or the interest to use all the women they have on Raw or set up good angles for the ones they do use. In fairness, though, since they only have one women's match a week, that means most of the division are going to be sitting around twiddling their thumbs no matter what.I suppose this idea is an effort to get their money's worth out of the benchwarmers, but splitting up the women's ranks would lead to even more of the same endless feuds because rosters on both sides would be so thin. Isn't everyone heartily sick of "Trish vs. Heel of the Month" already?
I'm still kinda hoping that Vince bites the bullet and imports a joshi wrestler or two to show the girls how it should be done. Most of the WOW crew was around Torrie's level of talent -- model/actress/strippers who could take bumps and do a few basic moves. Some of them did have a lot more potential than that (Riot, Jungle Grrl, Beckie the Farmer's Daughter), but if Vince wanted 'em, he could have snapped 'em up long ago.
"I do have a degree in electrical engineering... from almost 20 years ago. Punchcard systems were just becoming obsolete, we had rotary phones in the dorms, and a modem was still a gizmo the size of a shoebox into which you squooshed the phone receiver itself. In short, we lived like animals.
The instant obsolesence is why I became a writer. The rate of punctuation in a sentence doesn't double every 18 friggin' months, and you never have some 22-year-old looming over your shoulder, shaking his head, saying "dude... you're still using adverbs...?"
I think that a light heavyweight title would be better than another women's title ... you could ship a few guys to RAW (Spanky, Ultimo Dragon) and include Paul London in there too.
But I agree there are too many damn belts ... like someone said in another post ... they're all becoming watered down like they were around the botched Invasion.
www.deargodwrestling.com ... putting the "DEAR GOD" back into wrestling ..
There's no need to duplicate all the titles on all the shows, especially when the original womens and cruiserweight division either doesn't have the depth it would take to be interesting or isn't pushed at all as it is. So let's say you call up Nikita and Daffney and Alexis to Smackdown and move Lita over there that'll give you what, a division of four to six women who can actually perform two or three wrestling moves? Forget it. Call those women up to Raw and see if they can get some variety going with one womens division rather than just using the belt as a prop to justify all of Trish's feuds. If they wanna tinker with Smackdown, how about letting someone under 300 pounds not named Angle get a main event here or there.
Originally posted by UbermonkeysSome good stuff from GLJ here...
Not sure if they can top RAW, but Alexis Laree, Daffney, and Nikita have some decent in-ring skills.
My memories of Daffney are cloudy (Hey! Where's Kloudy?) at best, but I know she could do a rana, so she's at least on Gail's level. When she's not singing for Evanescence, she has the weirdo personality without the volume all the way up like Victoria, and she could probably make it work again
Just for the record... The lead singer for Evanescence = Amy Lee <> Daffney = Shannon Ward
Dilbert's Words Of Wisdom: You've just got to accept the fact that some days you're the pigeon, and others you're the statue.
What they should do is just return the women's title to a floater between the brands. They could do something where, just to piss off Bischoff, Austin agrees to a deal with Stephanie where the Cruiserweight & Women's titles are both made floaters. Stephanie could agree just so she'd have an opportunity to have some fresh faces come in to beat up Sable for her.
Having the titles float between the shows would be a horrible idea. Over the past few months they've done a real good job of keeping consistent with the brand extension and not having guys cross over. Having the womens and cruiserweight titles crossover might have a small positive of exposing the champions to the deep rosters of women on Smackdown and cruisers on Raw, but in the process it would do a lot of damage to building the idea that the two shows are indeed separate. If it strengthens the split, I'm willing to forego the Rey Mysterio vs. Spike Dudley and Molly Holly vs. Dawn Marie feuds.
Originally posted by UbermonkeysJust for the record... The lead singer for Evanescence = Amy Lee <> Daffney = Shannon Ward
WHOOOSH
ah yes... Your post was filled with so much humor (well ok there was that Kloudy thing), rather than your fairly well spoken opinion, I'm sure that should have been obvious. Hmmmm... maybe this is an ongoing joke. Maybe I should take time to read all of the other forums (In this case, probably the music one would be the best place to start) just so I can follow the inside jokes. Nope, just don't have time. Guess I have to remain a clueless nitwit who has the Hurricane fly by his head (taking out the lightbulb) from time to time.
WHOOOOOOSH... *THUMP*
Crap... I was wrong. It was Rosie. (Gives a whole new meaning to being S.H.I.T. on...)
Dilbert's Words Of Wisdom: You've just got to accept the fact that some days you're the pigeon, and others you're the statue.
I believe Jungle Grrrl is now going by her real name of Erica Porter, and is now in UPW.
Everyone else from WOW pretty much disappeared, and I'm sure the vast majority of them have returned to being models or actresses. Those are pretty competitive jobs without a lot of security, but they still beat indie wrestling...
BTW, there is this great clip of Gail Kim jumping around like a fiend in the "minors" and doing all sorts of crazy stuff, and I have no idea what the hell happened to her when she got called up to WWE.
The big question for WWE's future: "Will you, Stephanie Marie McMahon, accept the purity of evil and take the Lord of Darkness as your Master and your spouse?"
Originally posted by Tom DeanBTW, there is this great clip of Gail Kim jumping around like a fiend in the "minors" and doing all sorts of crazy stuff, and I have no idea what the hell happened to her when she got called up to WWE.
(edited by Tom Dean on 30.8.03 1731)
Just the usual spots, nothing special. Quite frankly she appears to be a 'training session god.'
Dawn has trained with Whipwreck, but considering his other trainees either he needs a better curiculum or better students...
Originally posted by SirBubNormah yes... Your post was filled with so much humor (well ok there was that Kloudy thing), rather than your fairly well spoken opinion, I'm sure that should have been obvious. Hmmmm... maybe this is an ongoing joke. Maybe I should take time to read all of the other forums (In this case, probably the music one would be the best place to start) just so I can follow the inside jokes. Nope, just don't have time. Guess I have to remain a clueless nitwit who has the Hurricane fly by his head (taking out the lightbulb) from time to time.
WHOOOOOOSH... *THUMP*
Crap... I was wrong. It was Rosie. (Gives a whole new meaning to being S.H.I.T. on...)
Jesus, you don't like having your mistakes pointed out, do you? I don't even think it was a running joke. The reference seemed pretty obvious, and I hardly read the other forums myself.
Jesus, you don't like having your mistakes pointed out, do you? I don't even think it was a running joke. The reference seemed pretty obvious, and I hardly read the other forums myself.
Look... I know I'm a doofus. When I wrote the original post, I thought about putting a line in there about "if you were kidding". However I didn't because it didn't seem to matter. People seem to think there's been a half dozen Ultimate Warriors, Kanes, among others. Heck there's a thread going on around here about whether there should be a Jeff Hardy "fake". Anyone of those people come into this thread and read that line about Shannon Ward = singing for Evanescence and it's going to end up in the title of some thread around here, with half a dozen posts trying to clarify the situation. (Considering we're at 5 responses with this reply, I guess I blew that too didn't I? :p )
You didn't think what I wrote was funny. Actually you thought I was having a cow from the sounds of it (For the record if I did, her name would be Vera or Bessie)... I didn't think what Uber wrote in that instance was obvious as humor. So there it is.
(edited by SirBubNorm on 31.8.03 1311) Dilbert's Words Of Wisdom: You've just got to accept the fact that some days you're the pigeon, and others you're the statue.
Of all of the titles that *would* be accepted by fans as immune to the Brand extension, the Women's title would be it. From what I've seen fans have limited patience for Women's wrestling, and the time and energy that would go into establishing and legitimizing a second women's division for Smackdown could be put into merely integrating the Divas from Smackdown into the already underutilized Women's division on RAW.
Given that we already have women wrestling on Smackdown, it doesn't seem much of a stretch to imagine that they might want to...you know....win a title. Torrie, it appears, had been playing the role of epicenter of booking on Smackdown (like Trish Stratus was playing on RAW) for quite some time; the shift in focus to Stephanie and Sable can't be said to be a step up. Bringing in floater champion Molly Holly (who, incidentally, was the last floater champion, whose refusal to wrestle on Velocity was the origin of the single-brand Women's champion) would give her something to do, booking-wise, that doesn't involve Trish, and when Lita comes back, plugging her in as the #1 Diva on Smackdown gives her a top-level program right off the bat.
So running off a list of serviceable Divas, you have: 1. Torrie Wilson 2. Shanequa 3. Nidia 4. Dawn Marie 5. Sable 6. Stephanie McMahon 7. Alexis Laree (in due time) 8. Shannon "Daffney" Ward (in due time) 9. Black Jackie 10. White Jackie 11. Stacy Keibler 12. Gail Kim 13. Victoria 14. Molly Holly 15. Trish Stratus 16. Nikita (soon to arrive from OVW) 17. Ivory
Even if we concede that Steph, Sable, and Stacy are part-time wrestlers, we still have two divisions of about eight wrestlers each, with a champion that floats. Using the secondary shows to their fullest potential, booking one single division with a pay-per-view-ready match each month would be pretty simple.
I had no idea they had that many female wrestlers.
If they ever go that route, they should re-christen the belt as the championship for some women-only federation and establish that all WWE shows have a working relationship with them.
Necrophilia wasn't responsible for the increase, the cliffhanger murder accusation probably boosted the rating. Fans didn't tune in EXPECTING to see Necrophilia (or rather accusations thereof), they just wanted to figure out where the hell this was going....