What is Wrong with the Women's Division?

For the past six years, the women’s division -- Formerly known as the diva’s division -- has undergone a change as to how they are presented to the audience in WWE. Gone are the days of the women being just eye candy for the fans. Now the women of the roster can have wrestling matches that are longer than two minutes, and they are even headlining pay-per-views now. 

While WWE has put more effort into the women’s division, it is still clear that they still value the division far less than they do the men’s side.

For all of the issues surrounding the women’s division, three problems stand out the most to me: 

1.  There is an obvious lack of foresight and thought put into the storylines of the women’s division. the storylines do not seem like much thought has been put into them.  

2. If you are not in the title picture,  you get little to no airtime. 

3. There is a constant reliance on the same wrestlers over and over again. 

First looking at the storyline aspect, I am going to use the build-ups for the women’s championship matches at WrestleMania for example. 

Asuka vs. Rhea Ripley did not have much of any storyline going for it leading into the match. Ripley just showed up and challenged Asuka and she accepted. While I will not knock them too much for the lack of build, due to it being last minute, WWE could have done something other than have the two team up and Ripley turn on Asuka.

 However, with the SmackDown championship matchup, the build-up for the match really did not start until Fastlane when Sasha Banks slapped Bianca Belair in her face. It was obvious that Belair and Banks would fight at Mania since Belair interacted with Asuka only once since winning the Royal Rumble. So, with two months to build, fans were hoping to get a real storyline build-up towards their clash. 

Before Belair won the Rumble, she and Banks were portrayed as good friends with similar personalities. After she won, animosity between the two developed out of thin air. The tension was slightly understandable as Belair was a challenger to Banks’ title, but nothing happened to really build the match until the previously mentioned slap. By the time Fastlane happened, it was already almost WrestleMania week, so not much could happen in such a short span.

Another issue is that WWE tries to force every women wrestler in some way into the title picture in order to get them utilized, instead of letting them feud with each other without the title on the line. 

Apart from Nikki Cross, Alexa Bliss and Carmella, whose tag team partner, Billie Kay recently got released, every woman on SmackDown and Raw were somehow involved in a feud for a title. At WrestleMania, in order to get more women involved, Natalya had to fight for them to get on the card. 

WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal (via WWE)

Since WrestleMania in 2016, the women get on the main card if they have a championship match, and whoever does not have a championship match, usually gets thrown into the women’s pre-show battle royal.

With the invention of the women’s Tag Team Titles in 2019, that now allows WWE management to add more women to the card. However, by doing that, it sends the message that the women’s division is not worth watching unless there is a title on the line. With some of the talent in the division currently, there could be matches thrown in there that do not have to be for a title and could just be a feud they have built up, similarly to how Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn faced off, or even Cesaro and Seth Rollins. There are ways to allow wrestlers to have compelling matches without it being for gold, but WWE seemingly doesn't believe that to be the case when it comes to the women's division. Instead, there are very random women’s tag teams that are thrown together with little to no story or explanation. We are constantly seeing two random women teaming with one another inexplicably week to week. 

The biggest problem that WWE has is its reliance on the same women. The four horsewomen -- Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, Sasha Banks and Bayley--  and in some way Asuka. Since they all debuted on the main roster, those five women alone have combined for an astounding 23 titles reigns, with Charlotte Flair having 11 runs with the title just by herself. You could add up the reigns of every other woman to step foot on the main roster and it still would not come close to those five. While those five are some of the best in the business, building up other competitors in the division will go a long way, so we do not get the same people holding the belt.

Belair is the first woman since Carmella in 2018 to hold the SmackDown Women’s title that was not one of these five women. Similarly, Ripley is the first wrestler since Ronda Rousey (2019) to have the belt that was not Lynch, Banks or Asuka. 

Unfortunately, instead of WWE giving these people new challengers, Ripley is going to probably have a triple threat match soon with Asuka and Flair, while Belair’s first challenger will be Bayley at WrestleMania Backlash. With Banks still due her rematch, neither of these women looks to have fresh challengers soon. 

At one point, Sasha Banks and Bayley held the SmackDown and Raw Championships as well as the Women’s Tag Team Championships. (via WWE)

One way to allow them to challenge other people is if WWE starts letting women feud with each other without titles on the line to build up possible contenders. This will allow the rest of the roster to be utilized, and we will not get the same feuds for the titles repeated into the ground. Another solution could be to call up some NXT wrestlers, however, having more women on the main roster might add to the problem due to WWE having too many superstars than it can utilize, causing more women to wait in the back, hoping for their chance to come.  One thing is for certain, WWE has arguably the most talented women’s wrestlers that it has ever had and they are falling right back into the same bad habits that they displayed before the Women's Revolution happened way back in 2015; sub-five-minute matches, underutilized talent and embarrassing storylines. 

WWE must realize what they have in front of them before it is too late. Again, this roster is too talented to go to waste.