Diva's Champion: Good or Bad?

Me and then women's champ Beth Phoenix @ Wrestlemania 24 weekend.

The Night of Champions pay per view on Sunday marked the end of the an era.  The WWE Women's title no longer exists.  Instead, the championship has been merged with the Diva's title.  Must admit, not a big fan of the move.  I don't mind the merging of champions, but to call it the Diva's Champion just doesn't sound right to me.

It's the word Diva I think that bothers me.  That and the fact that the belt is obnoxious looking.  I'm more of an old school type, as if you couldn't tell from previous posts.  Don't get me wrong, I don't mind change.  But in this case I guess I do.

The women's title in the WWE has a lot of history.  Fabulous Moolah really helped pioneer women's wrestling.  By the time I started watching in the mid 80's, Moolah had been the champ for decades.  Then Wendi Richter came in and ended the streak.  That was all part of the rock n wrestling connection and women's wrestling enjoyed a bit of a boom.  But it wasn't long before the ladies were put on the back burner again.

I know for sure the first two Wrestlemanias featured women's title defenses.  After that, women's wrestling, at least on the grandest stage of them all was almost nonexistent.  If I remember right, the next time we saw a women's match it was part of the inner gender match with Randy Savage and Sherri vs. Dusty Rhodes and Sapphire at Wrestlemania 6.  I'm not even sure if the title was around at that point.  It seemed like for years we didn't see any type of defense from any of the ladies' champs.

An infamous moment in the women's title history was of course Madusa tossing the title she wore as Alundra Blayze in the WWF live on WCW Monday Nitro.  I know it's all scripted and what not, but I thought that was a really classless move back then.  I still do.  But it was war, and you've gotta do what you've gotta do I suppose.

Anyway, back to my original point, it seems like the line has been blurred between who can show and who can go when it comes to the ladies, umm, I mean divas.  I'm not going to diss the women of the WWE, as I believe many of them are there to entertain, and most of them get that job done.

Say what you will about Chyna, but I think in the late 90's, she and Ivory, and Jackie helped reblaze the trail to women's wrestling.  Then Trish Stratus and Lita added more legitimacy to the group too.  Now that these women are gone, there are few who have been able to fill that void.

Beth Phoenix is by far the best in that division.  Gail Kim has a lot of talent.  Melina has potential.  Mickie James was one of the best too.  Wish they hadn't let her go.  It just seems like they're going with that cookie cutter image.  I think they need to diversify the division.  Go after Awesome Kong who has left TNA.  Change things up.  But as long as the word "Diva" is in the name of the title, I don't know that we'll see any change.  Of course, I like that over "knock out."  Just sayin'...