Since I am the resident fan of Women’s wrestling on the A1 Podcast, and since I won’t be able to be on this week’s episode, I figured I would share my thoughts here on the first episode of Total Divas on the E! Network.
First I have to say that in addition to watching the debut episode, I was also keeping up on Twitter, because former WWE Diva and current First Lady of Ring of Honor, Maria Kanellis was live-tweeting the show as well. The reason I bring this up is two-fold. One, I am a big fan of Ms. Kanellis and she’s a Friend of the Podcast. 🙂 Secondly, and more importantly… she has recent drama with the “stars” of Total Divas – the Bella Twins. Here are some of her tweets during the episode.
Every time the Bellas say they are vets it makes me want to vomit! #askfirstladymaria
— Maria Kanellis (@MariaLKanellis) July 29, 2013
Awwwww poor Bellas. Kharma is a bitch. @TotalDivasE but I feel bad for the Funkadactyls.
— Maria Kanellis (@MariaLKanellis) July 29, 2013
And in response to Nattie being upset with not getting added to the WrestleMania card:
I love you @NatbyNature
— Maria Kanellis (@MariaLKanellis) July 29, 2013
Anyway… on to my thoughts of the show itself.
I’ve always been a fan of these types of shows featuring wrestlers. When I say that, I am talking about “reality-type” shows. Whether it be any of the Tough Enough series shows, Diva Search contests, whatever the case may be; I am interested because it’s about wrestling and more often than not, shows a side that you don’t normally get from regular weekly TV shows.
That being said, I had heard plenty about the show ahead of time, and I had seen several “sneak peak” clips. Much like an anticipated movie and the trailer that precedes it, this first episode had most of what you saw in the commercials. I’m not saying that is a bad thing, it just made it feel like it wasn’t that new of an episode.
What this episode covered was basically an introduction to the Divas involved in the program, which are The Bella Twins (Brie and Nikki), The Funkadactyls (Cameron and Naomi), Natalya, Eva Marie, and JoJo. I’ll get to the Divas in a moment, but the other main focus of the show was the road leading up to WrestleMania 29 that just took place in NYC in April 2013. Of course, this would lead to the reactions to the Mixed Tag Team Match that got nixed due to time constraints.
The main divas of this show seem to be The Bella Twins, which is fine I guess (personal dislike aside). However, what confused me within the first couple minutes of the episode was the willy-nilly, inconsistent way the show handled real names versus ring-names. The Bellas were addressed as “Nikki and Brie”, and while their real names are Nicole and Briana, and while that’s close…. I can see why they did that. However, practically everyone else went by their real names for their “side sessions” (popular feature on reality TV), or when they introduced themselves. For instance, the Funkadactyls were “Arianne and Trinity”, and my first thought was “who the F— is Trinity?” Ah yes… Trinity is Naomi’s real name.
That minor anomaly aside, it was an entertaining episode, and the person I felt badly for the most is of course, Nattie. She has been getting the creative shaft for years, and this episode showed how disappointed she was with not only getting dissed for WrestleMania itself but her “consolation prize” was to babysit the “newbie Divas”, Eva Marie and JoJo. How nice of WWE. First a farting gimmick, and now this garbage. I don’t care if this is scripted or not; it’s probably pretty damned close to the real thing. I bet you don’t even remember that Nattie was Divas Champion do you? What a great reign that was. She has been mistreated for years, and this show on E! (not even WWE Programming) is getting her the most screen time – not to mention a storyline – than anything else has to date. Not only that but — spoiler alert (not really) — she will have a wedding featured on the show.
I don’t really have much nice things to say about the Bella Twins, so I won’t get into what I really want to say… yet. This episode showed their real-life relationships to Daniel Bryan and John Cena. DB and Brie are going ring shopping, while Nikki can’t get John to stop looking at her… assets. Shocking.
Anyway… that brings me to the “newbie” Divas. While I think at first impression, JoJo has nothing really to offer the WWE at this time; Eva Marie has what could be a great heel character, however on this episode she nearly was fired. She was instructed by the head of talent relations to dye her hair blonde, because she looked too much like a Bella Twin with her dark hair (even though it had red highlights). Well the primadonna diva (repetitive?) decided that blonde wasn’t her style, and chose firecrotch red instead. Needless to say, the head of talent relations wasn’t too thrilled – at first. She begrudgingly said she liked it, and told her that was the last time she is to go against what she is told. Eva Marie has to “tow the line” from her on out.
Arguably she wouldn’t have looked good as a blonde, but yet again, Nattie takes this personally because she is already a blonde Diva on the roster, yet the newbie can’t look like the Bellas but apparently it’s okay to look like Nattie. (Well… I don’t buy this argument, because Nattie was active during the time they employed Maryse, Beth, Jillian, etc. – all blondes). Lucky break for the newbie with an attitude. I don’t see her getting to the main roster. Time will tell though.
All in all this was a decent beginning, but the scenes for upcoming shows look better. I will definitely be tuning in each week.
