Victoria is quite the paradox. She was discovered by WWE. Nurtured by them in their developmental system for two years. Pushed heavily upon her debut (and hyped as a tremendous beast among the ladies). And then, as soon as the Diva Search started in 2004, things started going downhill. Victoria was a classic case of a dastardly heel becoming so good at their craft that the fans began to cheer for them. She played the psychotic anti-Diva, and the fans absolutely dug it. But then, once WWE officially made her a good guy, they stripped away all of the interesting things about her persona. Once they realized their mistake, WWE tried to fix it but continuously had Victoria fight against (and get beaten by) women with considerably less technical skill than the likes of a Molly Holly or a Trish Stratus. Soon, as more and more Divas from the Golden Era began to disappear, it was up to Victoria to help usher in the newbies and break them in as the newest generation of Divas. When WWE unveiled the new Divas Championship in 2008, Victoria the longest-serving and most-respected Diva on the roster wasn't even placed into the finals to determine the first holder of the title (which many fans felt was not right, no disrespect to Natalya Neidhart and Michelle McCool). In 2006, Victoria had accidentally caused injury to Beth Phoenix, breaking the Glamazon's jaw with a mere slap! Instead of pushing forward with a tremendous feud between these two tremendous athletes, WWE felt it was more important to have Beth return from injury as a heel and target Candice Michelle rather than the woman that put her on the shelf. Sadly, throughout the time they shared a locker room together, fans never got an actual Victoria Vs. Beth feud! While Victoria may have been a part of some of the greatest moments in Divas' history from Chicago Street Fights to Steel Cage Matches there were a plethora of opportunities to truly make Victoria's legacy as memorable as Trish or Lita's. The greatest disservice to this deadly Diva came when her farewell speech after her last WWE match was cut from television and put up on WWE.com instead.
Tommy Bobby Watanabe is an aspiring American novelist, stage actor, playwright, former LGBT rights activist, and has three years of independent professional wrestling experience and has been a big fan since 1998. An avid horror movie buff and comic book aficionado, TBW is honored to be featured on WhatCulture with some of the Internet's most talented writers and looks to spread his own knowledge and wit to WhatCulture's loyal readers.
