In July, a smiling Stephanie McMahon proudly introduced three exceptionally talented female wrestlers to the main WWE roster: Charlotte, Becky Lynch and the reigning NXT Womens Champion, Sasha Banks. Stephanie declared that this was The Divas Revolution and that the perception of women in sport was changing, based largely on the huge interest in Ronda Rousey in the UFC, who made a guest appearance at WrestleMania. Rousey has almost single-handedly changed the way that women are viewed in combat sports, equalling and beating pay-per-view buy rates drawn by men, and the WWE wanted to jump on that bandwagon by promoting some new faces to the roster. The new arrivals had, like Paige before them, proven themselves as excellent wrestlers on the NXT roster and were now coming to do the same in the WWE. But it felt like the left hand didnt know what the right hand was doing. What was being said, and what was being done was not the same, and before long, the likes of Sasha Banks had gone from wrestling in 15 minute matches in the middle of a pay-per-view special to working a quick five minute throwaway match on the TLC show preview. Put bluntly, The Divas Revolution has not worked. There is a conflict between asking the fans to take these talented female wrestlers seriously while simultaneously calling them Divas. In NXT, where the women are taken seriously and the chant of womens wrestling can be heard during many of the excellent womens matches there, they are called women. Not Divas. If the WWE really want to revolutionise their female division, they need to drop the Divas tag in 2016 and follow NXTs lead by booking them as equal to the men. Its something that feels very much appropriate for the times and appropriate for 2016.
Dean Ayass is a well known name to British wrestling fans. A commentator, manager, booker and ring announcer who has been involved in the business since 1993, Dean's insight into the business is second to none.
