10 Underrated WWE Superstars Who Shouldn’t Have Been Released

5. Mickie James

Mickie James was one of the most exciting and skilled Divas to work for WWE in recent years. She had the ideal combination of beauty and in-ring technique to be more than just a pretty face. She proved this with 5 reigns as WWE Women€™s Champion and 1 reign as Diva€™s Champion. Unfortunately, James was released from WWE after a long streak of bad luck that stemmed from an on-screen storyline turning into real life. Allegedly, James€™s on-screen relationship with John Cena became a real-life affair, since she was dating Kenny Dykstra (Ken Doane) at the time. The ramifications of the affair were said to have been really hard on her, and that Cena allegedly used his backstage influence to put her on SmackDown so that the two of them would be kept as far away from each other as possible. Afterwards, James was involved in that terrible €˜Piggy James€™ storyline that also involved Layla and Michelle McCool. It was downright embarrassing to see grown women behaving like teenage brats, calling each other fat on WWE programming. The women involved in that rivalry deserved better. After WrestleMania XXVI, James was released from WWE, with the justification being that they wanted to take the Divas Division in a €˜new direction€™. We all know how that ended up. Mickie James was probably the last Diva to properly balance wrestling skill with looks that was at the top of her division. Nowadays, the Divas that are cut from the same mold as James have to take a backseat to the group known as the €˜Total Divas€™, and the state of affairs in WWE€™s women€™s division has been flying low ever since. So while James€™s termination from WWE was a bad sign, maybe it was better for her in the long run.