For most people, $250,000 is a lot of money. If someone throws that kind of dough at you, theres an expectation that there will be a return on that investment. This did not happen when Ashley Massaro won the 2005 Diva Search. Sure, she certainly looked nice, and seemed to rock the punk look (no pun intended) quite well. But in reality, she was a poor mans Lita; while Lita herself would put her body on the line and perform some really impressive wrestling moves, Ashley waswellsubpar at bestby todays Diva standards. There are people who complain regularly that the current womens division in WWE (sans NXT) is sorely lacking in competent female wrestlers. However, for the most part, many of todays women, including the Bellas, are better wrestlers than Ashley. No matter how much training she got, she looked completely out of place in the ring, and looked almost as uncoordinated as Jackie Gayda did during her infamous 2002 match with Trish Stratusalmost. The mid-2000s was a dark place for womens wrestling, as the company was still interested in pushing models and inexperienced women like Ashley. As hard as she tried, she shouldve pursued a different career path; wrestling simply wasnt for her, and she took up a limited spot on the roster which couldve been used for another, more competent, woman.
Alexander Podgorski is a writer for WhatCulture that has been a fan of professional wrestling since he was 8 years old. He loves all kinds of wrestling, from WWE and sports entertainment, to puroresu in Japan.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University in Political Studies and French, and a Master's Degree in Public Administration. He speaks English, French, Polish, a bit of German, and knows some odd words and phrases in half a dozen other languages.
