8 Ways AJ Lee Had A Huge Impact On WWE Divas Division
4. Keeping The Divas Championship Relevant
To call the butterfly belt relevant might be a stretch, but its no secret that the Divas division has been suffering in recent years. The advent of Total Divas shifted the focus of the division away from in-ring competition to what was happening on the E! Network instead. That development led to many WWE fans (theres a difference between wrestling fans and Total Divas viewers) being largely dismissive of what happened to the womens division. The only real saving grace was AJ Lee, who held the Divas Championship for much of the early days of Total Divas, a 295-day reign that saw her defeat nearly every woman on the roster, including a 14-woman scrum at WrestleMania XXX last year. Maybe it was by design, but keeping the title on AJ and away from the Total Divas foolishness was the smartest decision that was made regarding the women during that time. It allowed WWE to keep the title somewhat insulated from the reality show (which clearly isnt the case now). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUzV60cUH9I AJs lengthy title reign also made it a big deal when Paige debuted and defeated AJ for the championship last year. Had the title been traded around among the Total Divas cast from 2013-14, it would have been completely meaningless.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
