Total Divas

So I wanted to post my thoughts on the new WWE reality show, Total Divas which aired on the E! network this past weekend.

The show stars a number of WWE Divas: The Bella Twins (Brie & Nikki), Natalya Neidhart & The Funkadactyls (Trinity & Ariane) along with two new Divas apparently coming up to the main roster from development. From a production standpoint, it’s well produced just as most of WWE’s programming, and it definitely has a bit of a “Tough Enough” feel to it with the way it’s presented.

The show opens up as the Bellas have just been brought back by WWE just prior to WrestleMania 29 and they are to be featured in a match at the pay per view with Natalya being none too pleased that they can just walk in and get a big payday while she has just been told that not only will she not be on the show, but it’s now her duty to babysit the new callups all thru WrestleMania week.

First off, I can understand Nattie’s disappointment here as it’s the biggest show of the year, but realistically what has she done in the last year to make them have to put her on the show? She’s portrayed as the Great Khali’s girlfriend, accompanying him to the ring for his matches which are usually good for a bathroom break. I can’t remember the last time I saw her in a match! Also the fact that she hasn’t been on ANY pay per views in MONTHS should have made it no shock to her that she’s being left off the show.

We also get to learn a bit about the Bellas & it’s explained to us that they are dating Daniel Bryan & John Cena. Apparently Brie & Bryan are quite serious and will be going engagement ring shopping soon while Nikki is looking for the same from Cena, who has already been married once, is divorced and isn’t looking to get that deep again quite yet. This seems to frustrate Nikki, but apparently all is better when Cena buys her a new Range Rover!?! The funniest part was Bryan laughing it off about how Cena’s not ready to buy a ring but he’ll go get her a car.

On to the drama with the Funkadactyls. It should be noted that Ariane is also the same girl who was the first to be booted from the last incarnation of Tough Enough, where she told Steve Austin that the greatest match in the history of WWE was Alicia Fox vs. Melina!! So for those of us who know her background, most of what happens with this girl on this episode is absolutely no surprise whatsoever.

It turns out that Trinity is engaged to Jimmy Uso while Ariane has been dating some guy named Vinny for the last 7 months and has invited him to come backstage at MetLife Stadium for their dress rehearsal of their WrestleMania match, tagging with Brodus & Tensai vs. the Bellas, Cody Rhodes & Damien Sandow. Well apparently, Ariane messes up something & Brodus lays into her bigtime, upsetting her and now she’s backstage in tears & Vinny is adamant that he wants to kick Brodus Clay’s ass. So he starts making a scene & has to be dragged out of the place by Ariane.

As if this dumb girl hasn’t learned her lesson on Tough Enough, now she’s bringing someone she’s been dating for a short while backstage & creating a scene? She’s lucky WWE even called her back in the first place after her horrible showing on Tough Enough! Add to that a DUI back in August where she refused a breathalyzer test and listed Wells Fargo as her employer.  From what I’ve been reading from everyone’s reactions to this show, apparently the Bellas come across as real bitches, but the one thing I really took away from this is that Ariane is still an idiot who obviously has something on someone pretty high up in WWE. Just ask Taryn Terrell why she’s wrestling for TNA & not with Drew McIntyre anymore or working for WWE.

As for the two new girls…Jojo would seem to be the more milder of the two girls with Eva Marie being more of a lightning rod. The story with these two is that they’re both up from developmental and are being shown the ropes by Nattie Neidhart. When they first meet with the talent relations person for the divas, Eva Marie is told to dye her hair blond because she looks too much like the Bellas and that’s their look. So naturally, Nattie is pissed cuz she’s a blond who seems to be being overlooked. Long story short, Eva doesn’t want to be a blond & tells the stylist to go bright red. She returns to the talent relations lady & while she’s mad that she didn’t follow orders, she agrees that it’s a good look. From what I understand with how the WWE works, doing things like this can get you released. Only certain personalities who are well established can buck the system and do as they please…certainly not a new call-up!

So finally by the end of the show, we’re at WrestleMania and for some reason the outfits that the Funkadactyls wore the night before for their dress rehearsal are now not complete & they’re running right down to the wire to the point that they might have to delay their entrance because they’re not ready. Finally, they get their crap together and run off to the gorilla position just behind the entranceway where they prepare to enter the arena. We then cut to a luxury box, where Nattie is entertaining the newbies and John Cena’s music hits and he heads to the ring. It’s at this point that Nattie realizes that the match has now been scrapped, just seconds before they were to go on. So they cut to a backstage scene with all the girls being bummed out that they’re not on WrestleMania.

The ironic part here is that the Bellas came back just in time to get into a match at WrestleMania, which is the biggest payday of the year & now they’re off the show, so no big payday for them!

In the end, it was a well produced show with a lot of stupidity on it. I really only tuned in because I read that we would see their heartbreak of being cut from WrestleMania just moments before they were set to go on & really wanted to see how it plays out. It was overall a fun show to watch. It was nice to see some of these people outside of their usual on-screen personas. Whether I’ll watch next week has yet to be determined, I might just tune in to watch it for the cringe-worthy moments with Ariane as she continues to dig her grave in WWE.