Whether you think it’s “working” or not, everyone wants to talk about the Divas Revolution in WWE. Everyone has their own ideas on how to fix it, or why it’s not being taken seriously. While it’s a little disheartening seeing so many people say that it’ll never work because really, that equates to “we’ll never view women as people in mainstream wrestling,” it must be even more disheartening for those in WWE who are seemingly getting left behind.
While people can all too easily contend whether the Bella Twins should be involved in the so-called revolution, a lot of chatter has been about where Natalya falls in all of this, including from Nattie herself. Via The Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast:
… I’m not afraid to say it, for a long time, Nattie was looked at in WWE by the powers that be as maybe too “wrestler-y.”
There was a part of me where I was like, “I’m going to have a hard time watching all of the girls compete and not being a part of it,” and I feel like there is so much of me that is wanting to be a part of it. I just have to trust in the powers that be. I have to trust in the universe. And right now is not my time, and I’ll just help everybody celebrate their time and be supportive of them because, one day, it will be my time.
Opinions on Natalya aside, it’s very easy to see how she could be left behind in this “revolution.” For years, she was seen as being held back because she was a “wrestler” as opposed to a model or a dancer, or any of the other non-wrestling backgrounds the Divas of her time came from. Now she’s been stuck on a treadmill for so long that when you bring up all of these other women from NXT, and mix them in with athletic Divas who have worked hard to break out of their initial roles and be seen in the same light (like Alicia Fox and Naomi), she doesn’t fit in with them. I’ve addressed this before in, of all things, the Total Divas recaps, but she’s spent so much time not fitting into the WWE ideal of what a woman should be, that now that it’s come around to everything she should be, and everything her biggest fans associate with her, she doesn’t fit in, either. She hasn’t been working and building to be this sharpshooting veteran ready to teach these kids a thing or two about how to hang. She’s just been running in place for years. If she gets off that treadmill, the end result is still having no destination for her to run to.
Natalya’s ended up being this sad commentary on how WWE backed themselves into a corner by trying to undo years of sexist treatment and lazy booking of the women in their company. Just like a real revolution, there are going to be casualties, and it sucks that one of them could end up being a woman’s entire career.
