Future Stars
By Ryan Wilson

After careful consideration I felt it would be rude not to cap on the Divas. I’ve been running a Future Stars (this week Future Divas) series on Wrestling Rambles so I thought to end the series it would be nice to talk a little bit about who has potential in today’s Diva Division. I know that this wouldn’t hold as much water as Future Stars did but I feel like there are enough Divas on the roster to talk about.

So here we go…

Natalya
Nattie Neidhart comes from a wrestling family –enough of a reason to think she might be in WWE longer than the typical Diva. Nattie’s father is Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart and her mother is the daughter of Stu Hart which makes Natalya a third generation wrestler, and going one better than that is the FIRST EVER third generation FEMALE wrestler –something to be proud of. Natalya received her wrestling training in the Hart family Dungeon, the first female wrestler to ever complete her training there. Natalya is well versed in wrestling around the world, spending time in England, Japan and the US before being signed by the WWE in early 2007. Natalya was transferred between Deep South Wrestling, FCW and OVW before being brought up to the main roster in 2008. This itself speaks for itself. Some guys can spend years in FCW before making the main roster –if even making the roster. Natalya only had to spend a year in development before being called up. Debuting as a heel Natalya helped Victoria (now known as Tara in TNA) in attacking Michelle McCool and Cherry (you’re excused if you forget who Cherry is, I can’t honestly say I remember her vividly). The Divas Championship was then created by Vickie Guerrero and Natalya was the first women to be in contention for it, the match was at the Great American Bash on the 20th of July against Michelle McCool in which she lost but it is important to note that this match took place 4 months after she debuted –another thing to be proud of in my opinion. After this Natalya then competed on the ECW brand where she wrestled and managed the Hart Dynasty –originally named the Hart Trilogy (what a terrible name. The Hart Dynasty is bad but it beats Hart Trilogy). 5 months after debuting on ECW she was traded to SmackDown along with the Hart Trilogy… I mean Hart Dynasty. Nothing really substantial happened in the first few months of her becoming a part of the SmackDown roster, a feud between the Hart Dynasty and Cryme Tyme and Eve Torres, losing a number one contenders match and blah to the blah to the blah. It wasn’t until WrestleMania that the Hart Dynasty sparked into life –helping Bret Hart defeat Vince on the grandest stage of them all, this helped the Hart Dynasty turn babyface. After WrestleMania on April 26 the Hart Dynasty became champs, and then got attacked by the debuting Usos and Tamina. This feud ended when the Hart Dynasty retained their gold at Money in the Bank and Natalya played a pivotal role in stopping Tamina interfere. The Hart Dynasty then broke up allowing Natalya to become a singles competitor with no mentoring bullcrap. Natalya’s first big feud was with Lay-Cool the self proclaimed Co-Divas champions who defeated Natalya two times (one of which Nattie actually won but did not get the belt due to it being a DQ finish on McCool’s end). Natalya defeated Michelle on Raw in a non-title match before defeating Layla and Michelle in a two on one handicap match at Survivor Series. Natalya was soon to lose the title at Royal Rumble in a fatal fourway match with Eve being victorious on this occasion. Nattie was then traded back to SmackDown where she began mentoring the Chick Busters – A.J and Kaitlyn, however Natalya turned heel attacking A.J and was caught saying “the days of the cute, perky little princesses are over.” Currently Beth has being going after the gold, with Natalya at her side. It would be interesting to see if the Divas of Doom will break with Natalya attacking champion Beth if Beth ever does win it off Kelly Kelly –this is something I hope happens, I like Kelly Kelly I really do but I would love to see Beth and Natalya lock horns for the title. Who else would like to see this?

Eve Torres
I’m expecting some heat for saying Eve but I think Eve has come a looooooong way from her days of the Diva Search in 2007. Eve is my favourite Diva; she has the look, satisfactory better than some mic skills and is improving loads.

Back in 2007 we saw Eve Torres win the Diva Search competition earning the title of WWE Diva. Eve was sent to FCW where she was trained by the staff there a list that includes Joey Mercury, Norman Smiley, Ricky Steamboat and Tom Prichard. This meant that Eve wasn’t trained by just a someone; she was trained by some very respected people within the wrestling industry. In 2007 Eve done nothing but look good, competing in dance offs and bikini contest (bikini contests being something I want back on our screens). Eve made her “in”-ring debut on the 800th anniversary of Raw, however she was never tagged in the match hence why I put the word in, in quotation marks. Her first feud was with Michelle McCool and actually competed in the ring this time round. However this feud went nowhere so she began a feud with Layla and competed in dance offs and arm wrestling matches. Eve came out winning in this feud, defeating Layla twice. At the same time as her feud with Layla, Eve became associated with Cryme Tyme, later becoming their mentors in a feud with the Hart Trilogy, or Dynasty. She locked horns with Natalya competing in both singles and tag matches against her, however nothing really came of this feud, because it was lame, in my opinion. Eve’s final match on SmackDown was a losing effort to Michelle McCool; Eve was then traded over to Raw where she became romantically involved with Chris Masters (who SHOULD still be in WWE, damn creative!) In January 2010 Eve entered a tournament for the vacated Divas championship but got eliminated in the semi-finals by eventual winner Maryse. Eve then won a “Dress to Impress” battle royal to become number one contender (who needs wrestling when you got a Dress to Impress contest! Not you anyway!) The following week on Raw Eve won her first championship defeating Maryse, she successfully defended it at Over the Limit but lost at Fatal 4-Way with Alicia Fox pinning Maryse –Maryse clearly not having any luck, but neither was Eve because Alicia played possum in Eve’s rematch feigning an ankle injury. Darn Fox. Eve never did defeat Alicia after this but did become R-Truth’s dancer, and damn she was good at it too, she can booty pop in a space next to me because unlike the Divas of Doom I like Eve’s booty poppin’. This articles getting out of hand hold it up, let’s get back to wrestling. Eve won the championship at Royal Rumble pinning Layla after hitting a moonsault, this gave Eve her second reign as champion. Eve would go on to hold the belt until April 11th where she lost it to Brie Bella. Skipping a few months Eve done nothing substantial, until Kelly Kelly became champion, Eve aligned herself with Kelly Kelly helping fend off The Bellas. As you can see there’s not as much to read about Eve as there is for Natalya but that doesn’t mean that Eve is a bad wrestler. Eve was rubbish at the start, sure. But isn’t everyone? She has worked her way up the ladder and has one of the best moves sets for a Diva, her jiu-jitsu moves stand out from the other divas and Eve is quick around the ring. Torres can also sell when needed, and has great ability on screen or on the mic and she is only 27 so still has more time to improve but I can honestly say I enjoy watching her matches, I enjoy her moveset, and she’s gonna be my Divas champion in WWE ’12 because THQ left Gail Kim out. Gutted!

In all seriousness Natalya and Eve are some of the best Divas we have, Beth is good, everyone knows it but I don’t like her so if you’re wondering why I left her out there’s your reason. I’d really like to hear all your thoughts about Natalya and Eve, and I am expecting a bit of backlash over this.