Ringbelles Roundup (23 April 2013) – Stardom at Sumo Hall, Yuzuki Aikawa retirement and more
Sitting in the Tokyo ward of Sumida, Japan, Ryōgoku Kokugikan is primarily a venue for sumo wrestling, hence the alternative name of Sumo Hall. Hosting tournaments throughout the year as well as three special events in January, May and September, the 28-year old building holds a lot of tradition for sports other than sumo. The building also hosts boxing, concerts and professional wrestling. However, when it comes to joshi, Sumo Hall may well have been in Narnia, as there has not been a show there since Ladies Legend Pro Wrestling held an event there on February 12, 2007.
The show featured the semi-finals and final of a 10-woman All Star Tournament with Shinobu Kandori pinning Meiko Satomura to win the whole shebang. Attendance numbers are disputed, though the reported figure was about 5,800, which is less than half of the 13,000 that the building can hold.
Since then, there has not been a joshi show held there, though that will change next Monday, when Stardom presents its biggest and most ambitious show in its two and a half year history with a stacked card which features wrestlers from a number of different joshi promotions. (more…)
WWE & E! team up for Divas reality show
It has been discussed for a while – provisionally for the WWE Network, which is seemingly still a long way from becoming a reality – but today, WWE and E! made the announcement that a new series featuring five current and two new Divas will launch on the entertainment channel on July 28. Titled Total Divas, it is one of five new reality shows the channel is launching in the near future. This one will follow Natalya, Funkadactyls Cameron & Naomi and Nikki and Brie Bella, with WWE’s press release insisting that it will “[highlight] the professional and personal lives of WWE’s leading ladies”, as well as “complete and utter access to the backstage workings of WWE, the show examines the preparation and fallout from matches, [and] the romantic entanglements of a WWE locker room”.
As mentioned, there will also be two new Divas, hired as part of a privately-held Diva Search which happened recently. They are Natalia Eva Marie – who will be known as Eva Marie – and Joseann Alexie Offerman - who will will be repackaged as Jo-Jo Offerman. (more…)
Mixed tag match bumped from WrestleMania card
Under normal circumstances, now would be the time when we would do a review of the match which occurred on the previous night’s PPV offering, pointing out what happened, what we liked, what we didn’t and whether it was a successful contest. However, for WrestleMania XXIX, we won’t be needing to do that, as for the first time since WrestleMania 13 back in 1997 – ostensibly before WWE started calling their women “Divas” – no women competed on a WrestleMania card. (more…)
Ringbelles Roundup (2 April 2013) – Femmes Fatales XI, SHIMMER Volume 53, WrestleMania XXIX & more
Last week, I repeated my previous assertion that two championships would change hands at NCW Femmes Fatales XI in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on Saturday. Lo and behold, that’s what happened – with the Bellatrix World Championship and the Femmes Fatales International Titles being won by Courtney Rush and Mercedes Martinez respectively.
Martinez’s victory over Kalamity is only part of her story in the show. She continued her cross-promotion feud with LuFisto following her defeat to the Super Hardcore Anime at Women Superstars Uncensored’s An Ultraviolent Affair in February by attacking her foe during LuFisto’s challenge for the SHIMMER title against Saraya Knight. The steel chair attack to LuFisto’s head was enough for Knight to lock in the Bridal Rocking Horse for the stoppage and retain the belt, meaning that no matter what happened with Mercedes’ challenge to Kalamity, the Martinez/LuFisto programme would continue.
As it turns out, the programme will likely feature the International Championship, as the Latina Sensation used a Fisherman Buster onto a steel chair to gain the pinfall and bring The Oncoming Storm’s 17-month reign to an end. (more…)
Funkadactyls & Bellas to clash at WrestleMania XXIX
We mentioned it during yesterday’s Roundup and today it came to pass: WWE made it official that at WrestleMania XXIX on April 7 at the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ Team Rhodes Scholars and the Bella Twins – Nikki and Brie – will square off against Tons of Funk and the Funkadactyls – Cameron and Naomi.
While Damien Sandow and Cody Rhodes have been on a mission to censure the antics of Brodus Clay and Tensai since before Elimination Chamber, Clay’s backing dancers were brought into the fold following the return of the Bellas on the March 11 Raw, and set their sights on Cameron and Naomi on the subsequent SmackDown. (more…)
Ringbelles Roundup (18 December 2012) – AJ Lee’s year, Yuzuki Aikawa announces retirement, and more
2012 Diva of the Year (named by both WWE Magazine and the WWE fans via the Slammy Awards) AJ Lee is about as far away from WWE’s idea of what a Diva should be as you can imagine. Short, quirky, geeky, lacking the body shape that others have had in the past, she comes across as the person you would be more likely to meet over an Xbox Live session of Call Of Duty Black Ops 2 than at an awards ceremony or a fancy bar. She’s your friend, your buddy – she’s not what WWE would perceive to be the ultimate in femininity.
But scratch beneath the surface, and she may be more woman than anyone else on the roster. She’s independent, driven, and has forged a path which she was never meant to go down – and in doing so, forced WWE to take notice.
After all, at the start of this year, she was Daniel Bryan’s put-upon girlfriend – the one who was the foil for him to turn heel, and saw her end up being verbally abused and put in harm’s way. If anything, at the time she was another version of the antithesis of a Diva – meek, helpless and unable to take care of herself. However, when their relationship ended on the post-WrestleMania SmackDown following Bryan’s loss of the World Heavyweight Title – which he blamed on her – she went off at the deep end. It gave her character a chance to have an edge, and she ran with it. (more…)
TLC: Eve Torres tames the Funkadactyl
Naomi challenges Eve Torres for the WWE Divas Championship in her first ever pay-per-view match after earning the opportunity earlier in the evening.
The Background
• A “Santa’s Little Helper” battle royal was held on the pre-show which involved all the Divas except AJ Lee and Vickie Guerrero. The final two left in the ring were the two finalists on NXT season 3 – Kaitlyn and Naomi.
• In the end, Kaitlyn was dumped after Torres – who was on commentary – struck her longtime rival, allowing Naomi to eliminate her with a dropkick. (more…)
The fortunes (and misfortunes) of NXT season 3
A week on Sunday, Kaitlyn will challenge Layla for the WWE Divas Championship at Night Of Champions in a match that she earned by way of winning a battle royal on the August 20 episode of Monday Night Raw. As it has been claimed since then, the ending was not meant to have Kaitlyn winning, and it should have been Eve Torres getting the shot – which adds credence to why everyone seemed so confused with the result and Eve being shoehorned into the build-up for the match – so it could end up being a three-way, but as it stands, it’s still Kaitlyn v Layla for the belt, and shows how far the challenger has come since winning the third season of NXT.
In fact, today marks two years to the day since Kaitlyn’s WWE TV debut on the first episode of the show as a last-minute replacement to become Vickie Guerrero‘s rookie Diva. Then 24, Celeste Bonin had only signed a WWE contract less than two months previous, and had made her first appearance on Florida Championship Wrestling TV a month before making it onto the main roster, and that was only as a lumberjill. To say that she was nowhere near ready to be on NXT would be an understatement, but she seized the opportunity, displaying her quirky personality and accidentally becoming a wedge between Guerrero and her protege/boyfriend Dolph Ziggler throughout the course of the show. As a wrestler, she was lime green, but her character carried her through, and since then, she has been working to become a credible grappler.
Granted, for the 18 months following her victory, Kaitlyn was nothing much to write home about, but more recently, WWE has been putting her in the ring with Natalya, with the third-generation Hart getting the upper hand at the start, but the former fitness model, bodybuilder and model has since started running away with the victories, leading up to getting the win – regardless of whether it was booked or not – in the battle royal. In some ways, Kaitlyn earned her way into this title match in the same way that she got onto NXT – through being in the right place at the right time. If her history is to repeat itself, she may end up winning the title, especially since Layla’s run as Champion has been pretty unspectacular.
But what of the rest of the NXT season 3 contestants – what happened to them? Well, let’s take a look at where they are now, and let’s start with the one who never made it to TV and was replaced by Kaitlyn… (more…)
Ringbelles Roundup (28 August 2012) – the Aussies & Kiwis, April Davids & more
There has been a lot of focus on the continent of Australasia recently, and most of it centres around one kick-happy wrestler from New Zealand.
As we have documented, Evie has been catapulted into everyone’s line of sight, winning both the IPW Women’s and PWWA Championships in the space of seven days – the first in a triple threat match with Megan-Kate and Britenay, and the latter against Jessie McKay just last Saturday.
When approached for comment, the Auckland resident told Ringbelles:
Winning the IPW Women’s Title and then the PWWA Interim Title… words can’t pinpoint the feelings I felt over those nights. I was extremely emotional… a few tears were shed, and it definitely is the highlight of my career to date. I came away from both matches battered and bruised, but it was all worth it in the end… after five years, I finally feel like a champion.
The fans have also been rad… I can’t believe how much support I received through those tournaments, both online and in person. It was amazing!
Ringbelles TV Review (13-19 February)
Oh boy. This was not what you’d call a good week as far as TV wrestling is concerned, which is a shame as I had been quietly looking forward to Eve vs Natalya on Raw. To be honest, Eve & Natalya wasn’t bad – it started tremendously and then kinda went off a cliff towards the end, but it was a creditable performance, and with practically zero competition this week, it’s our TV match of the week.
Ringbelles TV Review (23-29 January 2011)
Welcome to our Television Digest of the week, where you can catch up with all of the goings on from TV during the last week. In this edition, we tick a lot of boxes… singles, tags, six women matches, mixed tag matches and even include couple of title matches. Excited? Well, it’s alright…
TNA narrowly grab “TV match of the week” honours this week with a six woman elimination match that was given some time. Sarita teams with Tara and the Knockouts Champion Madison Rayne to take on Mickie James and The Beautiful People.
WWE Divas: A Light in the Dark?
I was due to write the review of the Beth vs Layla match at No Way Out last week, but due to other priorities, I had to leave it to Lee. It’s probably just as well that I’ve had a week to think about it, because for what it’s worth, I hated the match. Well, maybe “hated” is too strong a word, but I really didn’t like the comedy of Layla stealing Beth’s headband and dancing with it. The finish of Beth losing again also irritated me a bit, mostly because it’s patently clear that WWE have absolutely nothing in mind for Layla, and with Beth losing again, it securely slots her below Layla on the pecking order and kills another level of anticipation (whatever there is left of it anyway) for the Beth Phoenix vs Kharma feud that we’ve been waiting/hoping for ever since Kharma signed up with the company.
Let’s make it clear here – my major downer on the Divas division at the minute is not the usual “wrestlers vs models” debate (I’ve learned for the most part to turn off my brain and find a way to enjoy the Divas for what they are rather than what they aren’t)… no… my big problem is the fact that at the minute, the future of the Divas division is just deathly dull. (more…)
June 25, 2012 | Categories: Commentaries | Tags: AJ, Alicia Fox, Bella Twins, Beth Phoenix, Buggy Nova, Divas, Eve Torres, Gail Kim, Kaitlyn, Kelly Kelly, Kharma, Layla, Maxine, Naomi, Natalya, Paige, Raquel Diaz, Rosa Mendes, Sofia Cortez, Tamina Snuka, Vickie Guerrero, WWE | 1 Comment »