The Bellas were guests at the Indianapolis Comic-Con this past weekend. That's a standard promotional event, and not something we'd usually single out for coverage.
But then Brie responded to a question about the Divas not getting much time on Raw and Smackdown - especially when compared to the women based out of the Performance Center in Orlando. And her answer will only add fuel to the fire of the NXT vs. main roster frustrations that Keith Harris told us about this past weekend.
If I was an NXT Diva, I would not want to come up to the main roster because you get so much time down there.
If you come to the live events, you'll see that we get a lot of time at the live events. When it comes to TV we get so frustrated because it's hard to tell a story in 3 minutes and especially when they want an entrance.
You're thinking, 'What? Can you cut the entrance, we want time to wrestle?' Especially after watching the NXT Rival pay-per-view and seeing the girls go 20 minutes, it's like a dream. It's something we'd love and we're trying so hard to get more time.
It's a three hour Raw and you can't give more time to the Divas? But, hopefully in the future.
You can see her full comment at the 6:00 minute mark of this video:
There are a number of things to glean from this one statement. Obviously and already mentioned is the feeling that Developmental performers - and especially female wrestlers - are benefitting from booking that gives them more opportunities to succeed.
There is also a general frustration with televised vs. live event opportunities, which speaks to an argument that Steve Austin pushes whenever given a chance about how today's stars are being hamstrung by scripts. It's also the reason Chris Jericho gave in a recent interview with The Tampa Bay Times about why his plans for future WWE work is focused on house shows:
The live events are always so stress-free. You can do whatever you want. They don't have specific storylines you are beholden to...It's improv. It's a little more fan interactive. With the TV shows, everything is meticulously timed. There is five minutes for this and 12 minutes for that. At the live show, you work until you're done. You're allowed to finish the match.
Of course, that doesn't fully explain NXT television and especially the live TakeOver specials, where the timing has to be accounted for in a similar way to the average episode of a main roster show. It does, I would argue, highlight the Florida-based program's willingness to put a spotlight on pro wrestling (in a way similar to a house show) and spend a lot less time trying to mask that with standard television scenes and segments.
And no matter how you parse it, Brie is right that the women of NXT are getting an opportunity that the Divas of WWE have never been afforded.
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Thoughts on Brie's comments, the seemingly growing NXT/main roster, Vince McMahon's insistence on scripts, or any of a number of other interesting things we can take from this topic, Cagesiders? There are no time contraints or gender bias to the cSs comment section!