How WWE Failed Dana Brooke

WWE’s supposed push of Dana Brooke seems to be coming to an end. Many will blame her for this, but responsibility for this failure should instead be placed elsewhere.

It has been reported recently that WWE is pulling the plug on the Dana Brooke experiment. Essentially, after months of pushing her in all the major spots and angles, some of WWE’s higher-ups no longer see her as the supposed face of the women’s division that they believed she could become.

Thus, you can expect to see either two things in the coming months. Either, a) Charlotte will dump Dana once and for all and embarrass her for failing so many times; or b) Charlotte will simply start coming out alone.

But how did this happen? Many people have argued that this failure falls on Dana’s shoulders most of all, as she wasn’t ready to be in such a major role. However, the truth is, WWE failed Dana Brooke far more than Dana Brooke failed WWE.

Dana Brooke’s placement alongside Charlotte was never WWE’s original plan. Brooke was supposed to be teaming with Emma in an undercard feud with Becky Lynch. Unfortunately, Emma suffered a serious injury and Dana was instead placed in a different position. She was poised to become Charlotte’s apprentice, aiding her in her matches and trying to convince her how awesome Charlotte was.

In doing this, WWE hoped some of Charlotte’s assets and abilities would rub off on Dana. They didn’t. No matter what Charlotte did or how many opportunities were given to Dana, she didn’t acquire all the right tools to become a top woman in WWE.

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Of course, it didn’t help that, of all the possible call-ups from NXT’s women’s division, they called up Dana, someone who was vastly under-experienced when compared to other division standouts like Nia Jax and Bayley. Dana’s character wasn’t explained properly, she still had major flaws as a performer, and overall didn’t have the overall presentation of a superstar yet. But she was called up to the main roster nonetheless. They had dropped her in the deep end before she could learn how to swim.

That said, Dana did try and learn as quickly as possible in the hopes of becoming a big star in such a short period. But how could she, given how she was presented? In a very short period of time, Dana Brooke went from being an apprentice to a bumbling lackey, taking all the punishment for Charlotte and generally being annoying more than anything else.

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How could the audience possibly warm up to her when she was losing way more often than she was winning, and when she did win, it was under adverse circumstances? She wasn’t being built into a top heel; she was turning into a tacky cheap heel, the likes of which have been seen in WWE for years.

As if that wasn’t enough, Dana was thrown into the deep end and had to swim with sharks. By the time WWE Battleground aired, all of the top women from NXT barring Asuka were on the main roster, and each one of them had an asset or a feature that further exposed Dana’s shortcomings.

Sasha, Bayley, Charlotte and Becky were all superior wrestlers. Nia Jax had the monster heel thing going for her. Charlotte, Sasha and even Bayley were all better at cutting promos than Dana. Even the storylines that were being crafted seemed to favour all the NXT call-ups except Dana. In virtually every confrontation, she was made to look like a loser.

How could fans warm up to someone like that or even care about them?

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If WWE planned on making Dana Brooke a top star in the women’s division then they clearly went about it the wrong way. She was rarely given an opportunity to shine and her many shortcomings (stemming from too early a call-up from NXT) weren’t concealed enough. If anything, she looked more like a loser in her segments and matches than as a winner. And what kind of fan wants to cheer for someone they know is going to lose?

Had WWE really wanted to make Dana into the next star of the division, they should’ve booked her completely differently. They should’ve looked at what skills she did have and promoted those as much as possible. They should never have put her alongside such vastly more experienced partners and opponents to a point where she’d be exposed so badly.

Putting Dana Brooke alongside the likes of Charlotte, Sasha, Bayley and even Becky would be akin to taking Baron Corbin and putting him in feuds with Kevin Owens, A.J. Styles, Seth Rollins and Sami Zayn.

Sadly, that’s what WWE did here. They took one look and Dana Brooke, saw money in her, and brought her to RAW without enough time or planning. Her storylines were rushed, her matches were booked on the fly, and her promos were average.

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How WWE thought they could make Dana into the face of the women’s division when she had both arms tied behind her back, no one knows.