Forget Cena; AJ Lee as Champ is the Real Injustice

It’s hard to be a fan of the current product WWE grinds out on a regular basis. 

Maybe that’s why I do what I do. I like to write about this stuff because I have some knowledge (having grown up on it and with it) and I’m a fan.

I try not to criticize so much because that becomes a dangerously icy slope where all one ends up doing is looking at the negatives of what they’re watching. When you do what I do, sitting at a keyboard, thinking about what my might be interesting to the readers, it becomes all but unavoidable. 

Sometimes it gets ugly and you end up losing yourself.

Mark Calaway (“The Undertaker” to the uninitiated) said it best:

"“The people on the internet, the ones that call themselves “the experts” and have all the cures for the ailments of our business – I think they’re a big joke. You listen to them and they’ve got all the answers and ‘This guy needs to be pushed’ and ‘This guy needs to go’, ‘Undertaker needs to retire’ – you know what, I kinda think it’s funny. They forgot that they’re fans.”"

It’s a sobering assessment.

That said, there are times when it’s absolutely justified. Lately, with all the questionable booking decisions, botched spots and ridiculous last-minute changes this company makes in some insane attempt to breathe life into the product, the product presented to us and the fans feels like the result of 40 guys sitting in a room throwing darts at index cards with plot points scribbled on them.

Such was the case on Monday’s edition of RAW when, after a three-month absence, AJ Lee re-appeared and took back the Divas title in the very same fashion in which she lost it.

If you’re following my arbitrary stream of consciousness, then you’ll probably recall that I wrote an article about Paige last week where I declared that she played a very important role in the future of the Divas division and WWE, itself. Some of you will also point out that, in the very same article, I also said the same of AJ Lee.

I’m not intending to backpedal. I’m can’t possibly be wounded that WWE decided to put the title on a decent competitor…except, we’ve already been there and done that.

AJ beat every single woman on the Divas roster during her 295-day reign as WWE Divas Champion before dropping it to Paige and taking time off to settle into her life with CM Punk. By the time she got to Paige, the skipping and grimacing became stagnant. WWE knew they couldn’t drop the belt to a weaker competitor with no heat, so they chose Paige.

If current events are any indication, that arrangement was meant to be temporary all along.

There are some who have called Paige a “weak champion” and that “. As I’ve outlined in the above article, WWE didn’t seem to have the balls to allow Paige to develop nor have they even booked her in a decent match since she became champion.

So, ultimately, I question why WWE even chose to do this. Especially considering the fact that AJ Lee’s character had nothing more to prove.

This sudden shake-up is even more confusing when one considers that WWE Creative couldn’t even wait for Paige to drop the title at Battleground or SummerSlam and ended up slamming the door in a pitiful match that lasted all of a minute which does no justice to either Paige or Lee.

Had WWE elected to hold this match at a major PPV event with the proper build-up and, then delivered an epic match between two of WWE’s best women, it would have been win-win: it would have fully legitimized the Divas stable, driven up ratings and added more subscribers to a shaky WWE Network.

Yet, the company continues to make nonsensical last minute decisions and regressions which do nothing but work to solidify the current reputation it holds.

For all the fans who are upset that John Cena won the World Heavyweight Championship at Money in the Bank, they should be more upset that WWE continues to sabotage the Divas division with weak matches and booking. AJ Lee is, indeed, part of the future of women’s wrestling in WWE but the decision for her to take the title from Paige was both ill-conceived and horribly timed.