A Brief History Of The WWE Women’s Revolution (Part 2)

#GiveDivasAChance

30 seconds. That was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. A match that was over in less than a quarter of the time it took its participants to enter the ring. This episode of RAW on February the 23rd, 2015 was the moment the relationship between WWE and its audience was irrevocably changed.

Paige and Emma were set for tag team action against The Bella Twins, and as was typical for Diva’s division matches of the time it was booked with little care or consideration. Brie Bella knocks Paige off the ring apron with a forearm that actually missed, and while Emma checks on her fallen partner, Brie sets her up for her Bella Buster finisher. That was it. The match in its entirety.

Fans in attendance barely reacted. But fans at home were in enough of an uproar to take to social media and cause a viral trend. In less than 24 hours the tag #GiveDivasAChance – a spin on a silly gimmick R-Truth (Ron Killings) was working in WWE at the time (Give Truth A Chance) – had been mentioned over 50,000 times on Twitter.

It was the number #1 trend of the night, outperforming #RAWNashville and other WWE related mentions. It was a trend that was outperforming almost everything else that was being discussed for the next couple of days.

Pro Wrestling at this point in time had never seen anything like it. More importantly the message was clear and consistent: the women on the main roster deserved better.

There are many tens of thousands of tweets from fans echoing similar sentiment. It was something even mainstream online media could not ignore.

Buzzfeed was one of the first outside of the normal Pro Wrestling specific sites to pick up on the phenomenon. Uproxxx and USA Today soon followed.

The Bellas official twitter responded the day after the episode of RAW with appreciation to the response in wake of their match.

https://twitter.com/BellaTwins/status/570261758008537088

Interestingly the Bellas ignored the trending hash tag #GiveDivasAChance, in favor of the WWE promoted #LikeAGirl. That particular tag was WWE trying to cash in on the success of the Always like a girl advertising campaign that ran during that year’s NFL Super Bowl.

WWE had put out their own cheesy spin on the commercial featuring women from NXT at the WWE Performance Center.

In the Bellas’ complete Twitter history, they actually  used the #LikeAGirl tag just twice (the above being the second and thus last time). As for #GiveDivasAChance? The @BellaTwins account only ever directly referenced the tag once… in a tweet from August, 2016, some 18 months later (the lone retweet of Melissa Joan Hart not counting).

The Bellas did however use the #TotalDivas tag on average at least once a day in the 2 weeks that followed that notorious episode of RAW.

Paige’s use of the #GiveDivasAChance tag was just as limited. Apart from a seemingly tongue-in-cheek, in-character jab at her Bella rivals, Paige uses the tag in earnest just once herself – in September 2018, defending her Total Divas cast mates.

As already noted, The Bellas and Paige had minimal engagement with the tag in question, contradicting present day revisionism. Even just searching their Tweet history for the term “a chance”, shows nothing of relevance from The Bellas and maybe one tweet of relevance at best from Paige. The Anti Diva in reality had become the ‘Anti Diva‘ Diva.

The truth is, this was almost an entirely fan-driven movement.

Paige did share her thoughts on opportunity and representation of women in a radio interview with Chuck Carroll for Turnbuckle Weekly, posted the day after that particular episode of RAW.

"“If we get given the time (on the main roster)… a lot of us could be better than the guys, I feel like, if we get given the time. The guys get all the time to showcase what they can do. So, of course people say ‘the guys are better than the girls.’ We do a couple minutes and that’s it. We don’t really get to showcase what we do… In NXT you do. I feel like a lot of people tune into NXT just to watch the women because they literally kick ass. They have all this time and they’re just incredible.” – Paige to Chuck Carroll (February 24th 2015)"

There was another woman who was part of that now infamous match, and the one that arguably came off looking the worst from it: Emma (Tenille Dashwood).

Out of all 4 women, Emma is the only one that took #GiveDivasAChance and truly ran with it. It soon became #GiveEmmaAChance to help promote her EmmaLution character angle, but her use of the original tag in solidarity with the fans is noteworthy.

A few other women in WWE would use #GivaDivasAChance or words to that effect on Twitter over the next couple of years, but again rather minimally.

There was also an ultimately embarrassing series of tweets from WWE announcer Corey Graves in regards to the movement, spurred by an initial tweet that was misinterpreted by many.

Graves was not trying to belittle the fan movement, and it did seem he was referring to the women (or ‘Divas’) of NXT making the most of the chances they were afforded by excelling in the ring.

When challenged by fans who did not understand where he was coming from, Graves responded unprofessionally and immaturely, going so far as to say he hoped the movement that would help lead to the WWE Women’s Revolution would fail.

How did the more professional higher-ups react to #GiveDivasAChance? Vince McMahon made a rare appearance on the social media outlet to give a short, non-committal but arguably positive answer.

And what of Stephanie McMahon who in many ways has positioned herself at the center of the current WWE Women’s Revolution? Similar to the Divas, McMahon makes mention of it once in 2015 and once again much later in 2017.

It is possible of course the minimal reference to #GiveDivasAChance by many in WWE was due to certain people of power bristling at the notion fans were outwardly unhappy with the company. Just as likely, many may have felt the need to tread carefully around this topic of conversation for fear of upsetting the decision makers and check writers.

But was the match that sparked this fan movement all that it seemed? Nikki Bella was a guest on Mark Madden’s radio show on March 4th, 2015 and revealed that she and the other 3 women in that match were actually the ones that came up with that finish (transcription by CagesideSeats.com)

"What’s funny about that is we were given about three minutes. Three to four minutes. And we – us four girls who were in the match – we put our heads together and said look: we can either give them a two minute match, or we can give them nothing and get Brie and I so much heat and tell a great story…We’re not gonna give people three minutes of BS, and it ended up being a big chance. It ended up turning into #GiveDivasAChance trending worldwide for two days. I mean, we could’ve gone out there, done a few moves and called it a day, but we were like, ‘How do we tell a great story?’ and at the end of the day, that’s what we did. Brie and I got good heat at the end of it, we got trended for two days straight, and it was like, ‘Whoa. We’re storytelling now.’ And that’s what puts the Divas on the next level. Instead of just going out there and doing moves, we storytell. ‘Cause that’s what the boys do, and that’s what we need to do."

Essentially in Nikki Bella’s mind, the passionate fans that took to Twitter to demand more of WWE and better treatment of their women, were part of a Work that the Bellas, Paige and Emma orchestrated.

It should also be noted then that while all the main brand women at this time did indeed deserve better opportunity and representation, not all of these women suffered equally. The Bellas fit the stereotype that WWE brass loved, and they fully played up to that fact. They were the stars of the hit reality / unscripted TV show Total Divas;  a ratings and financial success that WWE were proud of. Thus The Bellas were almost always the sole female beneficiaries when it came to bad WWE booking.

The Bellas were both directly and indirectly part of the problem that lead to this fan revolt in the first place. They were comparatively in a place of benefit and comfort to their peers, and thus with regard to the treatment of women as a whole, would not be the ones to challenge WWE’s authority.

Only one ‘Diva’ actually had the fortitude to do so.