WWE: Sonya Deville Needs A "Seamless" Character Change

Sonya Deville began her main roster career in the WWE as a tag partner of her best friend, Mandy Rose, in a team called "Fire and Desire," a team that never won the tag titles together. They inevitably broke up due to Sonya's frustrations with Mandy losing focus on the tag titles and instead focusing on her love interest at the time, Otis. In storyline, Sonya also conveyed that she was frustrated with living in Mandy's shadow, especially since she saw Mandy as eye candy who had no talent as a fighter or wrestler. Due to her MMA background, Sonya had a good basis to make those accusations.

This feud truly molded her into somewhat of a justified heel. Although she was not justified in being jealous of Mandy's star power and turning that jealousy into envy by merely wanting to see Mandy hurt, her storyline with Mandy was one of the best-told stories in the pandemic era. It is safe to say that Sonya even peaked in her singles career when she had this personal rivalry with Mandy in 2020 because she was truly in her element during all of those segments. Her acting skills were top notch and her heel heat gained a lot of traction. However, she has never regained that spotlight since then.

After Sonya resolved a major legal issue with a stalker who tried to kidnap her, she returned to the WWE in an Authority role. Alongside Adam Pearce, she became a GM who made key booking decisions for the women's division whilst stirring up the pot like a true heel. While she expectedly did an impeccable job in this role, there was more left to be desired since fans missed her in the ring. She eventually got back in the ring to win tag titles with Chelsea Green. However, her momentum halted again when she had a debilitating ACL injury that hindered her from enjoying her very first title reign.

Now that she has returned from said ACL injury, Sonya seems to be striking conversations with superstars in the women's division to potentially be their manager. While it is expected that she will do a good job in this role, Sonya has shown that she has the capabilities, tenacity, and grit to do so much more than merely be a manager. Her acting skills in her personal rivalry with Mandy as well as her improvement in the ring as a tag team partner with Chelsea have shown her potential to be a future main eventer. However, to become that and more, she needs a "seamless" character change.

An interesting character Sonya Deville could feasibly adopt is Cruella Deville from Disney. This idea is not only inspired by Sonya's last name but also inspired by the very impressive "Timeless" Toni Storm character in AEW that adopted the character of Marilyn Monroe. "Timeless" Toni Storm has amazing acting skills and really broke out of her shell with that character. Sonya could do the same with a character based on Cruella Deville, who was a pop-culture icon and a famous symbol of dastardly greed, vanity and evil, which are key attributes for the prototypical villain or heel in pro wrestling.

Granted, Cruella Deville was attacked by 101 Dalmatians and got her revenge by skinning them to make her fur coats. While Sonya Deville does not have to literally do that, she could adopt this character in a more figurative sense. From the very beginning, Cruella Deville realized that she saw the world differently from everyone else. That didn't sit well with some people, and no one, especially the ones closest to her, truly understood her. She even tried to follow the rules and be sweet and kind to those closest to her, but they continued to think she was crazy, insane, and just "different."

At some point, Cruella Deville snapped and realized that she was no longer the problem. She realized that the fabric of everyone's little world is torn and that she is actually ahead of the game, She realized that they simply could not fathom that she was born to be bad. She had all the time in the world to apologize for her despicable actions but she had enough of playing nice and realized that a life lived in penance is just a waste of time. So, in order to spite her doubters, she embraced the darkness and was reborn as Cruella Deville, who was not going to let anyone hold her back.

Sonya Deville could figuratively use the internal psyche of Cruella Deville to tell her story in the WWE. Just like Cruella Deville felt judged and held back by those closest to her, Sonya could use the same logic to explain why she is no longer in tag teams with "eye candy" like Mandy Rose and Chelsea Green. Just like Cruella Deville felt imprisoned by the rules set in place, Sonya could use the same logic to explain why she is no longer an Authority GM, And just like this Disney character was reborn as Cruella Deville, Sonya can be reborn in her own singles career as "Soulless" Sonya Deville.

If you're not down with that and would like even more creative pitches like these from Mark Justice, stick with Daily DDT and subscribe to his new YouTube channel by clicking on his name above.