[Wishbone]

Originally Posted by Noid I disagree. Her face run in NXT was pretty good by the end. In fact, Charlotte/Sasha was fueled on the emotion of Sasha being a heel trying to take that belt off her. It's hard to find babyface champions that can carry as well as Charlotte. But that was NXT, and I agree that she sucked as a babyface in PCB. But then again, Sasha and Bayley suck as babyfaces on the main roster too. What are you to do? Push the girl that people believe in. You point out that Nia and Emmalina are the only ones who can replace her -- those are the girls that are going to be getting pushes on RAW very soon, I hate to break it to ya. If they are getting heel pushes, Charlotte as a babyface makes more sense, not less. I don't really know what you mean about the Emmalina momentum stuff. She hasn't debuted yet. They're running up the time on her impending return, but that is keeping things on ice until they are ready to have her show up. I don't really see how you can evaluate her momentum at this point -- she's not even back with this new gimmick yet. Wait and see how she is presented and what they do with her. Will they fuck it up? Probably. But I don't think you can say "Nah, she's done" before they have even debuted her and put her over anyone. The thing is that girls like Nikki Bella, Alicia Fox, Alexa Bliss and Carmella are still around. We still have Divas. A girl who can make that their gimmick is going to thrive over them all. That's where the heat is -- a girl who embraces the old tropes of women's wrestling that the new girls are trying to move away from. It makes her the adversary of women's wrestling. It's why Eva Marie was getting so much heat. Emmalina could potentially be like Eva Marie except with wrestling skill. I'd have her come out and declare herself Divas Champion, fuck it. You are still marketing Divas with Total Divas after all. They can book to children all they want, but they're mainly watched by older men. Kids don't actually go for the shit they are putting forward. This is just my anecdotal experience versus yours, but just because you put a girl in bright colors and have her spout affirming messages doesn't mean that kids are going to think it is "cool." That's condescending and assumes that children can't handle depth and nuance.

On Charlotte we'll have to agree to disagree. I thought her entire face run in NXT came off as forced and just... meh. I mean it was better than the PCB nonsense, but that's not saying much. Sasha I'd also agree has been pretty bleh as a face in general. Her gimmick and character are just better suited to being a heel. Bayley's been about as fine as you can be as a face on Monday Night RAW though. I mean, yeah, she's sucked, but that's a show-wide issue. All things considered she's doing relatively well thus far. Could have used with waaay more build before her title feud though, but that was never gonna happen anyway.

Um, you're the one that pointed those two out as replacements. I never said anything about replacing Charlotte, and in fact I think the idea of replacing her is silly. She's the perfect top heel for the division hands down. Why mess with a good thing? Nia isn't ready, and even when she is ready she's got a built in ceiling because quite frankly monsters are always just obstacles for heroes. She'll never be the top heel in the company. She'll be that monster that the triumphant face overcomes, or the bruiser the real top heel like Charlotte hires as muscle.

On the topic of Emma. She's got no momentum. You act like people are just gonna forget about all the previous stuff she's done. You act like she'll just be starting with a new slate and that's just not true. She's still gonna be Emma to the masses and no amount of fake model nonsense is gonna change that. Bray Wyatt managed to do it but that's because he is just a genius at his craft. How many others have been repackaged in this way after such a mediocre career and actually succeeded? Remember Tensai? That was years of absence and it still didn't work. People aren't that forgetful despite what the WWE seems to believe these days. I will agree that that sort of gimmick could work pretty well, but Emma isn't the one to do it though. Also I think you're giving way too much credit to Eva Marie's heat. She wasn't getting heel heat, dude, she was getting "get the hell off my tv" heat.

Finally on the last topic. Um, it doesn't really matter if there are more grown men watching (though I'd like to see some actual evidence of this statement.) The fact of the matter is kids are the ones buying the merchandise and making WWE their money. The smarks and dirty old men like us aren't where the money's at. If we were WWE would abandoned PG and start listening to our misguided cries for a return to the attitude era. I've seen countless guys on this forum say how embarassed they'd be to wear a wrestling shirt in public. Meanwhile I've seen dozens of kids rocking backpacks, shirts, and god knows what else without batting an eyelash. While WWE is slipping it's not because they're marketing to the wrong demographic, it's because they're just inept at making their product. Also I'm a bit insulted that you'd accuse me of thinking kids can't handle nuance and depth when I've been a major proponent and defender of the ability of children in the past on this very forum. Saying that Bayley's gimmick or any other gimmick isn't capable of having depth is the truly insulting statement, especially when your alternative is a model gimmick and turning the prototypical "I was born better than you" character into a good guy. All of these gimmicks are capable of depth, but not the way WWE is handling them. It has nothing to do with the gimmick and everything to do with presentation and writing. Both of which WWE is completely inept at.