Last night’s Raw, in all its bloated 3 hour glory, was the annual Slammy Awards edition. Among the awards to be handed out were Diva of the Year, which was to be voted on by the fans at WWE.com. As we waited on pins and needles (not) to find out who won the award, we pondered whether the award would be given to support a storyline via rigging by the WWE or a popularity contest held by the voting public. As is turns out, it was neither, and I’ll explain my theory as we come to it.
We start our Divas action (not counting the Divas presenting awards throughout the night) with a Jerry Springer-esque evening gown tag team match. The babyfaces–Mickie James, Melina, Brie & Nikki Bella, Kelly Kelly, Gail Kim, and Maria are taking on the heels–Michelle McCool, Layla, Maryse, Beth Phoenix, Natalya, Alicia Fox, and Rosa Mendes. Most look out of place and trashy in their gowns, and I would critique them (I’ll save that for this week’s Style Jury), but I’m much more distracted by the fact that they’re WRESTLING IN EVENING GOWNS. Well, this’ll be one mesmerizing clusterfuck:
Skip to 2:52
They start with a line-up face-off, trading verbal barbs before heading off their their respective corners. Mickie and Rosa start off the match, Rosa takign advantage and tossing Mickie around, pounding her head on the mat. They trade slaps, and Rosa tosses Mickie into the corner. Mickie blocks her attack, locking her head with her legs and hitting a hurricanrana. She then pulls her to her feet, hitting her Mickie-T to get the pin an the win for her team.
I have to say, this is one of the few moments where I’m glad that a Diva match was cut short. I’m glad that no more than two Divas had to humiliate themselves by wrestling in their dresses. Mickie and Rosa did as awkwardly as I expected, but hey, someone had to take the bullet. Now that the match is over, it’s time for the Diva of the Year Slammy to be awarded. The girls line up in anticipation as MVP and Goldust present the award.
Our winner is announced as, drumroll please…. Maria??? MVP’s reaction right before he reads her name says it all, and Maria looks as shocked as the rest of us as she goes up to accept her award, saying a typical acceptance speech before being interrupted by Batista in a douche costume, doing a Kanye West impression that’s not only awful but over 3 months old. If the joke were a carton of milk, it would have expired into a living organism at this point and, ironically, would be more worthy of a Diva of the Year award than Maria. Maria plays Taylor Swift as she left the stage and allowed Dave to be “escorted” off by security.
But as we watch the wild pink-polo-wearing douchebag be captured in his natural habitat, we’re left to ponder the reasoning behind this decision to crown Maria as Diva of the Year. Was is it truly a popularity contest, and she was just the most popular Diva among the fans? Or was it rigged for storyline purposes? As I said earlier, I believe it was neither, because I have a theory. Yes, Maria is popular, and I do not doubt that fans flocked to vote for her in the poll, but I don’t believe her star power amongst the casual fans is that much stronger than, say, a Mickie James or a Kelly Kelly. Also, Maria has been back for only two weeks, and hasn’t been building up enough relevance to warrant a storyline-based award. So, what was it? I believe it has a lot to do with the reason she has been absent for the past several weeks–a little reality show called Celebrity Apprentice. We’ve covered her involvement on that show on the site, and it is reported that the show will premiere next March. Now, what about the placement of that premiere seems convenient for you?
I could go on and on about how little this makes sense–Maria is not only one of the worst wrestlers on the roster, but she has had so little presence on the roster this year (aside from the awful Dolph Ziggler saga). With Divas much younger and newer than her outclassing her in the ring to an embarrassing level, it’s laughable to see such a complacent Diva be awarded for her mediocrity. Now, we discussed this on the Post-Raw show last night, and I don’t mean to sound like a tin foil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist, but I think there’s a strong possibility that the WWE wants to raise Maria’s in-company profile leading up to that show’s premiere. I wouldn’t be surprised if, with the show’s proximity to WrestleMania (it starts 2 weeks prior to the PPV, to be exact), the WWE tries to angle a WrestleMania storyline for Maria in order to take full advantage of her involvement on that reality show. What better way to prep her for such a push than to give her an award that will (or so they hope) raise her WWE name value? I honestly can’t think of another reasoning behind it. Like I said, I don’t believe she’s that popular amongst fans, especially with her extended recent absence, and they aren’t trying to push an existing storyline with the win. So, what’s left but an attempt to increase her stock in preparation for a future push?
Say what you want about the award’s irrelevancy (and I’m sure there’ll be a dozen or so comments by readers who didn’t take the time to read this saying “IT’S THE SLAMMYS, WHY DO YOU CARE? IT’S NOT A BIG DEAL!!!”), but it still speaks volumes about the Divas at large. As meaningless as the award is, it still recognizes Divas for their year of hard work. They aren’t awarded (formally) any other way, so this is as close as they get to recognition. So it especially sucks when so many Divas–Melina, Michelle, Mickie, to name a few–deserved it much more than Maria. In a year that was full to the brim with disappointments, those girls managed to generate some entertaining moments, and they weren’t recognized for that, for whatever reason. Though, with how disappointing this year was, this awarding of Maria as Diva of the Year acts as a perfect cap on a year that taught us to keep our expectations low–don’t expect anything, and you won’t be disappointed! In fact, I think that’ll be Diva Dirt’s New Year’s Resolution: lower our expectations to ground level.
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34 Comments
Ok,well it’s obvious that Maria didn’t win because the fans voted her but why did they choose her :\
I can believe that Maria is popular enough to get the votes for this. The fact that it was a poll from the fans is the ONLY way Maria would ever have a shot.
This whole night was a total waste of time. Not because I hate Maria, like divadirt obviously does, but the match sucked beyond all excuses and Maria didn’t even get to finish her speech. I wanted to hear what she had to say. And Batista did the worst Kanye impression OF ALL TIME! I bet he never even saw that before he did this.
The only thing that maybe made this worth watching was seeing Michelle have to pick up Layla for her to get into the ring. That was great.
Maria totally deserved it shes AMAZING
she has the best style EVER!
all of her finishers are the best ever
i mean running bulldog > Mickie DDT > faith breaker > sunset flip
who could forget her match with Mickie last week it was a match of the year candidate.
OK enough sarcasm from me
my tongue may fall out from lying so much in this comment
it was an awful RAW
AWFUL!
I’m going to go wash my eyes with vodka and hope to forget this
I wasent very keen on this match at all :(.
1. why the hell did mickie come out with her theme song and not melina, its not fair. melina is the champion.
2. Why The hell was they wearing dresses for. made them look useless. :(.
3. Why Did Mickie James win?? tbh they all should of done something.
and btw i love mariaa but id liek it had to go to jillian oor kelly kelly oor evan Alicia becaause alicia has improved over this year
LOL @ Layla.
I hope WWE don’t make Alicia go back to her old hairstyle when she was with Michelle.
i wonder if Layla really couldn’t get in the ring XD
or if it was just a thing they were told to do
ChrissyL – I don’t think we all hate Maria, it was just unfortunate that she won last night when there were other more deserving women who worked hard all year and should have been recognized.
Well Maria better savour the slammy because its unlikely she’ll touch gold again anytime soon. I just can’t believe she’s been away for this Apprentice US malark and comes back to recieve and award when like others have said, tthere are far more deserving stars- but then again it makes a nice difference from Melina or Mickie.
Ballgown matches are no stranger I mean they’ve been going since the 90′s but this was totally uneeded, they all looked out of place and I dont see why they needed ballgowns to accept the awards. Mind you, everyone can stop going on about how Gail is ‘jobbing’ now she has a win on her side. Once again Mickie has to pick up the win though, they should’ve really tried focusing on the Maryse and Melina trial given the fact its Raw and that’s the main Raw Diva feud. I love it when WWE unify the Divas, it always shows a nice unity as if the Divas are a family, but I hate the unified Diva matches because whats the point in getting all of them together for two to wrestle? And what I never understand is how you have 6 or 7 other girls on your side and none of them break the pin? At least Gail pretends to trip over to buy some time from doing it. None of the Divas bar Mickie got to show any personality whatsoever either and once again, where’s Jillian and “The Beautiful Nightmare” (Who of course is not Katie Lea in any way, shape or form) the two of them would’ve done a better job than putting Rosa in who people hate anyway (I like Rosa, I just dont like her ringwork)
Nice to see the Bellas finally made their Raw re-debut, didn’t they really do a lot that match also? Well i suppose we can thank ourselves it wasnt the usual Mae Young comes out in a ballgown, gets a roll up and strips off, routine.
I think you’re right with the WWE giving it to raise her profile, but I also think she’s one of the more popular diva’s in the WWE. Now I said that Mickie James would win, but Maria would have at least been in the top 5, so it’s not that crazy..
Btw, Kelly Kelly, Diva of the Year? That’s more laughable. She has zero personality.
I lol’d @ Layla xD
Twas quite funny :)
I think its ok that she won. I feel it is payback for her Wrestlemania 24 storyline where she had 2 share the spotlight with Ashley. Plus that damn blackout! I feel its not her fault that the fans voted 4 her or that WWE decided 2 give it 2 her! I think Maria winning is way better than any of the Bellas, Rosa or even Vickie winning it!
Heh, I though of that before I went to school today. I was like, WTF am I playing at?! The Slammy’s mean bugger all. And if anything the divas involvment this year were crap, dissapointing and down right pathetic, so having someone like Maria to win the award is absolutelt PERFECT, she is the definetion of all three of those things. xP
Oh cool, someone who had 2 matches in 2009 gets the award. AWESOME! [sarcasm]
@Matty… Trust me, Kelly would’ve at least been more deserving. She has had a much, better… career this year. She has got 2 1# contender spots, she has improved loads. And has even gained a couple of rivals.
Fucking Classy ;) ! I Watched for 3 hours thinking there would be double diva action but instead they hit us with this monstrosity ? Jeez ohh someone shoot me
It obvious that Maria didn’t win the award via fan vote. I mean, she is a popular diva, and I don’t want to personally take anything away from her. She may not be very good in the ring, but she has a personality that could make her a really good manager. However, there’s just no way that the fans voted her over the likes of Mickie, Melina, or Kelly. All three have been much more prominant over the course of the year, and all three are way more popular. I know they’re setting up a storyline, but couldn’t they at least pretend that they have respect for their women’s divison for at least one night?!
I do want to say though, Maria did look very pretty last night. At least we can look at one positive, lol.
Personally, I wanted to kill myself when I heard Maria’s name come out of MVP’s mouth – you all saw his reaction to seeing her name! I’m not going to say I hate Maria, I just personally dislike her and see no place for her in the wrestling industry.
@Russell – Do you honestly believe the WWE would apologize to her with an award for something that happened nearly two years ago? Besides that, she was going to share the spotlight in that match either way.
Continuing with my personal opinion, Maria hasn’t been back for long and no way she could have gained so much popularity with her return that she could win. If you think about, the top runners for the award were definitely Michelle McCool and Melina (even though I’d prefer Mickie James). Let us depict Maria to the two divas above.
Michelle and Maria are both Diva Search girls. Maria has improved to a barely minimum amount and we rarely see her getting title shots, she doesn’t really deserve it. Michelle has improved incredibly and has earned her title shots and the title she currently wears.
Melina has always been a strong competitor and has also earned her title shots and the title she wears. Have you realized that Maria’s biggest push was Playboy? The things we will remember her best by is her WWE relationships and interviewing… which isn’t something to brag about.
I am not trying to hurt feelings and I’m not trying to bash her, but if you look in 2009 for Maria you see barely anything but Dolph Ziggler and her big disappearance. I’d love to see how the WWE fails at yet another publicity stunt with Maria, we remember that failure her Playboy match was – now do we get to see a Celebrity Apprentice match at Wrestlemania? I hope not. I’m dying for a good Divas match at Wrestlemania – the last amazing match was Mickie James vs. Trish Stratus. Now that was a good storyline. What have we come done to?
Expectations: Below the basement.
Jillian and Eve were not part of the tag match as they each presented a slammy award earlier in the show
I’m happy for Maria,yes she didn’t deserve the slammy but lets be honest,Maria is never going to be a champion,let her have the slammy so at least she has something accomplished in her WWE run
WWE divas lose my vote this week,TNA knockouts FTW!!!
also my 2 older brothers each voted for maria,they think she’s hot and very likeable
Maria maybe not popular with women wrestling smarties like us but she does have a big fanbase,my friend who doesn’t go on the internet much is a huge maria fan
they shoulda just let goldust take diva of the year he’s done more than maria lol.
“What did you think of the December 14th, 2009 edition of Raw?”
BIG thumbs down. It’s kinda amazing that both RAW and TNA manage to have their worst show of the year in less than a week, although both shows had a few entertaining moments (but those moment had nothing to do with wrestling).
And I’m all for lowering expectations, i kinda did that a year ago already, so I’m not that unhappy with RAW this year, every time they had a good match i considered it a “bonus” since i didnt expect much anyway.
Expectations for 2010-At the center of the Earth.
What can I say?RAW is at least…….interesting.
Few Notes:Love Layla’s not being able to get in the ring.
Why the fuck does Melina ALWAYS have to play background character to Mickie frikkin James????So annoying….
Maria didn’t look like a Kindergarden project for once,so that’s nice….
The Santina chants were so pissing me off.
Michelle looked Fiercea!
And finally,I can’t wait for the Diva dirt Style Jury this week!
The more I think about it, the more it makes me lol.
This might be part of a bigger picture for all we know. Maybe Maria is turning heel and someone is brought up to *even the odds*. Maybe Dolph crawls back to her as his career hit a stalemate when he dumped her. Maybe we are making a big fuss about nothing cuz it’s possible that they won’t mention this Slammy win again outside of this week’s SD.
I don’t think this was the only Slammy that was given to the wrong person… But I digress.
Welp,can’t wait for TNA to take over Monday nights!
Ohhhh so i noticed that maryse and kelly have a little thing going on,
haha they both argued when the both got in and when maryse was outside the ring.
i predict maryse winning the tittle against melina then having a feud will kelly kelly,
think about it, do you get a maryse or a kelly kelly, being the trish of the divas champion??
i really get one from kelly, and then she can wrestle for something and wrestle good!! :]
haha thats what i think, then maybe after kelly gets the title, gail will get jealous, and bam a new storyline.
Since it was already past 2 hours and they still hadn’t done the Slammy Award for Diva of the year I was starting to wonder.Then they came out all in evening gowns. Now it had been said that Talent from
all three brands was they’re and they come on like this.They all looked beautiful.Ispotted my favorite Diva Beth come along side the ring in her body hugging gown with the low neck-line and I watched as she had to slowly climb up the apron look around to make sure everything was clear.This was totally odd.And all of them climbing into the ring and sort of gabbing at each other.I watched how they all try
to protect them selves from a wardrobe accident.Which they didn’t need.Then the quickest match in history.But what got me was then all the Heels got out of the ring and on the floor walked around and stood to hear the award and who got it/Now who-ever picked out the gown for Maria did a lousy job.
Maria gets to the podium barely gets out 3 words THEN out walks Batastia? I say what’s going on can’t
even give her some time.But Yes they’re were better ones who could have gotten it ,But she gets to brag Diva of the year.To me she’s a lousy worker in the ring so i don’t expect much from this.
I liked that all the Diva’s Face and Heel were at ring side sort of together.That was nice too see,
I can’t believe how bad Raw was this week! Me and my bro had been looking forward to watching this 3 hour special of Raw all day, only to cheat the fans out of a decent show. The whole show was a shambles and extremely disappointing, even the men’s matches were short this week, esepecially John Cena’s and CM Punks!! BUT the most disappointing was the Divas event! I mean straight away when they came out with all their dresses, we knew that this was going to be a event not worth remembering! Straight away I thought, it’s WM 25 all over again!! The match, if we can call it a match lasted for about 10 seconds, and they have to put Rosa Mendes in it against Mickie, which I think everyone knew by then she was going to get pinned seeing as she wasn’t showing any signs of tagging in. I just laughed and thought here we go again!! Within seconds it was over, but then thought oh well at least the diva of the year should be interesting? Only to think too soon, hearing Maria’s name! I thought I had honestly heard the wrong name, and couldn’t belive it when Maria walked up to collect the trophy! Don’t get me wrong Maria is a great diva, but she did not deserve that diva of the year! It is such a slap in the face to Melina, Michele and Mickie who have worked really hard this year!! One of them should have got it to end their highlighted years in the WWE!! I mean poor Melina, I’m convinced she looked a bit upset truthfully! I think out of all the divas even though melina has worked hard and Mickie, I think Michele deserved it due to her holding the divas and women’s title! I am just so fed up of the WWE abusing their Divas! I don’t want to see them in dresses, such as a talented Gail Kim! I’ll buy a magazine for that, I want to see them wrestle seeing as it’s a wrestling show, and not a beauty padgent!! What is the point of the WWE having a women’s division if they are not going to use it properly! They could have some amazing women’s rivalries like Natalya vs. Beth Phoenix and Melina vs. Gail Kim, but they just choose not to use which is beyond me? Why do they go to the trouble of signing Gail Kim and stealing her away from TNA, but only to flaunt her in a dress!! I have to admit I was really impressed with TNA this week, I think TNA is leading women’s wrestling at the moment and will for a long time to come if WWE are not prepared to give the WWE divas hardcore matches like Tara against Kong in a steel cage match! Best move Lisa-Marie ever did going to TNA! I love watching her every week, jus wish somehow Gail could get back on to TNA! I really hope 2010 can be a change for the WWE Divas and that I will be speaking very different words in a years time! But does it ever change and will it ever go back to the old days? I hope it does! They seem to be making all the Divas that can’t wrestle properly at the moment look the strongest and make the strongest ones at the moment look like the weakest! I want to see more classic matches like WWE can prove they can do like mickie vs. natalya vs. beth a few weeks ago, but there just seems to be no committment there! I jus hope divas like Natalya and Gail Kim have stand out years next year! Does anyone else wonder why WWE does not use their best divas that could be the best women’s wrestling in the world?
The voting was rigged. LOOK you can still vote
http://poll.wwe.com/divaoftheyear2009/
WWE never took down the poll. You would think if this was a real vote than at least WWE would take down the poll.
I haven’t seen Raw yet as it doesn’t air until Friday night where I live but by the sounds of it, I won’t be missing much! Given that the fans could vote, it would be a fan favourite, not necessarily someone that has had a great year in the ring, that would win. Makes me wonder about the WWE sometimes. It really does.
Am I shock yeah!!! I thought Melina or Mickie owned the award….From Beth Phoenix to Maria?? Anyway dont blame Maria for it..She look really shock and is obvious it wasnt plan! Congrats to Maria! Lol! Batista pull a Kanye West!
The heels clothes were way better than the faces, even though the red dresses of alicia and maryse were ugly. Anyways…Horrible Match, horrible award winning, horrible kanye impersonation.
Conclusion: This Raw sucked.
Melina is the champ! & Maryse is the top heel! so why are they being treated like secondary divas to Mickie and Michelle?!?! i hate Michelle..she can’t even get a decent reception from the crowd..listen to how dead they were.
This was a true disappointment! Maria didn’t deserve the award..She doesn’t even deserve to be in a WWE Ring! How can you be in the WWE Company for 4 years & not improve. She isn’t interesting to watch, i wish WWE would just get rid of her.. She has other talents anyway.