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Michelle McCool

Royal Rumble in Review: Sweet Revenge & A Rumble Match Treat

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Week after week, we have witnessed Michelle McCool and Layla crack about 10,000 jokes, all with the same punchline: Mickie is fat. As lamented as this “Piggie James” storyline has been here at Diva Dirt, with its fat jokes and barnyard humor, it has been given one of the biggest buildups in recent Diva memory, and it was reasonable to think that they would cap off this pretty silly storyline with a decent enough match, at least to make the juvenile booking somewhat worth it. After all, their match at TLC was pretty damn good. Let’s see if Mickie and Michelle were able to transcend the “Mean Girls” cliches and mature a bit:

Michelle comes out to the ring, microphone in hand, and explains to the crowd that Mickie was a no-show tonight. “Where oh where has my piggie gone?”, she laments. She figures Mickie is forfeiting. Layla shows up in her fat suit, doing the same Mickie impression she did last Friday. She doesn’t get very far, though, before the real Mickie emerges and attacks her. She tosses FatSuitLayla into the barricade, as Michelle looks horrified. Did she really think Mickie was a no-show? Would that be why they left her off SmackDown last week–to fool Michelle into thinking Mickie went into hiding? That’s the only reason I can think of why Layla would come prancing down to the ring in a fat suit not once, but twice, and not even watch her back.

Mickie gets into the ring, and the match starts. FatSuitLayla isn’t quite done sticking her plastic pig nose into Mickie’s business, though, and climbs up the apron to distract her. It works for a split second, and Michelle charges with her boot but Mickie dodges, replaying a similar collision from TLC: Michelle accidentally delivers a big boot to Layla and lays out her backup. Michelle turns around right into a kick from Mickie, who plants her with the Mickie T. One 3-count later, and we have a new Women’s Champion!

FatSuitLayla comes into to check on her fallen friend, and Mickie hits her with a kick that lands her smack dab on top of Michelle. Meanwhile, several babyface Divas (Maria, Gail, Kelly, Eve, and the Bellas) come to the ring with a rather large cake in tow. Similar to what Laycool and Beth did to Mickie a week before, the Divas prop up Michelle and Layla as Mickie plants the giant cake in both their faces, the other Divas smearing it in. Michelle and Layla do a good job of acting horrified and look pretty damn hilarious blinded by yellow cake and icing while pitching a fit. Mickie celebrates with her newly-won title and smears some more icing in their faces, tasting it for good measure. All the good girls make their exit as the bad girls wallow in their “just desserts” (it’s okay, you can boo.. it was a pretty awful joke).

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SmackDown Redux (January 29th, 2010) – The Joke’s Over, Folks

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For the past few months, the storyline on SmackDown has centered around Mickie James‘ weight with the Diva being taunted and called ‘Piggie James’. WWE even went as far as to create a graphic like the old Looney Tunes cartoons saying, “That’s all, folks” — a line reused by Michelle McCool on this week’s SmackDown. What became evident on this week’s SmackDown is that the joke is wearing thin and to WWE, I say: “The joke’s over, folks.”

Women’s Champion Michelle McCool discusses the huge favour she did for the fans by running Mickie James off SmackDown last week — complete with replays! Michelle then challenges any of the girls to face her right then and there for the Women’s Championship in lieu of her Royal Rumble match with Mickie. James’ music hits but instead of Mickie, out comes Layla in a fat suit wearing a similar outfit to Mickie’s signature ring attire — complete with hat! Cue a ‘hell to the no’ look on the face of the viewer but the anger soon subsides as Layla begins jiggling around on stage and as offensive as I found it, I couldn’t help but giggle at Layla’s delivery which had some humour in it.

Layla as ‘Piggie James’ makes her way down the ramp before getting on the microphone claiming she didn’t get enough food last week. It was mean but funny. Layla then gets into the ring challenging Michelle for the belt, Layla runs at Michelle in the corner who moves out of the way and trips Layla before pinning her for the win.

The underlying Mickie bullying continues and after last week’s humiliation it was hard to top that this week. I think WWE did such an amazing job last week in making Mickie relatable to the audience and then not to even have her on the show this week was ridiculous. They had an opportunity to capitalise on the way they used her last week and blew it. A quick backstage promo saying she would be at the Rumble and she would prove herself there would have done the trick, I mean how hard could a quick segment like that be? Instead what we got was more childish humour that makes you not care about the angle. Instead of making it seem like a true storyline, as it came across last week, with us wanting to root for Mickie — what WWE has done has made fans roll their eyes and want the childish drama to be over. There’s only so many shenanigans that you can pull off before they start to wear thin and this one did wear thin on the audience.

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Michelle McCool Makes Championship History?

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Here’s a crazy stat: According to Wikipedia, Michelle McCool‘s Women’s Championship reign is in some ways the longest reign for some 17 years. Her run is the longest active title reign as the only other two women to have held the title for longer in the past 17 years had been inactive for some portion … Read more

Can SmackDown Give the Women’s Division Its Respect Back?

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In the past few years many people have [wrongly] assumed that the lackluster women’s division in WWE is due to the Divas themselves. With no Trish Stratus or Lita leading the pack, the division has admittedly waned but I would argue, it’s not because of the women in it. It’s because of the writing. In a post-Trish era, it all went downhill. Not to toot her horn too much, but it’s true — Trish was seemingly the only Diva that WWE had full confidence in carrying a real storyline, developing it for several months, engaging the viewer and delivering that great blow-off match that we all anticipate. When she left, the effort stopped.

It’s not that any one of the girls can’t do the same, they just haven’t been given the opportunity to. Storylines that once spanned months now span weeks, matches on Raw — once home of the coveted Women’s Championship — are now usually half as long and half as exciting. The audience itself, paying customers, have stopped lapping up the Divas action and instead feel something apathy and indifference. You may have your own arguments as to why Diva A or Diva B aren’t over but my argument is this: the audience, you know the ones that pay for the honour, don’t care because WWE has given them little reason to care over the years. Any one of those girls could be over if WWE gave them the attention to detail in character that they gave Trish, the same effort in storylining that they gave Trish and had a little confidence in the girls to do their own thing, like they did Trish.

While many have switched over to TNA or perhaps SHIMMER, it’s been a long road but hope isn’t lost. WWE does know how to do women’s wrestling because they’ve done it before and it seems, they may be looking to do it again. Last week’s segment on Friday Night SmackDown was easily the best thing the Divas have done in quite some time — the closest thing to the original ‘golden era’ of Divas that is so treasured.

This segment to me is the biggest milestone for the Divas division in years. It showed that the “smart, powerful and sexy” tagline isn’t just a load of BS. It showed a confidence in the Divas that has been less than visible of the years. And it showed that the girls can tell great stories too.

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SmackDown Redux (January 22nd, 2010): Seminal Moment for SmackDown

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It’s official: this is where women’s wrestling is at. SmackDown, in my humble estimation, is now the premiere series to be watching if you are looking for women’s wrestling on your televisual boxes. That was never more evident than tonight’s episode, where despite not even having a match, SmackDown proved that it is the show that everyone should be watching. Compelling storylines, well written characters and great performances — it’s hard not to do double-take. This is WWE, right? Despite the recent years of fluff and disappointment, WWE have delivered perhaps one of their strongest Divas storylines in quite some time and this week’s show is a seminal moment in what I expect will be a turning of the tide. There’s nothing Diva-y about this week’s SmackDown, to spin the old line used by WCW — this is where the big girls play.

Beginning this week’s Divas action, we saw the debut of Serena Mancini in what may go down as one of the most memorable debuts in Diva history.

PART 1

PART 2

Serena appears as a fan jumping the barricade during another scintilating straight edge promo from CM Punk, claiming she needs him. He says she knows he needs him. Honestly, the initial dialogue was as cheesy as a Twilight movie and I was expecting Punk to throw in a “You are my life now” at some point. That said, it did get better and Punk is golden at his whole shtick. We see Serena willing to make the ultimate sacrifice and denounce her life of addiction etc. and has her shaved head in the name of her saviour, Punk.

All in all, I think this was a good segment and Serena played the cult-like psycho very well. It’ll be interesting to see how she’s used from here with her bald head. I hope this works out for her, it’s a great sacrifice to make but she’s in the big leagues now. I hope she didn’t sacrifice this just to be the glorified bald manager for Punk’s Straight Edge Society. The setup of that group doesn’t really suggest to me that it’ll have a typical manager/wrestler dynamic ala Hart Dynasty. I expect we’ll see Serena actually getting nitty-gritty and I look forward to it. Perhaps she herself could target a Diva and try to ‘help’ them?

Next up, Mickie’s ‘going away’ party:

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Royal Rumble Official Match Preview

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As reported earlier in the week, Women’s Champion Michelle McCool will defend her title against Mickie James at the Royal Rumble in just over a week’s time. The bout will be the pair’s second consecutive pay per view encounter following last month’s favourably-reviewed TLC match. WWE.com has now posted an official match preview: After coming … Read more

SmackDown Redux (January 15th, 2010) – Michelle’s Going in for the Kill

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The Lost-like wheel of fortune stops on Michelle McCool this week, continuing the analogy that each week a different Diva is the main focus of the SmackDown storyline. The Women’s Champion, who recently celebrated 200 days with the gold, threw her hat into the race to prove just who the most dominant Diva is on … Read more

Perfect 10: Week of January 4th, 2010

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The Perfect 10 counts down the ten Divas and Knockouts who have had the best week in television on Raw, SmackDown, ECW and TNA Impact. The Perfect 10 considers matches, promos, character development and more. Who’ll be #1 this week? THIS WEEK MOVEMENT DIVA LAST WEEK AWESOME KONG & HAMADA After a hard fought battle, … Read more

SmackDown Redux (January 8th, 2010) – Layla’s Time to Shine

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She may not be the priority in the three-way feud between Beth Phoenix, Michelle McCool and Mickie James but this week on SmackDown, Layla proved to be the dark horse in this storyline — the glue, if you will, that has held this feud together and that was never more apparent than it was on tonight’s show. Her fantastic acting, comedy chops and hard work in the ring have made her the perfect go-to girl for much of this feud. It’s not Michelle McCool that’s getting in the ring on a weekly basis and wrestling Mickie James and Beth Phoenix — it’s Layla. And if you ask me, it’s the teaming of Michelle and Layla that has helped the Women’s Champion break out of her box and show more charisma and personality than she has in the past several years. She may be treated like a jobber in WWE but watching her work this week, it became obvious to me that without her, this feud wouldn’t have worked half as well as it has and she deserves credit for it.

A few weeks ago, I likened the ongoing SmackDown storyline as a little bit like Lost — each week, the story seems to center around a certain character with the events unfolding from their point of view. We have had Mickie James and Beth Phoenix take starring roles in previous weeks and it seems this week was Layla’s turn.

It all begins backstage…

Once again we have a backstage segment with ‘Piggie James’ jokes, this time Team Lay-Cool unveil a pig trough for Mickie. Lame. Layla cutely gets some lettuce in her mouth with Michelle flicking it away. I’m particularly liking the underlying situation with Michelle and Layla with the latter playing the Gretchen Wieners to Michelle’s Regina George; Michelle, the leader of the group, kind of deflects everything onto Layla [“I think you annoyed her”]. It could play into an interesting feud should Michelle and Layla ever split up.

Next we have Beth vs Layla:

Beth makes her entrance first followed by a somewhat hesitant Layla, who by the way looks a lot like Halle Berry in Catwoman in that attire. Somewhat new fact about Layla — she’s Moroccan and fluent in Arabic, thanks Matt Striker! I love Layla selling her being afraid from the outset, wary of Beth Phoenix as she makes her entrance and does her signature pose on the ring ropes. All too often these girls have little psychology when it comes to stuff like that, they’ll come down to the ring all smiley-faced and happy as usual even though they have a big match ahead of them. Granted, this isn’t exactly a huge Michelle-Mickie type grudge match, but it’s nice to give that vibe of Layla being afraid of Beth and it paints Beth in a great light as well.

Even as the match is about to start, Layla tries to call out to Michelle on the outside of the ring to help her and begs Beth not to go through with the match. Nice touch. Layla extends her hand for a handshake but Beth grabs it and uses it to shoulder-block Lay to the canvas. Beth then hoists Layla over her shoulder, again Layla is screaming for her life in great comedic fashion. Beth circles the spot dizzying Layla before dropping her front-first.

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Unwrapped: Eye Candy for the Week Ending January 2nd, 2010

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Unwrapped! As always, we will be grading all of the new photoshoots (or “eye candy”, as we like to call them) from the week gone by, judging them like so:

Sweet (Great) • Bland (Iffy) • Sour (Awful)

You, the reader, will also get the chance to grade the “eye candy” yourself by giving your opinion on each shoot and voting for your favorite out of the whole bunch. Now, dive in!

Note: We missed a Bella twins shoot from a few weeks ago, so I’m covering it now. I do not hold responsibility for any possible overdose on the Bellas suffered during the viewing of this post.

Brie & Nikki Bella‘s Goaltending
Grade: Sour. Continuing with the “Bellas do sexy sports shoots” trend, Brie and Nikki are posing in front of a goal with hockey sticks. I’m not quite seeing the point of the Bellas doing a hockey-themed shoot, and I see even less of a point of doing it the way they’re doing it here. The poses are pretty dumb, especially the ones using the sticks in a “suggestive” manner–it just looks silly and about as subtle as a hammer to the head. That, paired with their clashing outfits (Brie in a baseball-type shirt and skirt and Nikki in a dress) make for a confusing photoshoot. It’s like they took a meh concept and injected it with so many different ingredients that it came out stinking to high heaven instead of just being boring. I vote that the Bellas take a break from the contrived sports-themed shoots and do more shoots like the one below..
• Click to see the rest of the photoshoot.
[poll id=”497″]

Brie & Nikki Bella‘s Marigolds
Grade: Sweet. Unlike the shoot above, the Bellas keep it pretty simple in this one, relying on their matching outfits and twin chemistry to drive the shoot. Personally, that’s how I like these tandem shoots to be done instead of the bar advertisement-worthy ones the WWE ropes them into sometimes. The ring gear they’re wearing here is bright gold and chock-a-block with ruffles–it probably isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I like it for the theme they have going with their gear. As long as they keep it the a single color, these tights can keep from looking too tacky. Their poses, without the lame props to detract from the shoot, simply consist of them standing next to each other, but they compliment each other well and make it interesting–they play off each other well and don’t just look like two random girls put into the photoshoot together. This, I believe, is how the Bellas’ photoshoots should be–plenty sexy, but not cheesy.
• Click to see the rest of the photoshoot.
[poll id=”498″]

Read more to see the rest of this week’s photoshoots.

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Year-End Awards 2009: Reactions from the Winners

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The 2009 Year-End Awards are a wrap and 5000 votes later, you have crowned everything from your Diva, Knockout and Match of the Year as well as Most Stylish, Best Photoshoot and others! And through the medium of Twitter, we have gotten several reactions from the Divas/Knockouts who’ve picked up wins! On being voted as … Read more

SmackDown Redux (January 1st, 2009) – New Year’s Day Dominance

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The first Divas match of 2010 ended in a fight for dominance for the SmackDown Divas, as three of the Divas tried to show the others who’s boss. But before that, we got to see another match between Beth Phoenix and Mickie James. It may be a new year but some things never change! Watch … Read more

Year-End Awards 2009: Feud of the Year

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2009 is now over and we are celebrating with our second annual Year-End Awards. This year, we have had thousands of votes as you have voted for the top Divas, Knockouts, matches and moments of 2009!And now it’s time to reveal the winners.

FEUD OF THE YEAR

The nominees are:

* Awesome Kong vs The Beautiful People
* Awesome Kong vs Tara
* Daffney vs Taylor Wilde
* Maryse vs Mickie James
* Melina vs Michelle McCool

Continue for the result:

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Year-End Awards 2009: Best Title Reign

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2009 is now over and we are celebrating with our second annual Year-End Awards. This year, we have had thousands of votes as you have voted for the top Divas, Knockouts, matches and moments of 2009!And now it’s time to reveal the winners.

BEST TITLE REIGN

The nominees are:

* Angelina Love (Knockouts Championship)
* Maryse (Divas Championship)
* Melina (Women’s Championship)
* Michelle McCool (Women’s Championship)
* Mickie James (Divas Championship)
* Sarita and Taylor Wilde (Knockouts Tag Team Championship)

Continue for the result:

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Year-End Awards 2009: Most Improved Wrestler

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2009 is now over and we are celebrating with our second annual Year-End Awards. This year, we have had thousands of votes as you have voted for the top Divas, Knockouts, matches and moments of 2009!And now it’s time to reveal the winners.

MOST IMPROVED WRESTLER

The nominees are:

* Daffney
* Eve Torres
* Layla
* Michelle McCool
* Taylor Wilde

Continue for the result:

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Year-End Awards 2009: Best Finisher

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2009 is now over and we are celebrating with our second annual Year-End Awards. This year, we have had thousands of votes as you have voted for the top Divas, Knockouts, matches and moments of 2009!And now it’s time to reveal the winners.

BEST FINISHER

The nominees are:

* Awesome Kong – ‘Implant Buster’
* Beth Phoenix – ‘Glam Slam’
* Gail Kim – ‘Eat Defeat’
* Melina – ‘Last Call’
* Michelle McCool – ‘Faith Breaker’

Continue for the result:

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Year-End Awards 2009: Best Heel

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2009 is now over and we are celebrating with our second annual Year-End Awards. This year, we have had thousands of votes as you have voted for the top Divas, Knockouts, matches and moments of 2009!And now it’s time to reveal the winners.

BEST HEEL

The nominees are:

* Angelina Love
* Beth Phoenix
* Maryse
* Michelle McCool
* Velvet Sky

Continue for the result:

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Year-End Awards 2009: Most Stylish

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2009 is now over and we are celebrating with our second annual Year-End Awards. This year, we have had thousands of votes as you have voted for the top Divas, Knockouts, matches and moments of 2009!And now it’s time to reveal the winners.

MOST STYLISH

The nominees are:

* Alicia Fox
* Layla
* Maryse
* Michelle McCool
* Rosa Mendes

Continue for the result:

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Year-End Awards 2009: Best Tweeter

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2009 is now over and we are celebrating with our second annual Year-End Awards. This year, we have had thousands of votes as you have voted for the top Divas, Knockouts, matches and moments of 2009!And now it’s time to reveal the winners.

BEST TWEETER

The nominees are:

* Awesome Kong (@awesomekong)
* Layla (@mslayel)
* Maryse (@maryse0uellet)
* Michelle McCool (@McCoolMichelleL)
* Tara (@tnalisamarie)

Continue for the result:

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SmackDown Redux (December 25th, 2009) – A Christmas Corker

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Santa has delivered this week’s SmackDown early, hurrah! So instead of interrupting your Christmas Day celebrations, and mine, I thought I’d write the Redux tonight instead.

This week’s Christmas Day edition of SmackDown was sort of like a Christmas cracker — someone gets a prize but someone has to lose. It’s all very bittersweet. That’s how I felt about this week’s edition of SmackDown. On the one hand, the blue brand once again delivered gripping Divas action that will leave you on tenterhooks until next week but on the other hand, there was an over-abundance of that God awful ‘Piggie James’ crap to boot. I’d like to think however, that by all the Divas action was said and done — the Christmas edition of SmackDown was quite the corker!

Let’s start off with the backstage segment in which Michelle McCool and Layla give Mickie James a Christmas gift:

So Michelle and Layla present Mickie with a Jenny Craig gift certificate and it’s very evident that whoever wrote this put more effort into coming up with the ‘Christmas ham’ line than most things they do with the Divas. The creative new ways they seem to find every week to insult Mickie goes to show that when they actually care, the writers put in effort. It’s a shame what they care about is ridiculing a long time, valuable employee on national television every fucking week. The end of the segment sees a long gazing shot at Mickie who is clearly upset by McCool and Layla’s ‘gift’.

As for the acting in this segment, despite what was being said, I thought McCool and Layla had good delivery. Though the unison chanting with hands in the air has already gotten old. As horrible as it may be, the attention that this storyline has gotten week to week, has to be something of a motivator to Michelle because I feel she’s stepped up her game in recent weeks in the acting department. She does sell the part well and I think this could be the storyline that finally draws her heat from the crowd.

Next up, we have a Divas tag team match.

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