The term WWE Divas has long been gone from the company. To be specific, the Divas title was retired the night of Wrestlemania 32. That night, WWE brought back the Women’s Champion which was further split into WWE Raw and Smackdown Women’s Championships in order to give more chances to female talents as a performer.
Diminishing the WWE Divas belt as well as the term is considered to be one of the major incidents during the so-called WWE Women’s Evolution. However, often the female pro-wrestling stalwarts have openly spoken about the Divas who were the backbones behind today’s legit female professionals without whom the Women’s Evolution would never begin in the first place.
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Former IMPACT Wrestling personality cum recognized name in professional wrestling, SoCal Val has now also raised her voice against those persons who don’t like the term WWE Divas in a conversation with Just Alyx. She herself believes that if it wasn’t for the Divas then she could never enter the pro-wrestling scene in the first place.
At the same time, she also believes that in today’s professional wrestling, those so-called WWE Divas can no longer thrive. SoCal Val believes that there’s still a place in the business for female valets but the genre of women’s wrestling that existed pre-2015 has drastically changed,
“I have no idea why anyone thought that [Diva] was a negative term. A diva, to me, was always a very empowering term. I would never be in wrestling if it wasn’t for the WWE Divas era. And I don’t mean that just in terms of matches. With all due respect, I would have never been in wrestling if it was just serious wrestlers.”
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SoCal Val claims famous WWE Divas are the reason behind her career
Mentioning that she always wanted to be the likes of Torrie Wilson or Sunny, SoCal Val mentioned how the WWE Divas Search contest was the reason why names like Michelle McCool, Maryse, Maria Kanellis, Christy Hemme, and Candice Michelle entered the professional wrestling business,
“The fact that we can’t look at that period of time and go, ‘there were some great people in that era’ is really [unfortunate]. People forget how many great talents came out of the Divas Search. Now, did it get a little out-of-hand with gravy matches and jelly pool matches? Sure. But when I wanted to wrestle at all, I wanted to be in an evening gown or lingerie match. I wanted to exude this sort of powerful sexuality, this feminism, that I thought was really empowering.” (quotes courtesy Wrestling INC)
SoCal Val occasionally dissects happenings from professional wrestling on her GAW TV show and proceeded to note that the butterfly-shaped WWE Divas Title seemed a little bit stupid to her but the ‘Divas’ term was really empowering.
