To celebrate Women’s History Month Diva Dirt will be highlighting some of wrestling’s greatest unsung heroes. These individuals for some reason or another don’t get the recognition, respect, and status they deserve. These retrospectives have
Here at Diva Dirt, we have already touched based on several who we feel are unsung heroes in the industry for the past several decades. Here is who we have gone over so far. You can click on their names to go to their respective articles.
To round out Women’s History Month will be probably the most controversial choice out of the whole month. Regardless if you liked her or didn’t, one thing is for sure, Eva Marie was always talked about. Eva’s journey started out as many in the past have and that is very green.
She started her career with WWE being brought right into the new reality show at the time, Total Divas. As a result, her training in the WWE Performance Center was said to be brief as she was prioritized on the reality show. Her appearance on the show around other main roster women propelled her right to the main roster with minimal in-ring training. This came with a huge amount of scrutiny when she did get into the ring.
With her affiliation with Total Divas, she was often seen with the cast on WWE programming. This included her being connected with The Bella Twins as their valet. From here she was in several multi-women matches and earned her first pinfall victory in a six-woman match on Tamina.
She would continue in multi-women matches, which could have been
She was involved in short feud with Summer Rae and then one with Aj Lee. The feud with Lee involved Eva losing a couple matches to the then Divas Champion. However, a few months later, Paige was feuding with Lee who was still the champion. During that, Eva had a set of matches with Lee and won them with the thanks of Paige’s distractions. These were non-title matches.
There was a brief glimpse of a tag team opportunity with herself and Summer Rae known as Red & Gold, but it never transferred over to the ring.
Shortly after this, Eva Marie took a hiatus due to an injury and she continued that hiatus to receive further training. She trained under the tutelage of former Tag Team Champion, Brian Kendrick. The training was highly featured on Total Divas and was a topic of criticism from the other women.They would often question why she was getting speciality training instead of at the WWE Performance Center with the rest of the talent.
The training with Kendrick saw her in NXT for about a year’s time. During that time she would defeat Peyton Royce in Royce’s debut match. Her main feud on the black and gold brand was the rising Carmella. She would be the last eliminated in that infamous number one contender’s Battle Royal that saw Eva Marie eliminate Asuka before being thrown over the top rope by Carmella. During her time in NXT is when she would receive the most heat by the fans. Many times the roaring boo’s from the crowd would drown out her promos.
Regardless of why the fans were booing her, she was without a doubt receiving the biggest negative reaction and that is far better than no reaction.
A highlight of her time in NXT was
Eva Marie would then return to the main roster in 2016 and would be on the WrestleMania 32 preshow in a 10-Diva tag team match. This would align her with her Total Divas counterparts. The 2016 Draft witnessed her being drafted to SmackDown. If anyone remembers the 2016 SmackDown women’s roster, everyone remembers the SmackDown Six. Unfortunately for Eva, she had the change to make it the SmackDown Seven, but things didn’t work out that way for her.
It felt like her whole career with the company amounted to this. A moment where she could stand on her own on
She began having a series of unfortunate events to where she couldn’t compete. These issues include a wardrobe malfunction, an injury, and even getting stuck in traffic. This would be the last we would see of ‘All Red Everything.’ She would fail a wellness test and state that it was due to the paperwork being turned in late. From there she would be perusing avenues outside of wrestling and in August 2017 she announced that she and WWE had parted ways.
Just as many have that we have highlighted through the month, Eva Marie left when she possibly was about to hit her stride. She may have had a lot of people against her but those that supported her rooted for her success. She had the look, she eventually found her confidence, and her in-ring skill showed promise.
She may not be talked about on today’s product, however, she has mentioned numerous times that she is on good terms with WWE since she has left.
What are your thoughts on Eva Marie’s career and do you think she ever truly got the right recognition for her services to wrestling? Let us know below.
Thank you for following along with Diva Dirt throughout the month of March celebrating Women’s History Month with who we consider Unsung Heroes.
