Only in WWE could an altercation be incited by gasp, a jump rope. The starring role, it seems, of tonight’s Divas segment went to said jump rope and it looked to me as though it got even more screen time, focus and attention than any of the Divas. In the words of The Miz: “Really? REALLY?” ‘Jump rope-gate’ came across as silly child’s play and made me wonder whether SmackDown had been transported to a kindergarten playground. These are grown women, right? Is it that hard to come up with real, personal animosity to sell storylines for the women? Apparently so. Watch ‘Friday Night Jump Rope’ below:
The segment opens with Rosa Mendes in the ring skipping in the ring. Sure, she’s got jump rope game but why is this on our TV? Out comes Kelly Kelly accompanied by Tiffany before Lay-Cool come out with Kaval and join commentary. Matt Striker explains that last week, Lay-Cool told Rosa to get in shape and that’s why she’s jumping rope. Hey Rosa, couldn’t do that backstage? Cue some funny comments from Lay-Cool and yes, I am still loving the rolling R’s. [“Rrrrrosa… Rrrrring”]
The bell rings, Rosa goes to hang up her rope, gets clubbed from behind by Kelly. Kelly hits the K2 and in the words of Bugs Bunny, “That’s all, folks!” So, the entrances took up two minutes and the whole match, bell to bell, lasted what… 10 seconds?
After the ‘match’, if it can even be called that, Kelly shows off her jump rope game before throwing the rope at Lay-Cool who are at the announce table. Layla and Michelle get heated and try to enter the ring to confront Kelly but Tiffany evens up the numbers and the co-Women’s Champions back off. Wait… haven’t both Layla and Michelle beaten Tiffany? Not that logic applies to WWE’s writing but wouldn’t it be easy for Lay-Cool to take out Tiffany considering she’s fallen to both of them before? Then couldn’t they just gang up on Kelly? It doesn’t seem all that ‘smart’, as Matt Striker put it, to me. Then again, you can see both Layla and Michelle are in expensive shoes and short skirts so it was given that there’d be no scuffle here. At least make it believeable!
The jump rope may be a small, inoffensive object used in this segment but to me, it signifies so much more. It signifies that WWE’s writers don’t care to show the Divas in real storylines with real personal animosity. Lay-Cool’s last feud with Beth Phoenix centered around make up and giving someone a makeover and now this feud includes a playground object like a jump rope? It just seems like WWE is dumbing down these girls, who are supposedly ‘smart, sexy and powerful’ and making them seem like nothing more than petulant, immature 12 year olds — and I think most girls grow out of jump rope at 12 anyway. WWE is so hell-bent on the Divas being ‘girly’ and ‘feminine’ that they’re radicalising it and doing the stupidest stuff.
The fact that a jump rope was thrown at Lay-Cool by Kelly — are you being serious? This is going to be an inciting incident in a feud? “Oh my God, she threw a jump rope at me, let’s get her!” Can you imagine that in a promo package before a pay per view match? Just a couple of years ago, you had Beth Phoenix slamming Melina up against a locker and it was so intense and so physical that you could see the animosity between them and you couldn’t wait to see them eventually wrestle each other. Throwing a freaking jump rope is doing nothing for me.
Then we have Rosa just standing idly by after the match. Last week, Lay-Cool humiliated her backstage. This week, Kelly humiliated her in a 10 second match. But afterwards when the Blondetourage and Lay-Cool faced off, she had the perfect opportunity to blind side either of them. But no, she was just standing there and looking goofy. Why bother with the segment backstage in that case?
This, to me, was one of the worst Divas segments that SmackDown has had in a really long time. Just so tedious, childish and frankly, insulting to not only the audience, but the Divas themselves.
The only positive I can draw is the mention of it being Layla’s birthday. Happy birthday to her.
