Diva Dirt‘s Weekend Analysis is hotter than the Sunday newspapers… free DVDs included! This is the feature we aim to analyse our favourite and not so favourite Divas as well as the current news stories. This week, we ride the gravy train that is Gail Kim‘s TNA departure!
Keeping up to date with this news story has been one of my top priorities this week, which shows A) that I have little to no life and B) that this is major, major news. The turnaround between the announcement of Gail leaving TNA and the announcement she would be re-joining WWE has to set a world record. No one in history has jumped ship that quickly, surely? My esteemed colleague *cough* Erin thinks that this fast turnaround suggests that Gail has been considering the jump to WWE for some time, allowing this to take place so quickly. Gail has words with WWE officials, Gail is offered a contract, Gail waits for her TNA contract to expire and immediately signs with WWE. Sounds like a logical story. However, other reports suggest that Gail held out for TNA to match or better WWE’s financial offer (which is assumed to be a significant amount) and when they couldn’t give her the money she wanted, she took the more lucrative opportunity. This, in my eyes, does not make Gail a “bitch” or “traitor”, this my friends, is simply business.
I’ve made my feelings real clear on the site this week, I love that Gail is coming back to the WWE because she was one of my favourite Divas during her 18 month tenure and she would go onto become my favourite Knockout. Gail really put the TNA Knockouts division on the map with Awesome Kong and accomplished so much in just under a year with her fellow Knockouts. I would say in the last year, Gail has come full circle in TNA and I think in the past few months, without a lucrative storyline she began to wane in the same way Mickie James has in WWE. After being involved in a huge storyline with Kong, Gail lost the title and the lack of singles storylines for her over the past few months have left her a little stale. Even without the storylines, she was winning all her matches like Mickie, but with no real character development, I think Gail had eased into a Mickie type role in TNA. She was their top Knockout but not really that exciting anymore, TNA failed to book Gail strongly as a title contender or give her a feud in the meantime. Creatively, it’s said that Gail had no problems with how she was used in TNA, but my take is that she had come full circle in TNA and perhaps leaving the company was for the best.
So Gail is going to be a WWE Diva once more, earlier I wrote that this is just business but let’s look at the other side of the coin. Even if it is just business, will Gail – for all the money it’s thought WWE is willing to pay her – be able to have the same excitement and appreciation of her job in WWE? Compared to the fast paced Knockouts division, Gail won’t have the opportunity to go all out in the ring and hell, she may not even appear on TV for weeks at a time. If her decision is purely financial, can and will Gail Kim be as appreciative of the WWE fans? In the entertainment business, you have to have passion and drive. Gail’s new WWE deal will be for a “significant amount”, but has she thought about the other aspects? I should hope Gail doesn’t expect to just turn up at TV tapings, do her job and go home. There’s a lot of fan interaction for wrestlers and we know that Gail loved her job in TNA, but can she bring that same enthusiasm to her new job in WWE. Will she want to sign autographs for the WWE fans? Will she care about her work in the ring?
Even though I am a fan and I’m really excited about Gail coming back to the big time, these doubts have crossed my mind. When WWE released Gail in 2004 they said it was because they were going in a different direction with the women’s division, this was the truth. However here and now, in 2008, WWE has a renewed focus on women’s wrestling and here and now, in 2008, it seems WWE wants a great female wrestler like Gail to add to that focus. Or is this simply pot shot at TNA? Time will tell if Gail and the WWE are a good fit, here’s hoping they are!
