Diva Dirt presents its third annual Writers’ Choice Awards, the awards that celebrate the year in women’s wrestling, as decided by the editors and contributors of Diva Dirt. The Diva Dirt team has watched hundreds of episode of wrestling television this year, followed a countless number of wrestlers and reviewed tons of matches. Now, as we come to the end of 2013, we have picked the best of the best to be awarded our Writers’ Choice trophies.
Diva of the Year: AJ Lee
Was there really any other choice?
When the newly heel AJ Lee started 2013 with her new beau Dolph Ziggler, many fans were wondering if we would see much of AJ competing in the ring, and boy were we ever wrong!
Lee started the year by managing Dolph along with their new bodyguard, Big E Langston. By April, though, AJ was back in the ring, thanks to former BFF, Divas Champion Kaitlyn.
When AJ was revealed as Kaitlyn’s “secret admirer” on the June 10th edition of Raw, the segment that followed was something very seldom seen in the Divas division. AJ’s promo work earned praise by many, including WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross. Their match the following Sunday at Payback certainly lived up to the hype, delivering one of – if not the – best Divas match of 2013. AJ Lee walked away from it the new Divas Champion.
Around this time AJ even received her own t-shirt, a rarity in the Divas world. By the end of the year she had two full pages of merchandise on WWEShop, a first for any female past or present. Oh, and she also became the first Diva to break one million followers on Twitter.
After suffering a tumultuous break-up with Dolph Ziggler and forming a short-lived alliance with Layla, Lee and Big E. were bested by Dolph and Kaitlyn at SummerSlam, putting an end to AJ’s feud with Kaitlyn. However, the year was far from over.
The Divas segment on the August 25th Raw started as a normal Natalya vs. Brie Bella rematch from SummerSlam, but little did we know by the end of that segment, Diva fans would be split in two for the rest of the year. AJ’s tirade against the cast of Total Divas would be labeled by WWE Superstar CM Punk as the “Pipe Bombshell”, and while many fans labeled it as an unnecessary attack on the cast of the hit reality show, Cryssi put it best in her Raw Redux for that week: it got people talking.
Whether you were for AJ or against her, you were talking about her. AJ would soon begin defending her championship against the cast of Total Divas, defeating Brie Bella, Naomi and Natalya in a Fatal Four-Way match at Night of Champions and defeating both Brie and Nattie one-on-one on several occasions during the remainder of 2013.
As of this writing, AJ Lee has held the Divas Championship over a whopping 190 days and is well on her way to breaking Maryse‘s record for the longest Divas Championship reign. Just another notch on the studded belt of AJ Lee’s history-making year.
Love her or hate her, you have to respect the rags to riches story of the self-professed “One Woman Revolution” that has become reality in 2013. After dominating the past two years, one has to wonder what could be in store for the Converse queen in 2014. Who knows, maybe we’ll be seeing a tattoo commemorating AJ’s first match at WrestleMania alongside her infamous June 16th, 2013 ink.
Come back later today to see who will be crowned 2013’s Wrestler of the Year.
