killeroflegends

Aside from the reign that made Mickie James the shortest-reigning Women’s Champion in the WWE, the recent title reign of Mickie James may arguably have been her worst. She won the title in July at Night of Champions. She lost it on Raw this week. However, in those three months, she defended her title four times in televised matches, plus house shows. Her title reign has been marked by constant embarrassment, lack of feuds, and just pretty sad overall.

First, where were the actual feuds? The closest thing she got was her feud with Alicia Fox. It started with Alicia pinning Mickie in a tag match, but neither had any promo time. They managed to drag it on a few weeks for one title defense at Hell in a Cell, but that was basically it. Earlier on, it looked like they were going to create something between Mickie, Gail Kim, and Beth Phoenix, but that never happened. Gail Kim just earned a title shot and got it. Same goes for Beth. And in between it all, Mickie just got random tag matches. How can you make her character exciting like this? All you are expecting her to do is act like the serious Diva’s Champion defending the title against anyone. You are not giving her enough opportunities to show more emotion. In that sense, her title reign fell flat.

Every other week seemed to bring her embarrassment. Before looking at what I mean in terms of what is going on in the ring, let me bring up her injury. I do not know how the WWE really felt about it, although rumor sites and know-it-all fans can pretend to, but a lot of fans gave Mickie criticism for her injury. However, she only missed two weeks of not wrestling on Raw. She only missed not being used on Raw once. Beth Phoenix missed a lot more than that during her first title reign, not to mention certain other divas who have held titles through injuries. The injury did not hold Mickie back.

Her greatest embarrassments have come in the form of her matches. Everyone is saying that Mickie has become sloppy now? As I have mentioned before, you are not wrestling yourself out there. You rely on the person you are performing with. If they are garbage, or unable to hold their end for whatever reason, you suffer too. Does that mean you should blame yourself? I believe not. When going against such talent, you can only try so hard to watch the safety of both yourself and your opponent, try to perform around the sloppiness and inexperience of your opponent, and still hope to put on a good match. In the olden days, they might just have the experienced talent do all the work in the match. But in the WWE, you have to make the inexperienced look like threats sometimes by having them try to actually keep up with the experienced talent. That is where problems are formed.

The prime example is Rosa Mendes, who now has the great reward of being on ECW. Before and during Mickie’s title reign, Rosa has been booked to face Mickie James. Rosa is horrible. As I continuously mention, when you have to make that look good and go toe-to-toe with it, it is not a pretty picture. The last time they had a singles match, Rosa botched two spots. Because it was Mickie James executing the move each time, she is the one most will say is sloppy. In reality, it was Rosa who did not hold her end. She did not show good timing and quickness, ring intelligence, or fall stiffly and correctly when called upon to do so. But Mickie gets the blame.

I have not seen any of the matches between Maryse and Mickie James come out as badly as matches with Rosa, but people still want to criticize her for putting on boring matches? You are limited by who you are in the ring with. It has become clear that Maryse never fully recovered from her earlier injury. That is why many of her matches have been more about acting cute than actual wrestling substance. That is what Mickie had to work with to look like a credible Diva’s Champion. Their match at Night of Champions was not that bad. The only really awkward spot I picked up was when Mickie charged Maryse to hit her, did, but Maryse also got her knee up against Mickie. Mickie was in control before and after that spot, so it is obvious Maryse should not have tried to knee Mickie. But fans would still rather criticize the generic Mickie James. Maryse has a gimmick that people find sexy and cute, so defend her? Maryse is only a small step up from Rosa, but she did not do too much to make Mickie look good in their feud. On the contrary, it was really meant to develop Maryse further.

Mickie’s first title defense came against Gail Kim. I have written much about this match already. I will only say that this match would have put Mickie back on the map, but the bad bump Gail took caused a tragedy. In most good tragedies, it is not easy to point the finger of blame on any one person. Neither diva deserves blame. Accidents happen, but Mickie James still ended up taking a ton of criticism from fans out there. Gail Kim was just not able to work with Mickie. Mickie does not deserve blame for that.

Mickie’s next title defense was against Beth Phoenix. Easily the best of all her defenses. It told a good story, Mickie took some impressive bumps, she sold well, and hit a great counter to end it. It was a great birthday gift for her.

When Mickie James did defend her title against Alicia Fox, there was only one bad spot. Sadly, once again, it was her DDT. Rosa and Gail had already rose criticism of the move. Mickie did not do anything differently with that DDT that I have not seen done before by her, or even some men who execute the Tornado DDT off the ropes. The person taking the move must turn with the person executing it and take the impact down. Alicia simply did not roll through the move correctly. I want to believe she is capable of doing it, but just had a bad night. Once again, Mickie James did not do anything out of the ordinary to cause that botch.

Even in Mickie’s final match on Raw, and last match as Diva’s Champion, there had to be a sloppy spot. It was the counter to Jillian’s monkey flip. As I mentioned when talking about Raw, Jillian looked like she rushed that spot. Youtube is your friend, sometimes. Watch that specific spot a million times. Mickie James does set up both hands to flip over. What went wrong? Jillian’s own body bounces right in the same direction that she sent Mickie. Jillian’s head ends up directly under where Mickie was going to slam her hand down to execute the move. Mickie James, not wanting to smack Jillian in the head, which probably would have still botched the spot and might have hurt Jillian badly too, retracts her hand and tries to still counter with one hand. That is not how she intended to do the spot. She still saved it to some degree, but risked injury to herself and will face more criticism from the fans. Would you rather she crushed down on Jillian’s head? It still amazes me how some people expected Mickie James to actually give Gail Kim, who had already took a bad bump to the head, a big kick right in the head. You want to try for a credible finish or spot, but you have to watch out for who you work with. Jillian did not facilitate Mickie James in making that counter smoothly. It might have helped if they slowed down a bit, although it did look like Mickie was prepared to still counter. Problem is, Jillian had too much momentum on her, flipped Mickie to the left, and ended up having her own body bounce in that direction. That is what tripped Mickie James up. It would have worked better if Jillian either tried to keep her upper body from getting in Mickie’s way or sent Mickie further back, not to the side, so she would have safer space to land both hands and roll through, as it looked like she intended. And if you want to call Mickie sloppy for that spot, keep in mind that it was due to her having enough presence of mind to watch out for Jillian’s own safety.

In a somewhat unrelated point, I also see people criticizing Mickie for acting frustrated too often. I do not see that. Is it because she is not laughing when she stares at the challengers to her title? Someone brought it up after Raw’s match. Point is, Mickie has to treat her opponents as serious threats, when the situation does call for it. There is respect in that. She has to look like she wants a fight and is taking the action seriously. That is what you do when you are a generic face trying to add a feel to a match the WWE is probably not doing enough for anyway. And keep in mind that she did not look frustrated in the Diva Bowl last week. Why should she? It was not a title match. It was meant for comedy. And Rosa was acting like Bruce Lee. Funny? Mickie had to treat it like that. And lastly, and probably most important, I have seen people criticize Mickie for being too happy. Now they criticize her for being too serious? I can see where this will lead. The Republicans will never be satisfied with the Democrats, the Democrats will never be satisfied with the Republicans.  

I have seen the rumors that having Mickie lose the title to Jillian and get drafted to Smackdown was a punishment for her weight and her sloppiness. The weight issue is old. The sloppiness issue, as I have pointed out, has been a string of bad coincidences. In most cases of sloppiness in matches involving Mickie James over the past few months, it is usually her opponent not handling her end correctly. I will talk more about the draft another day, but having Mickie lose the title to Jillian, who then lost it to Melina, is a punishment? In my mind, no other heel on Raw could have done it. Beth was getting drafted herself. Even if they decided not to do that, they would have Beth win it just so she can have a 2-minute reign and job to Melina, who was meant to make the impact she did? The WWE likes Beth more than that. Rosa is Rosa. Alicia is too new. Jillian was the only one left, and probably a good choice to humiliate with a short reign, in the WWE’s eyes. Still, I do not like that Mickie lost to a woman who had no build whatsoever. She jobbed to a jobber.

This title reign was sad. Many fans were eager for Mickie to win it. The WWE just dropped the ball with it. They will not even follow through with a feud between Maryse and Mickie. Instead, all they really used Mickie for was to try to work with the inexperienced women. She was meant to help get them over and help them get some good matches under their belt. It did not work. Mickie James just came off looking bad in too many exchanges with some of these women. It has just been some of the worst luck in other instances. And if anything, Mickie illustrated that some of these women need more time in FCW. If the rumors about punishing Mickie is true, the WWE may get a better wake-up call when Melina starts putting on sloppy matches with any new divas on Raw. Mickie James did her best with this title reign, but just did not get any really good feuds, storylines to build her character while holding the title, and ran into horrible luck in the ring. I hope it does not kill her enthusiasm. I hope the fans still remember who she is and what she can do.

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