{"id":102154,"date":"2021-10-09T10:11:34","date_gmt":"2021-10-09T14:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=102154"},"modified":"2021-10-09T10:11:34","modified_gmt":"2021-10-09T14:11:34","slug":"did-wwe-queens-crown-come-too-late","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/10\/09\/did-wwe-queens-crown-come-too-late\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Queen\u2019s Crown Come Too Late?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>October 8\u2019s <strong>Friday Night SmackDown<\/strong> kicked off Night One of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/10\/01\/queens-crown-tournament-king-of-the-ring\/\" target=\"_self\"><strong><em>King of the Ring<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0tournament, Some of <strong>World Wrestling Entertainment\u2019s<\/strong> greatest performers, like <strong>\u201cStone Cold\u201d Steve Austin, Booker T, <\/strong>and <strong>Owen Hart<\/strong>, used winning the tournament to enhance their gimmicks and their presences on the roster. This is the first KOTR held since 2019, before the global pandemic ushered in WWE\u2019s crowdless era. However, it was also night one of a highly anticipated, long campaigned-for event. Both WWE fans and WWE Superstars like <strong>Sasha Banks <\/strong>have long pushed for a \u201cQueen of the Ring\u201d tournament-now, it&#8217;s here, ahead of <em><strong>Crown Jewel<\/strong>, <\/em>the <strong><em>Queen\u2019s Crown Tournament<\/em><\/strong>-but, did it arrive past its due date?<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Queen&#8217;s Crown<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Charlotte Flair and Paige look back at the #GiveDivasAChance movement | WWE BACKSTAGE | WWE ON FOX\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CskGFoIkF5w?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><strong>The 2015 Revamp of the Women&#8217;s Division<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Pushed by the #GiveDivasaChance movement that erupted in 2015, WWE revamped its Divas division into a more serious, athletically driven, true women\u2019s division, led by the \u201cFour Horsewomen:&#8221; <strong>Bayley, Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch, <\/strong>and <strong>Charlotte Flair<\/strong>. Former <strong>UFC <\/strong>bantamweight <strong>Ronda Rousey<\/strong> also joined the fray, and the vanguard of the new women\u2019s division delivered game-changing moments like the first all-women\u2019s pay-per-view, the first women\u2019s match to headline <em><strong>WrestleMania<\/strong>,<\/em> the first women\u2019s <em><strong>Hell in a Cell<\/strong>, <\/em>the first Iron Woman match, etc. In the years that followed, <strong>NXT<\/strong> funneled more exciting female talent to the main roster, such as <strong>Asuka, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2020\/07\/20\/before-they-were-famous-shayna-baszler\/\" target=\"_self\">Shayna Baszler<\/a>,<\/strong> and <strong>Alexa Bliss.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>However, in recent months, women\u2019s matches at WWE have once again been shorter and gimmicky. Whilst some of these gimmicks have been delightful, such as breakout fan-favorite <strong>Doudrop\u2019s<\/strong> comic feud with <strong>Eva Marie,<\/strong> others, like <strong>Nia Jax\u2019s<\/strong> infatuation with <strong>Reginald <\/strong>and Bliss\u2019s demonic possession, have worn viewers\u2019 patience thin in 2020 and 2021. Worse yet, talented NXT call-ups <strong>Shotzi Blackheart, Tegan Nox,<\/strong> and <strong>Toni Storm<\/strong> haven\u2019t had much opportunity to showcase their talents since being called up to SmackDown. Throughout latter 2020 and 2021 so far, the women\u2019s division has been an unevenly booked division, where the very top tier of its performers, the likes of Lynch, Flair, Banks, and <strong>Bianca Belair<\/strong> can of course expect decent tv time, while its mid-card, like <strong>Liv Morgan, Zelina Vega, <\/strong>Storm, Nox, and Blackheart are underdeveloped and underutilized.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Toni Storm vs. Zelina Vega - Queen\u2019s Crown Tournament First-Round Match: SmackDown, Oct. 8, 2021\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-Evnu_jNGVU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><strong>The Queen&#8217;s Crown &amp; Its Middling Momentum<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>This left the history-making <em>Queen&#8217;s Crown<\/em> with little momentum to build or capitalize on heading into October 8. On night one, Vega, in a fun, scene-stealing cosplay villainess mode defeated Storm, whilst <strong>Carmella<\/strong> defeated Liv Morgan. Morgan\u2019s and Carmella\u2019s match was a continuation of their feud for the last few months, which started with Morgan\u2019s offense at Carmella declaring herself \u201cthe most beautiful woman in WWE\u201d, and now centers on Carmella safeguarding her beautiful face from Morgan, who broke her nose.<\/p>\n<p>Is it funny? Sure. But, the WWE women\u2019s division had once ceased to be a joke.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone who has seen Shotzi Blackheart, Tegan Nox, and Toni Storm in action on NXT knows what they can do, and how much screen time they should be receiving on SmackDown. Anyone who has seen Morgan\u2019s WWE Network documentary, \u201cLiv Forever,\u201d knows how much substance and potential she has that WWE has never properly tapped into. And anyone who has had an eye on WWE\u2019s booking of its women\u2019s division in the past nine months can\u2019t help but wonder, sadly, if the Queen\u2019s Crown tournament is not a shadow of what it could have been, if held at the height of the women\u2019s evolution in 2016.<\/p>\n<h3>More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/h3>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/watch.wwe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WWE Network<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.peacocktv.com\/watch\/home\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Peacock<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>October 8\u2019s Friday Night SmackDown kicked off Night One of the King of the Ring\u00a0tournament, Some of World Wrestling Entertainment\u2019s greatest performers, like \u201cStone Cold\u201d Steve Austin, Booker T, and Owen Hart, used winning the tournament to enhance their gimmicks and their presences on the roster. This is the first KOTR held since 2019, before [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3715,"featured_media":102159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,317,4,3,320],"tags":[163,351,403,7821,602,8017,1182,3207,598,1747],"class_list":["post-102154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-smackdown","category-women","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","category-wwe-women","tag-becky-lynch","tag-carmella","tag-charlotte-flair","tag-doudrop","tag-nia-jax","tag-queens-crown-tournament","tag-shayna-baszler","tag-shotzi-blackheart","tag-toni-storm","tag-zelina-vega"],"modified_by":"Robbie Sutter","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3715"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}