WWE
AJ Lee Needs a Great Rival to Feud With in WWE
By Tom Clark , Featured Columnist Feb 12, 2014
Credit: WWE.com
AJ Lee is the current WWE Divas champion and one of the most popular women in the company. Her trendy comic book-fangirl style sets her apart from the traditional WWE Diva model and has helped carve out her own unique identity. AJ is also one of the best heels that the Divas division has ever seen, thanks to her somewhat mentally unstable personality that could cause her to snap at any moment.
But for all of her positive points and for all her accomplishments in WWE, the fact is that something is still missing for AJ Lee. And that something is a great rival for her to feud with.
As WWE fans know, an epic rivalry between Superstars is worth its weight in gold. Two opponents facing off in a bitter feud, with each one trying to best the other and prove just who is the better wrestler is. Some of the most dramatic angles and biggest moments in the company have come as a direct result of a top-notch feud.
John Cena versus
Randy Orton is the most recent example of this. Their WWE careers began at the same time, and over the past several years, they have had some very memorable showdowns. One of those took place as recently as the February 10 edition of Raw, in a match that perhaps put an end to their rivalry.
The bout was very evenly matched, well paced and accepted by WWE fans. The crowd was definitely into this one, and the possibility that Cena and Orton will not cross paths again at some point is very difficult to imagine.
Their rivalry spanned nearly seven years, and they had countless matches along the way. Each man had arguably found his greatest opponent, and their rivalry will go down as one of the most epic that WWE has ever presented.
Another great example is Stone Cold Steve Austin versus The Rock. Much like Cena and Orton, Austin and Rocky had each found their greatest rival. Each man wanted to be the best and used every opportunity given to one-up the other.
They brought out the best in each other, and for many WWE fans, there still has not been a better feud than Stone Cold versus The Rock.
But for the WWE Divas, such career-defining rivalries usually do not exist. For the most part, the women are haphazardly thrown into six-, eight- and sometimes 10-person tag team matches. The bouts are usually not that long most of the time, as the whole point seems to be quantity instead of quality.
On one side, there is the cast of E!'s
Total Divas, and on the other are the WWE TV Divas. The recurring theme to these matches is glitz and glam versus hard work without publicity. And while this may be OK for some, the truth is that it's really not doing much good for the woman at the center of it all.
AJ holds the prize that all of those Divas like The Bella Twins are after. And the more often she faces her assortment of challengers, the more that her title run somewhat begins to grow stale. The reason for that is because, with the exception of Tamina, there are 11 viable challengers for AJ's Divas title.
While this number sounds acceptable, the fact is that those 11 Divas have been spread out over AJ's entire title reign. That reign is 240 days as of this writing, and in all that time, AJ's top rival has been Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn, of course, is no longer with the company, and that leaves AJ without a great opponent for the Divas Championship.
AJ needs a top talent, a girl that brings something to the table in terms of character, ability and drama. For AJ to truly become the best Divas champion she possibly can be, the revolving door of challengers must stop spinning at some point.
AJ needs her own John Cena, her own Stone Cold to motivate her to step up her game. She always works better with a talent that can hold her own in the ring like Kaitlyn, which is what the Divas champ needs right now.
AJ Lee needs her own Lita.
This is perhaps the key to not only AJ's title reign but to keep the Divas division as exciting and entertaining as possible. Because while AJ is presented as the face of the Divas, like Trish Stratus was in her day, the fact is that she does not have that perfect foil like Trish had with Lita.
Trish and Lita were polar opposites, yet they shared the same desire to be the best in WWE. Each woman definitely allowed the other to shine, and they brought their best every time they faced off in the ring.
Their rivalry reignited the Divas division, and they made just as many headlines as any of their male counterparts at the time. This is what AJ Lee needs to truly make her Divas title reign successful and keep the division heading in an upward direction.
And that potential new rival could very well be Emma, who was just
called up from NXT. Emma is very good in the ring, and despite a quirky character, it could be that she will eventually challenge AJ for the Divas Championship.
Until AJ finds that one opponent to truly call her greatest challenger ever, her title reign as Divas champion could begin to suffer.