Lita fans would like to forget the Mickie feud, even saying they prefer to think of Unforgiven '06 as her real swan song. It wasn't putting over Mickie that was the issue for them. Mickie needed it, after all. It's just... Would it have killed them to allow her a
little dignity on the way out? Y'know, like Victoria? Plus, Mickie and Lita just didn't gel in the ring together. We remember everything going on
around the matches, but not the matches, themselves. Mickie's work with Melina was better. I know most here don't like Melina because of her offscreen issues, but I think she should be given credit where it's due. She was a very good performer.
They were both huge losses, though Trish was the biggest one. The real problem, though, was how the Division was handled by the company once they were gone.
The thing about Lita is she wasn't the most technically skilled wrestler, but she had tons of charisma. The main problem was the neck injury on the Dark Angel set happened at the worst time possible. Going into 2001, she was the most skilled among the women. Then, Fit Finlay took over training the women, and wanted to make them as good as the men.
Trish was the one everyone brings up as how Finlay changed things, but it was across the board. Molly, before, had been a Spot Monkey relying on acrobatic flips to cover her lack of technical skill. With Finlay, she became the great mat technician we identify her as, now. Jazz had been mainly a brawler, but Finlay turned her into a strong mat worker and submission specialist. By the time Lita returned from over a year off in 2003, she'd gone from being the most skilled to well behind the pack, and it showed. Less than impressive matches with Victoria and a title feud with Molly that just showed how far behind Lita now was put an end to her 2003 comeback push. Victoria was moved into the position as the top woman of the Division.
Why Victoria and not the popular Trish? Trish was in the doghouse, and would stay there for a year. Why, no one has gone on record about, though popular speculation was it had to do with her public comments about Playboy. Whatever it was, she went immediately from winning the Championship in one of the great Women's Division matches at Wrestlemania 19 to a year as the Division's resident jobber. It's worth noting that, right after, Victoria publicly said she'd be willing to pose for Playboy, though she never actually did. Playboy
would turn out to be the worst thing to happen to the Division.
2004 saw the big Victoria push, centered around a high profile feud with Molly and Gail. But then came May, where Trish and Lita, the buried girls who weren't supposed to ever be back in the title picture, had a one minute backstage segment that was supposed to push the Matt Hardy-Kane feud. The fans reacted, HUGE. This led to a match that got a bigger crowd response than the Championship feud between Victoria, Gail, and Molly was getting. These days, people like to claim that Trish & Lita were only the top Divas because the company wouldn't push Victoria, Gail, and Molly, but that isn't the case. The other three were the ones being pushed, but Trish & Lita grabbed the fans with their segment and match and said "PAY ATTENTION TO US!" This, in turn, told Management "PUSH US!"
And here is one of the reasons Trish deserves every bit of praise she gets. Aside from her charisma and great promo skills, she did what Victoria and Molly couldn't do, and that was work great matches and a classic feud with Lita. Molly, for all her technical skill, worked the exact same two matches every time. One was when she was with Trish, Victoria, or Gail, who all worked her style. The other was when she was carrying someone who wasn't really a wrestler, like Stacy. With Molly, Lita looked like Stacy Keibler. Trish, however, was able to adapt to Lita's spot oriented style. As a result, Lita was able to showcase what she could
do. Finally, she could be LITA, instead of trying to be Molly.
What Lita needed was some Lucha Libre girls there. That was her style, not the British style Finlay's girls worked.
Not that that makes Stacy into Lita's equal. With Trish, Stacy
still looked as much like Stacy as she did with Molly.
But, neither Trish nor Lita would pose for Playboy. Even Stacy wouldn't do it, and they couldn't just have Torrie to do it for the third year in a row, so... DIVA SEARCH! If they couldn't get their top stars to pose, then dammit, they'd hire a ton of swimsuit and lingerie models who would. Whichever one wound up Playboy's cover girl would have a match at Wrestlemania. Little did we know that the classic Trish-Mickie match at Wrestlemania 22 would be the final Wrestlemania match of it's type.
Just one year after Trish & Mickie brought the house down, instead of having the Mickie-Melina feud that was going nicely have a Wrestlemania spot, they went with Melina vs Ashley, on the basis that the Trish-Christy feud from two years before went over so well. What they didn't consider was Trish-Christy only worked because Trish went above and beyond with a series of classic semi-shoot promos that ridiculed the whole
idea of someone getting a title match just for posing in Playboy, and got the fans behind her in the process. Melina, as talented as she was, wasn't The Total Package who could pull that off, and the feud stunk. They decied the solution for the next year was... more Playboy models in the match! So, for Wrestlemania 24, it was Melina & Beth vs Maria & Ashley. Shockingly (at least to Management), it
still stunk. Trish declared BunnyMania a complete waste of Beth's and Melina's talents, and wondered why Mickie hadn't gotten a Wrestlemania match since the one they did together.
Then, of course, WWE went PG, which meant breaking ties with Playboy. So now we have a roster full of Divas who can't be used for what they were hired to do. They can't even do the bikini competitions and pillow fights the pure eye candy used to be used for.
It's been speculated that the reason the modern Divas are so interchangable for the most part is to
prevent another Trish or Lita from rising. It prevents any of the girls from getting the level of power they had, from puttling themselves in a position to
say or do whatever the hell they want without losing their spots. And, oh, you don't have to
pay them as much.
But, it also prevents any of them from really connecting with the fans. So, we have the stat that disproves the argument that the current crop are more marketable than the classic 2001-06 Divas... 2011 Magazine Cover Score: Diva That's Been Retired For Five Years - 7, Entire Current Diva Roster - 0. They're not only not as marketable as the Golden Era Divas were then, they're not as marketable as the Golden Era Divas
now. 
