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WWE is running into the same problem in 2020 that their men's division has been suffering from for the last several years: Creating new top tier main event level Superstars. It's not that they don't have the right people in place within their rosters to make this happen. They just refuse to acknowledge that they have a problem to begin with and don't want to change from the tried and true way the company has been operating on for the better part of the last two decades.
Throughout the rise of the women's division within the WWE over the last five years, the company has heavily relied on the Horsewomen of both WWE and MMA to carry the load and help move things along. But these women aren't going to be around forever. Becky Lynch is pregnant, Charlotte Flair is currently off the road, Ronda Rousey hasn't been seen since WrestleMania 35, and Sasha Banks has had a long history of injury issues. While all of these women are fantastic cornerstones of the women's division right now, they can't be relied upon to be there five or even 10 years from now.
Today, we look at five women that are currently signed by WWE who the company can rely on to help shape the future of their division for years to come.
#5 WWE wasn't truly ready for Asuka, but are they actually ready now?
Ten years ago, the thought of someone in professional wrestling ever breaking the streak that Bill Goldberg built in WCW during the late 1990s would be unheard of. Yet in 2017 it happened as Asuka completed her 510-day undefeated NXT Women's title reign, surrendering the championship and heading to the main roster for Monday Night RAW.
While it took a little bit for the Empress of Tomorrow to find her footing on the Red brand, she eventually started to come across as the same woman that we saw from NXT. She also went on to become the first-ever women's Royal Rumble winner in 2018.
From there, everything went wrong as Asuka was moved to the SmackDown brand on a collision course with Charlotte Flair for the SmackDown Women's Championship at WrestleMania. It was at that point when we saw what WWE's creative team thought of Asuka as she lost her first match in the company by tapping out to Flair at WrestleMania. That Asuka is good, but she'll never be on the level as the Horsewomen.
From that point on, Asuka's WWE career has had its fair share of ups and downs on the main roster. While she has enjoyed some success at times, it never truly felt like WWE wanted to put her on the same playing field as the other main event women in the company.
In 2020 however, with half of the Horsewomen sidelined, Asuka has once again resumed her rise on the RAW roster to one of the most prominent women in the WWE. The true test will come when people like Lynch and Flair return to the WWE roster over the course of the next year. Will WWE continue to showcase Asuka as the star she's meant to be? Or will she become an afterthought once again and play second fiddle to the Horsewomen? Only time will tell.
#4 WWE's Golden Goddess, Mandy Rose, needs time to shine on her own
While some women have gotten the chance to shine on their own in the WWE women's division, others have been relegated to strictly being a tag team competitor. Enter the Golden Goddess herself, Mandy Rose, who has pretty much lived in the tag team division since being called up to the main roster.
Throughout her time in Absolution and Fire and Desire, her star quality was apparent. Rose continued to improve in the ring developing her craft, and most fans thought it was a foregone conclusion that she and Sonya Deville would eventually have a run with the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship, but it never happened.
Instead, they split up the duo in a romance storyline involving Otis of Heavy Machinery and it looked like the company was planning on having both women pushed as singles competitors going forward. When Rose was traded to Monday Night RAW a few weeks after her victory over Deville at SummerSlam it felt like a lock that she was about to get that push, even getting vignettes to hype her arrival claiming that the show would turn into "Mandy Night RAW".
Yet when she finally made her RAW debut she was once again saddled with another tag team partner. This time it was Dana Brooke, who was also traded to RAW out of nowhere for no clear reason, thus starting the process on a new brand all over again. While Rose and Brooke work fine as a team, one can't help but wonder how successful the Golden Goddess could be if WWE pushed her as a singles star and let her continue her rise in the women's division.
There have been many comparisons between Rose and Trish Stratus over the last couple of years. Stratus wasn't great in the ring when she started either but developed and got better while she arguably became one of the most iconic women in the history of WWE. Can Rose get there as well? We won't know unless WWE decides to bet on her and give her a chance. We'll see where her career on RAW takes her in 2021.
#3 WWE took away Rhea Ripley's shine in 2020. It's time to get it back
What a difference a year makes. In late 2019 Rhea Ripley was on top of the wrestling world, winning a huge War Games match at NXT Takeover and leading her NXT team to victory against WWE's RAW and SmackDown in the span of 48 hours. The future looked bright for Ripley, who then went on to defeat Shayna Baszler in December to become the NXT Women's Champion for the first time.
It seemed like her momentum was almost unstoppable at this point and that it would only be a matter of time before Ripley would be heading to RAW or SmackDown as their next big WWE women's singles star. Then, much like what happened to Asuka, Ripley ran into Charlotte Flair.
In one of the biggest head-scratching moments of professional wrestling in 2020, Flair went over Ripley clean at WrestleMania to become the NXT Women's Champion again, a move that halted Ripley's rise to WWE superstardom quicker than you can say "Wooo!".
Flair's reign was pointless and uninspired and when she dropped the championship to leave the brand, she didn't even take the pinfall. Who did? That's right — Ripley.
From that point, Ripley's NXT career has been in a state of flux. While she consistently talks about wanting to be the champion of the Black and Gold brand once again, she instead finds herself in pointless feuds with the Robert Stone Brand.
While Triple H's words last week about Ripley headlining a WrestleMania in a few years are encouraging, it's time for Hunter to put his money where his mouth is. If he can't make her look like a star again in NXT, how is anyone going to believe that once she gets to WWE's main roster that her character will be treated correctly?
2021 is going to absolutely crucial to Ripley with how she is booked and one can only hope that year for her is a lot more like 2019 and a lot less like 2020.
#2 NXT is lucky to have Toni Storm back because she could be a huge star in WWE right now
Due to the state of the world in 2020, we haven't seen much of Toni Storm in the wrestling ring. But with her recent return to the Black and Gold brand, it's Toni time all over again. And the WWE Universe are the winners in all of this by having her back on television every week.
Storm already has a collection of accolades while under the WWE umbrella including being the second ever Mae Young Classic winner and a former NXT UK Women's Champion. It's not hard at all to believe that the best is yet to come for the 25-year-old Aussie.
While many could argue that Storm is ready for WWE's main roster right now, returning to strengthen the NXT women's division should never be considered a bad thing. The number of potential dream matches that she can have in 2021 with just the NXT roster alone should be enough to get anyone excited as a wrestling fan.
With her incredible in-ring talent and her rockstar-inspired look, it should be a no-brainer that Storm will have a tremendous career with WWE in her future. If the company is smart, it should absolutely continue to be Toni time for the years to come.
#1 The EST of WWE, Bianca Belair needs her standout moment in 2020 to set her up as the future of the division
In April of 2020, the EST of NXT became the EST of WWE by making her main roster debut on the grandest stage of them all, WrestleMania. To get a big debut on such a show, it would be safe to assume the WWE creative team had big plans set up for Bianca Belair in the future but that hasn't been proven to be the case.
Since her call-up in April to Monday Night RAW, Belair has been used sparingly at best. Most of her matches take place on WWE Main Event, a show that, to be fair, hardly anyone even watches. It's a really odd way to utilize such a talented woman that could be doing big things for WWE on national television every week.
Over the last couple of months, WWE has gone the route of running vignettes on Belair to hype her up to the viewers watching at home. While it's never a bad idea to do things like this, one has to question why they didn't do this months ago. But as the old saying goes, it's better late than never.
With Belair recently being drafted to SmackDown, WWE has a fresh opportunity to make a bona fide star out of her on Friday nights. Hopefully, they have a plan in place for her after the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view on Sunday going forward. Because If WWE chooses to push these five women to the top of their company in 2021, mixing them in with the Horsewomen as the top women's stars in your company, the sky is the limit for the division going forward.
