In the summer of 2004, the Diva Search was all over WWE Raw. The go-home show for SummerSlam alone featured no fewer than three segments:
An opening segment to announce the last week’s poll results…
…some undisguised food fetіsh content…
…and a bikini lineup to kick off the next round of voting.
With all the airtime dedicated to the Diva Search, it’s a wonder Raw could spare even a few minutes for its actual women wrestlers.
The babyface Divas did beat the heel Divas in six-woman action…
…but afterwards, Women’s Champion Trish Stratus had a private chat with all of them. Whatever she had to say, it must have been important, because all seven Raw Divas walked out together.
Later that night, Trish revealed her master plan: She and the rest of the Raw Divas would challenge these Diva wannabes to a seven-on-seven contest.
Of dodgeball.
Diva Dodgeball.
And it’s what all the women would do at SummerSlam instead of wrestle.
You’d think this was yet another inane Diva Search challenge. But in storyline, not only was it Trish Stratus’s idea, it was an idea that made the entire Divas locker room instantly set aside their differences.
Diva Dodgeball just had that power, I guess. Why, six nights later at SummerSlam, in the midst of a heated argument with Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross announced Diva Dodgeball as the next item on the format.
“Yes!” said the King, snapping to attention. “Diva Dodgeball! Diva Dodgeball!”
Between the Divas themselves thinking it was a bloodsport, and Jerry Lawler thinking it was some kind of nudie show, it seems no one involved had ever seen a game of dodgeball.
Cut to Jonathan Coachman at the Toronto Raptors’ practice court. Coach welcomed us “for the first time ever” to Diva Dodgeball at SummerSlam, implying this would be an annual thing.
First came the so-called “Team Dream”:
- future Big Show love interest Joy
- future Layfield Chief of Staff Amy
- Tracie
- future First Lady of ROH Maria
- eventual winner Christie
- highly suspect WWE Hall of Famer Michelle McCool
They certainly weren’t the Dream Team (and if they were, Tracie would be Christian Laettner).
Next hopped out Team Diva. While viewers surely caught the obvious splice during their entrance…
…thanks to the matching uniforms, they might not have noticed Gail Kim and Nidia switching places. How fortuitous!
The WWE Divas took turns intimidating their opponents…
…and/or shaking their asses…
…but for reasons unexplained, captain Trish sat out, leaving her team with only six players. Yet somehow, the sides remained even. Hey, weren’t there supposed to be seven women on each team?
Well, look at that Team Dream lineup once more and you’ll notice two things:
- These Diva Search contestants were all worryingly skinny, and
- There were only six of them
It seems Carmella DeCesare no-showed the event, and WWE refused to even mention she was missing lest she lose votes.
The same company that buried Steve freakin’ Austin within hours of his walkout, couldn’t afford to make Carmella—far and away the most hated of the Diva Search bunch—look bad.
Then again, this was the guy in charge of talent relations in 2004, so this probably wasn’t a strictly business decision:
Earl Hebner blew the whistle, and Diva Dodgeball was on.
Team Diva snagged both balls at the outset but failed to capitalize. Instead, Christie Hemme nipped Jazz in the foot for the first elimination.
Next, Victoria got the boot after failing to catch Michelle’s throw.
Then, Stacy was supposedly hit in the rear.
Molly Holly was the next woman out…
…followed immediately Joy, thinning out the Diva Search team.
Michelle McCool made her third elimination when she grazed Gail Kim. Gail complained it was only her visor…
…but Earl Hebner (in what’s come to be known as the Toronto Screwjob) ruled her out.
This left only Nidia…
…who quickly fell victim to another Michelle McCool shot.
That meant a decisive victory for Team Dream, who endured ungodly amounts of chafing to celebrate.
Trish argued in vain with the referees…
…then brawled with Victoria. But the record books would show only a 6-1 rout by the 2004 Diva Search contestants…
…beating the WWE Divas at their own game (or Ben Stiller’s game, at least).
“That’s an upset in my book”, said Jim Ross (whose three autobiographies and two cookbooks never once mention Diva Dodgeball). What JR meant was that wrestling skills are supposed to transfer over into dodgeball, in much the same way football skills transfer over into wrestling.
Jerry Lawler, meanwhile, was baffled that the live audience (at least those not in line for the bathroom) would boo this segment. “These Canadians don’t even like women”, said the King. “I think they were just booing the women!”
For Jerry, there could be but one explanation, and it involved Superman comics.
Luckily, Trish Stratus and Gail Kim were kept far, far away from their hometown Toronto crowd so they didn’t have to hear this disrespect.
Jerry did have a sliver of a point. Diva Dodgeball certainly wasn’t worth cheering, but was it worth booing?
I mean, who the hell cared about Diva Dodgeball? Who the hell cared about any of this?
I’ll tell you who the hell cared: The Boys. The Boys the hell cared.
After witnessing their female counterparts lose a playground game to a bunch of unsigned rookies, the WWF Superstars summoned the entire Raw Divas roster to Wrestlers’ Court.
For the prosecution, Val Venis.
For the defense, Ivory.
And the presiding judge, Reichsrichter Triple H.
Ivory argued that Diva Dodgeball was actually a work, and that the WWE Divas were supposed to put over the Diva Search contestants.
(They certainly put over Michelle McCool, but she got eliminated the next night anyway, as polls had closed five days before Diva Dodgeball even aired.)
Would The Boys have preferred they put over the bikini models in the ring instead of the dodgeball court?
But the fix was in, and The Boys ruled against the Divas.
Later that year, when WWE hosted a male Diva Search called Tough Enough, Kurt Angle got into a shoot fight with one of the contestants and nearly tapped out. The Boys and their Wrestlers’ Court, previously so protective of the business, had nothing to say about this.
After all, it’s not like he lost at dodgeball.