ECW Rating Is Way Up, Backstage WWE Diva News, Mickie, More
ECW did a 1.4 cable rating. The show did an official number of 1.38. That is way up from the normal 1.1 or 1.2.
What with the apparent WWE departure of Ashley Massaro, Maria's move to SmackDown, Melina out for five months due to a heel injury, Candice Michelle out with an injury until at least SummerSlam, and Kelly Kelly not potentially crossing over between ECW & Raw until at least September, that leaves Mickie James as the lone babyface women's wrestler on the Raw roster. It's down to one face in Mickie and four heels in Beth Phoenix, Katie Lea, Jillian and Layla on Raw. On SmackDown, besides Maria, there's only Michelle McCool and Cherry on the face side. And WWE doesn't really have any female developmental talent waiting in the wings for call-ups as wrestlers either as they're pretty much all models with little to no wrestling experience. There are only two actual wrestlers in developmental in the Bella Twins, but they've probably had no more than 20 matches and appear to have a greater chance of being used as valets should they ever get called up to the main roster. Milena Roucka has some wrestling experience, but it seems highly unlikely that she'll ever be used as a wrestler unless she significantly improves. She's been in developmental for nearly two years and still has yet to work a single WWE dark match or house show in that time, which pretty much explains her talent level. She's primarily being used as a valet in FCW anyway. They also have Angela Fong, another model, but she only started wrestling in March and has competed in a handful of a matches. She's more of a valet too. There is another model in Beverly Mullins, but she's strictly a valet. The other female in developmental is Curt Hennig's daughter Amy, but she's currently in the training stage and still has yet to appear on a wrestling show. As if that isn't enough, the potential talent pool is significantly smaller compared to last year as TNA has locked up most of the premiere talent from the indy scene for their Knockouts division — which continues to lessen with each passing month. So even if WWE decides to start signing actual women's wrestlers, they're pretty much left with girls that even TNA didn't particularly want.
Speaking of Mickie James, the Women's Champion now has an account on WWE's Fan Nation site. You can reach her page at fans.wwe.com/mickiejames. Although, it appears that some of these accounts are being run by the WWE.com staff, perhaps saving the pages for Superstars in the future.
Candice Michelle has posted a new blog for GoDaddy.com. Candice talks about recently doing some volunteer work with her church.