The Total Divas Files: Season 1

by James Dixon, Bob Dahlstrom (Illustrator), Benjamin Richardson (Illustrator)

The combination of wrestling and reality TV makes for an apt parable; they are two mediums steeped in falsehoods and deception. Both are heavily scripted forms of entertainment, designed to engage the viewer by creating pseudo-realities and magnified high drama situations. The result of the marriage of these two distinct worlds is Total Divas, a television show where the plot, dialogue, and conversational exchanges are about as genuine as Nikki Bella’s surgically enhanced breasts. With barely a lick of wrestling on display, entertainment is instead derived from an array of first world problems. We follow the trials and tribulations of seven ‘Divas’ (Natalya, The Bellas, Eva Marie, JoJo, Arianne, and Trinity) for the first season of the show. Each witnesses a whirlwind of life-changing decisions, dramatic experiences, and impossible choices. Sort of. We follow Nikki Bella’s desperate quest to entrap John Cena and convince him to marry her; Brie Bella’s transition from beauty queen to a grotty hippy who eats vegetables grown in her on faeces; Natalya’s quest for romance and her wedding woes; Arianne’s futile attempts to speak and act like an actual human being; Trinity’s drive to better herself; Eve Marie’s one woman heat machine act; and JoJo Offerman’s… well, nothing really. She sort of just stands around looking baffled for the most part. If that’s not enough to convince you, Daniel Bryan, Jay Uso, and Tyson Kidd come along for the jollies too. Strap yourselves in, it is going to be a bumpy ride…

138 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 20, 2017

About the author

James Dixon is Chief Editor and writer at historyofwrestling.co.uk, and is a frequent contributor to WhatCulture Wrestling content.