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July 3, 2008
A Brief History of Ashley
Truth is, I've always liked Ashley. I've always thought she was hot and she seems like she's a sweet person with a good heart. I can't honestly say I've ever thought she was anything resembling even a passable wrestler in the ring. Watching Ashley matches was always like watching a car wreck waiting to happen. I sure have laughed my ass off during Ashley's matches. I don't think a less coordinated, less natural, less athletic WWE Diva has ever graced a WWE ring.
Ashley has asked for her release from WWE because of circumstances surrounding her sick daughter. We won't have Ashley in WWE to kick around anymore. Shame. So sad. Still, while I'll miss watching her rocking… assets… this is probably for the best. For Ashley, her family, and for WWE. Ashley was never quite cut out for pro wrestling. If you look at it from her employer, WWE's, point of view, Ashley is the Homer Simpson of WWE: She never goes to work.
In three years with the company, I don't think any other member of the roster has spent more time away from TV. This isn't a case of "Creative has nothing for you" or that she's like Val Venis, an agent who trains others backstage and appears sporadically but remains listed on the main roster. She's proven to be unreliable and injury prone and has spent roughly half her tenure on the DL or absent from television.
Soon after winning the Diva Search in 2005, Ashley breaks her leg in a battle royal and spends months on the DL. In 2006 when she came back, she was moved to Smackdown and pushed as their top Diva. She was then made the valet of London and Kendrick, where she found her best success as she spent several months standing at ringside and pressing her huge breasts against the ring apron.
This run with the WWE Tag Team Champions was largely without incident. Then she somehow broke her wrist, so there was another brief leave of absence where she dropped weight and came back thinner than before. Ashley also starts contributing a column about her travels to rock concerts and meeting bands to wwe.com,
which if you've ever read her MySpace blogs, must have required long, sleepless nights of copy editing on wwe.com's part. She joined Kane and Batista as WWE Superstars to appear in season 6 of Smallville, where she got her ass kicked by Lois Lane in a fight. She then poses for Playboy, which is the most useful thing she did for WWE and her WWE career. (Also for me. I really appreciated that one.)
In 2007, Ashley's Playboy pictorial got her the biggest push of her career and a Women's Title match with Melina at WrestleMania 23, which was terrible and she bombed at. Unless I'm mistaken, she never wrestled another match in 2007. (I think you can count on one hand how many matches Ashley had on TV in 2007.) In the middle of a feud with Jillian, Ashley was then fired on TV for spilling coffee on Vince, making her cry like a wittle girl in the process (some tough punk chick she turned out to be).
She then spends more than half of 2007 off TV. But that was because she got Survivor: China, which is a huge break for her and a chance for a WWE talent to represent the company on one of the most popular shows on network TV. And she bombed and behaved embarassingly, even in the mudwrestling challenge that should have played to her strengths as a wrestler (which she only is by a wild stretch of imagination despite her primary employer). She was kicked off the island in episode 2. Something that WWE could have trumpeted becomes barely worth a mention on WWE TV.
In early 2008 Ashley returns to WWE, noticably even thinner and unhealthier looking. She makes a few appearances in January and then... she got injured again somehow. She spends the next two months off TV. Luckily for her, and unfortunately for Candice, Candice re-injured her collarbone. Ashley happened to be healed sufficiently from her latest injury to take Candice's place at WrestleMania XXIV. After a few more appearances in Diva tag matches and as a Diva Lumberjill, Ashley disappeared again when the Rolling Stone escort story broke. While off television, she continued to tattoo her only real commodity for WWE, her body, first adding Chinese writing down her right torso and later adding a dragon tattoo and more Chinese writing covering her entire left torso.
Ugh. Even Jim Ross on a recent blog was bewildered by this. Ashley remained off TV until she asked for her release.
If you were her employer, you have to ask yourself if she's worth the money you're paying her. Beyond her annual salary, there was the $250,000 she got for winning the Diva Search. What exactly has WWE received for their investment in Ashley Massaro? Honestly, considering her long absences and pathetic in-ring performances when she's on television, I'm simply amazed she lasted as long as she did. (Hell, she would have remained employed if she didn't ask for her release.) I won't conjecture how or why Ashley remained in WWE for so long when many others would have been dropped much sooner like a hot rock, but in the immortal words of Stevie Ray, "It don't make no sense, Tony!"
It's a poor ending to a strange, underwhelming WWE career. Still, I think I'll miss her. I hope Ashley's daughter becomes well and I hope Ashley herself gets her act together. I would even like to see her in WWE again, because despite it all, I still think Ashley's hot. But I would settle for her learning basic grammar and diction when she writes.
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