WWE Missed Opportunities: Reliving the Miss WrestleMania Diva Battle Royal

WWE is barreling down the road to WrestleMania. As a result, Missed Opportunities will focus on the company's top event each week for the next month.

In this edition, we travel back to WrestleMania 25 from Houston, Texas, and look at the "Miss WrestleMania" 25-Diva Battle Royal.

How could this particular match have been better? Oh, let us count the ways.

When the match was first announced, it seemed like a very intriguing idea. WWE promised to have current Divas as well as Divas from the past compete in the match.

The winner would be crowned Miss WrestleMania and have a chance to be recognized with something no Diva ever had to that point.

But instead of creating an unforgettable moment, rewarding the women who had been an integral part of its programming, WWE put together a match that should be considered as nothing short of a flop.

For viewers, the most interesting aspect of this match had to be thinking about the women WWE would call back from the past. After all, fans knew most of the current Divas on the roster at that time would take part.

But WWE never made any official announcements—other than to say Sunny would be part of the match. Instead, the company chose to keep fans guessing as to who the other participants would be.

Without knowing, waiting until the show started was the only way to find out who else would be part of the match. There would have to be ring introductions, right?

Wrong.

Instead, the Divas all came out together—to a Kid Rock song. WWE chose to have him perform a short concert for the fans in Houston, and apparently, that left WWE with no time to introduce the women in the match.

Now, you have a ring full of Divas who are literally already brawling while the rules of the match are made known by ring announcer Justin Roberts.

Who is in the match? Who just got eliminated? The whole thing turned into a disaster.

As for the former Divas, there was no Trish Stratus, no Lita and no Sable. Instead, WWE brought in far less popular Divas such as Joy Giovanni and Jackie Gayda-Haas.

But you probably wouldn't have noticed that during the match, as it seemed the announcers didn't even know who was actually in it.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the match came down to Melina, Beth Phoenix and a Diva known as "Santina." This was Santino Marella dressed up as a woman. Take a guess who won it all?

Santina Marella was crowned the first—and to this point, only—Miss WrestleMania. Many of the fans in attendance actually cheered this.

The match did feature popular Divas from the past such as Torrie Wilson and Victoria, but WWE still did them no justice by basically making no mention of them being in the match.

As for Stratus and Lita, perhaps WWE couldn't come to terms with them or they just weren't interested. They certainly didn't miss anything by not being there.

Still, this should have been a moment that not only celebrated 25 years of WrestleMania but also women's wrestling in WWE.

Instead, the company chose to turn it into comedy hour, and as any avid fan of WWE will probably attest to, WWE's comedy hour isn't funny nine times out of 10.

Dang, #GiveDivasAChance is still trending?! Great job wrestling world! Let your voices be heard. Lots of hardworking ladies out there.

— Velvet Sky (@VelVelHoller) February 25, 2015

Recently, a movement called "Give Divas a Chance" was started on Twitter. Those in support of it should point to this match as one of the biggest reasons for why change is still needed in the division.

Though it has been nearly six years since this match, the Divas division hasn't received any more attention. Time will tell if the Twitter movement does anything to change that.

However, if WWE ever decides to hold another Miss WrestleMania Battle Royal, it's probably best to prepare for something like what took place at WrestleMania 25.