Former star says WWE cut time regularly for certain matches; explains why

A former WWE star recently revealed that the company regularly cut time for their matches. She also discussed the reason behind this decision.

Layla wrestled in WWE after winning the 2006 Divas Search competition. She got her start in ECW as part of Extreme Expose. Despite being a talented performer, many felt she wrestled at a time when the company didn't push the women like they did the men.

Today, women wrestlers main-event weekly shows and even premium live events but back in the day, the fans and the company only viewed the women as eye candy. As a result, when some of the men's matches would go over their allotted time slots, it was the women who would pay the price by having their time cut short, making it hard to tell a compelling story.

During a recent interview on the No Name Wrestling podcast, Layla mentioned that the WWE didn't care about the women's division. She even recalled hearing a writer tell her they didn't care about the women's stars.

"At that time, they didn't care about the women's division. I actually remember talking to a writer and they were like, 'We don't care about the girls' and I was like, 'Oh, okay, right'. So, we were just basically like a backburner... We were just, like, to distract the fans a little bit." [12:34 - 12:53]

Layla continued to say that the girls weren't factored for anything and would often get their time cut for certain matches.

"But for the girls, we weren't factored for anything and it was hard for us to do it because we were always the ones who would get our time cut. It was always like 'One minute, two minutes, three minutes.' So, what I feel, like, LayCool was able to to attain in that short period of time was pretty amazing because the company was behind us but not as much as they are behind the WWE women superstars at present." [14:33 - 15:07]

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Former WWE star Layla discusses the origins of LayCool

Layla got her big break in WWE after she moved from RAW to SmackDown and formed LayCool with Michelle McCool. They were known for being mean girls who would pick on other women. One of their most notable segments was when they made fun of Mickie James by calling her 'Piggie James.' Their act was widely popular at the time and it established both women as legit stars.

On the same podcast episode, Layla discussed how the idea for LayCool came about. She said that she wasn't supposed to be part of LayCool as the original plan was to pair Michelle McCool with Alicia Fox. Layla noted that she was initially planned to be a filler while Michelle feuded with Mickie so that they could keep the two away from each other till the PPV bouts. However, Michelle and Layla's chemistry was so good that they ended up becoming a tag team and it worked out well for all parties concerned.

"It wasn't supposed to be LayCool because I was on RAW and I got drafted to SmackDown where Michelle [McCool] was and originally, Stephanie McMahon wanted to do a 'Mean girls' storyline. She wanted two girls, mean girls, and it was going to be I think Michelle McCool and Alicia Fox originally. (...) So, I was just a filler. I was just supposed to be going out there just to do whatever and stuff like that but the chemistry between Michelle and I just kept growing and growing and even then, it still wasn't an idea. It just kept going and going and in the end, we just became a tag team. It just worked. I don't understand it, it just worked." [13:09 - 14:10]

It's good to see that the WWE's women's division has come a long way in the past decade.