YMMV / Beth Phoenix

• Audience-Alienating Era: The latter part of the Divas of Doom phase, where Beth suffered massive amounts of Badass Decay. Fans point to her being forced to say "Hunter, we're girls" in a vote of No Confidence against Triple H. She did have a point - since earlier in the night she'd got a Roaring Rampage of Revenge from Kelly Kelly that nearly knocked her out - but it had the Unfortunate Implications that even the champion, the top woman in the division, was inherently a Damsel in Distress compared to the males.
• Awesome Ego: Beth knew she was more powerful than every other Diva on the roster, and was more than able to back it up. Until about 2012 the only Divas to pin her cleanly were Mickie James and Melina - who only did so once. This was one of the reasons she proved very effective as a babyface in 2010.
• Broken Base: The decision to induct her into the Hall of Fame in 2017 split the fanbase down the middle. One camp is happy for her and feel she deserves the honor. The other feels she went in far too early - just five years after her retirement and at the age of 37 (making her the youngest inductee until the Bella Twins induction in 2020 at the age of 36). The second camp usually cites other women like Molly Holly, Ivory (who would be inducted the following year) or Chyna who they feel should have gotten recognized beforehand.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Her entire collection of outfits since SummerSlam 2011. All she needed was an apron and roller skates.
• Growing the Beard: Despite having wrestled legitimately for most of her life, her first two years as rookie in pro wrestling weren't full of stunning matches. A lot of promoters saw something special in her though and she was well on her way to becoming the pro wrestler people would rave about by 2003. Even in WWE her initial push was seen as lacklustre, and Diva Dirt writers viewed her as good in the ring but average in terms of character. It wasn't until 2008 and especially her feud with Melina that Beth really began to put people on notice.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Wrestling future boyfriend CM Punk (they since have split up) in the ring during the 2010 Royal Rumble.
  • At WrestleMania 24 during the tag match, she came out to Melina's music despite being the Women's Champion. In her other two Mania matches, she would be the senior ranking woman in the match but come out to someone else's music (both times it was Eve Torres). Her participation in the 25-Diva battle royal counts too, as all the girls came out to Kid Rock's mini concert.
• Hollywood Homely:
  • WWE tried to poke fun at her for being 'mannish' early on but they dropped it pretty quickly. LayCool also did it in their feud with her - but it was mostly used to show them as a pair of idiots.
  • An odd back-handed variation with the Divas of Doom storyline. As opposed to when 'Beauty vs Beast' had been done before in the division (Bull Nakano vs Alundra Blayze, Jazz vs Trish Stratus) it didn't quite have the same effect using Beth as the 'beast' in the feud - since as Cewsh Reviews put it "she's a gorgeous blonde with huge fake boobs too."
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • A big ball was dropped with the whole Divas of Doom storyline. Essentially Alicia Fox's face turn was meant to give Kelly and Eve a third Diva on their side because Kaitlyn was being groomed to become the third Diva of Doom. Vince McMahon changed his mind at the last minute and what could have been a fun 6-Diva feud got stopped - leaving Beth to do very little afterwards.
  • Despite being highly anticipated, Beth and Natalya never feuded with each other. They formed alliances twice in their careers but never had the feud that everyone wanted.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: At the start of her most current (late 2011-early 2012) heel run, she declared she wanted to put an end to the era of the eye-candy, "Barbie doll" Divas. Unfortunate Implications aside ^note It seemed to imply that it wasn't possible to be good-looking as well as a skilled in-ring performer, it might have gotten over decently as a heel gimmick if it weren't for the fact that a lot of smarks and fans of the old-school women's division agreed with her. This may or may not have been the reason for her Flanderization into a self-centered Alpha Bitch.