It’s the BIG one! The RAW after WrestleMania! Over the years we’ve seen rematches, debuts and title changes, so all eyes are on tonight’s show following the fallout from the biggest event of the sports entertainment calendar!
This week we are treated to a six-woman tag… first comes the Champion who successfully defended her RAW Women’s Championship, Bayley! She’s then joined by our fresh new face, Dana Brooke and the ever popular Sasha Banks comes out to round off the team.
So… we know Nia Jax and Charlotte would be a shoe in for the team, but the third and final member is a returning ‘Evil’ Emma! She enters the ring from the side, hops onto the announce table and hits her trademark 3-beat pose! What’s not so ‘evil’ is how her tron still features bubbles… even though Emma left that bubble popping corny character in 2015!
The match starts off with former NXT besties, Emma and Dana, facing off each other and it seems a little odd to watch at first, since these two were such a fun duo! However, Emma makes it clear that she wants the Champ and calls for Bayley to tag into the match.
Bayley tends to play the damsel-in-distrees in this tag dynamic, taking most of the beating throughout the match by her three hungry opponents, who all have very different offence. She eventually manages to get the hot tag to Sasha Banks, who manages to turn the match in the face team’s favour. The match begins to breakdown: Dana takes out Emma with an overhead slam, Nia sweeps Dana out the ring and onto the floor, Bayley takes out Nia with a crossbody and Sasha manages to reverse Charlotte’s attempt at the Natural Selection into a Banks Statement to pick up the victory!
After the match, the faces celebrate and head to the back, but the heels aren’t happy – particularly Charlotte. She pushes Emma and Nia, but the latter doesn’t take to that kindly. Emma avoids the mess, while Nia headbutts Charlotte, squashes her in the corner, hits her with a hair biel and finishes her off with an elbow drop. The long awaited heel on heel turn has finally happened!
NEXT WEEK: The landscape of @WWE will CHANGE as a SUPERSTAR SHAKE-UP begins on #RAW! #RAWAfterMania pic.twitter.com/Anm43PwoCw
— WWE (@WWE) April 4, 2017
It was also announced on Raw that next week’s show will feature a “Superstar Shake-Up”.
On the RAW Fallout, we catch up with Emma who says that no matter what brand she ends up on, she plans to come after the Champion.
We also catch up with Bayley and Sasha backstage, who seem nervous that the ‘shake up’ will separate them… even though we know Bayley isn’t able to get drafted.
Thoughts: THANK YOU EMMA! Literally, all it took was one new person in the mix and everything this week just felt more interesting. The returning Emma and a fresh face Dana just felt like a good step in changing the direction of the division. Also, Charlotte getting physical with Nia should have happened YONKS AGO. How many times have these two crossed paths? I’m not opposed to it now, but the relationship between these two has been so inconsistent that this didn’t have the impact that it should have.
The ‘Shake Up’ is also going to be key for the RAW women’s division. One new face and one new alignment is still not enough. I, for one, am not interested in seeing Bayley VS Sasha any time soon and I would be more than pleased if Sasha was drafted. In a cruel way, there is no space for 2 mega faces on this roster and Bayley’s innocent character doesn’t mesh with Sasha’s sassy character, that only shines when she’s heel. We’ve just seen a whole series of Sasha/Charlotte and I’m not planning to see another NXT re-run soon (that goes for Nia VS Bayley too!).
Overall, it was a night of making an impression. Sasha got the pin, Emma made her long overdue return and Nia showed who was most dominant. Next week is when the WM dust will have settled and we can really see what they plan on doing with the division. Sure it would have been nice to see Emma pick up the win, but hopefully they have big things in line for her!
Are you happy Emma made her return last night? Would you rather see Charlotte go face or Nia go face? What’s going to happen on next week’s ‘Shake Up’? Drop your comments below!
