With a clear match set for Tables, Ladders and Chairs, the race is on for Mickie James to make her mark as she now has the opportunity to get her hands on the RAW Women’s Champion. Although, where does that leave all the other women? Well, it looks like RAW General Manager Kurt Angle has some plans, so let’s see what happened on the RAW Redux!
Mickie James makes her way to the ring, sporting a slightly lighter hair colour and she’s finally getting a decent reaction! This week she’s out to address the behaviour of our RAW Women’s Champion, Alexa Bliss, whose comments about Mickie’s age have finally struck a nerve. Mickie calls out Alexa for being a coward and once again, telling her that it’s time to jump out her booster seat. Age is nothing but a number for Mickie and the only number she cares about is ‘7’ because she plans to make history to tie Trish Stratus’ record of winning 7 WWE Women’s Championships.
This brings out Alexa Bliss, who has a look of concern on her face. She says that she’s not out to cause trouble or make fun of her age… until she reveals that she’s been working on a new ‘Tribute to Mickie James’ to educate our younger fans. The video is black and white, flicking like an old film projection and a voiceover that digs at Mickie’s age. Alexa tells Mickie that at TLC she’ll be running circles around Mickie.
Mickie laughs it all off and tells ‘biscuit butt’ Alexa to come into the ring. This starts a bit of an annoying chant, but hey at least the crowd are paying attention. Alexa starts walking down the ramp and seems to answer the challenge, but turns away and starts walking back. Not so fast! Mickie chases Alexa, yanks her by the her and throws her into the ring. She hits a Lou Thesz Press and attempts a Mick Kick, but Alexa manages to escape. Mickie has the Champ’s number this week, but this is definitely going to escalate next week!
On the Fallout, Mickie addresses how despite Alexa helped to bring her back, it’s clear that there was some ulterior motives. She says that she’s a 38 year old woman and not a little girl, she aims to prove why Alexa is a shell of a Champion compared to her.
.@SashaBanksWWE vs. @EmmaWWE vs. @itsBayleyWWE vs. @DanaBrookeWWE vs. @AliciaFoxy TONIGHT on #RAW.
The winner faces @WWEAsuka at #WWETLC! pic.twitter.com/wGuTWsTYXu
— WWE (@WWE) October 10, 2017
Another Asuka promo plays, reminding us that she’s debuting in just under 2 weeks! Backstage, Kurt Angle is watching with Bayley and Sasha Banks, when Bayley asks if she can take on Asuka at TLC because she’s the most welcoming person. She gets interrupted by Sasha who says that ‘The Boss’ VS ‘The Empress of Tomorrow’ in a first-ever match would be ‘legit’. Alicia Fox then runs in and says that she should get an opportunity because she’s been there for a decade and doesn’t have a t-shirt – Crazy Fox is back! Dana Brooke, now sporting a lovely grey hairdo, takes the ‘unhappy employee’ route and says that she doesn’t feel like she exists sometimes. Finally, Emma brings up the ‘Women’s Revolution’ card and says that why she should get the chance. This causes Alicia to bring up the fact that Emma walked out on her last week, but before they bicker Kurt Angle interrupts.
He sets up a Fatal 5 way match between Emma, Alicia Fox, Sasha Banks, Bayley and Dana Brooke for later tonight. The winner of the match will get to face Asuka at TLC!
Onto the match, Jojo announces that it’s an elimination match (although I don’t think Kurt mentioned it – seemed like the commentary team has no idea either). Anyway, the match seems to start off with a brawl with Emma dodging getting involved. Dana takes out Sasha on the outside, while Alicia dumps Bayley – leaving her alone in the ring with Emma.
Alicia hasn’t forgiven Emma for last week, so she tries to get her, but Emma isn’t playing ball. Dana gets back in the ring and she works together with Emma to hammer down kicks on Alicia. Emma pats Dana on the head, which causes that very brief alliance to end. Dana hits two handspring elbows, but Bayley joins the picture. Dana gets the better of their encounter and hits a running splash for a 2 count. Dana tries to go for her Samoan Driver, but Bayley wriggles out and hits her Bayley-to-belly! 1.. 2… 3! Dana is eliminated and before Cole makes a terrible error, Jojo announces her elimination to confirm that this is an elimination match.
Sasha runs in and tries to roll up Bayley, which causes tension among the Besties… but Bayley doesn’t hold back and gets right to work on Sasha, until they both get shoved down by Alicia. In the chaos, Foxy sees the opportunity to hit her Axe Kick and takes out Bayley! 1.. 2.. 3! The Hugger is eliminated and the crowd aren’t happy!
When we come back from the break, Emma and Alicia have teamed up on Sasha… so it looks like last week’s problems are forgiven… that’s until Emma tries to roll up Alicia. Alicia gets in Emma’s face and calls her a punk. After the two scuffle, Sasha takes them both out with a double dropkick. Emma falls out the ring, while Alicia and Sasha go one-on-one. Sasha gets the better of their encounter and ends up being able to lock to Banks Statement on Alicia! Alicia struggles, but is forced to tap out! While Sasha still has the hold, Emma rolls her over and gets the final surprise pinfall. Emma will be taking on Asuka at TLC!
The Fallout asks the question that we all want to know… why do they all want to face Asuka? Well Emma sticks to her usual spiel, bringing up how she started the women’s revolution and that people should be talking about her and not Asuka. Good luck Emma, it’s going to be a tough one!
Thoughts: MVP of the RAW roster continues to be Mickie James. Honestly, it makes me so happy to see her getting the chance again to prove why she was one of the stars of the division. Both her and Alexa have great mic skills and this segment really worked – a lot better than a certain ‘This Is Your Life’ segment that we need to erase from our memories. Sure the age-digging and all that doesn’t make this the most hard-hitting feud, but it’s definitely brought some great one-liners that have got the crowd engaged.
My biggest fear for these two is that the match between them at TLC may not be the most impressive, but let’s see. They’ve got 2 weeks to bring the intensity up a notch and work together to give us something good. I’d love for a stipulation to be added, considering that this is TLC… so maybe this is something to look forward to? Either way, this segment was great and really helped to get the crowd to invest in Mickie. The build up for this has been strong, it would be nice to see the intensity turned up though.
The rest of the division competing to essentially job to Asuka was a weird one, this was only underscored when Emma won the match too. To be fair, it was a strong win for Emma’s character which has been a slowburner into pushing her as a top star, so building her up to put on a good encounter with Asuka should be good. Although, it was a bit ironic since the promo shows clips of Asuka whopping Emma’s ass, but hey – that match was amazing and I’m sure this one will be the same.
What did interest me though was Alicia Fox bringing up how she’s not got merch on-screen, especially following her interview with Lilian Garcia which seemed to really strike a lot of us fans. She’s been floating around a lot lately and they seem to have a hate/love attitude with her psycho brat gimmick, but I think it’s perfect to start that now. However, with Mickie taking the ‘veteran’ role and Emma taking the ‘notice me’ role… her slots are kind of taken, but she’s definitely in a stronger position than a certain Dana Brooke. To be fair, Ms. Brooke did hit some nice spots in the match, but she’s slowly turning into the ‘Meg’ [from Family Guy] of the division… potential gimmick there? Anyone remember when Candice Michelle was something similar in 2008? Either way, these women need work and there’s only so much time they can give the division.
Are you looking forward to Emma VS Asuka or do you think someone else should have got the chance? What did you think about the ‘Mickie James’ tribute? Anyone know where Nia Jax was? Comment below!
