Not sure how everyone else is feeling but it has been a frustrating past two months to be a women’s wrestling fan when it comes to WWE. That is of course aside from NXT. Let’s dive into this Fastlane event.
There is absolutely no reason to continue to have the WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions anywhere near the singles titles. What this does is back everyone and everything in a corner which makes any outcome ridiculous. The fact this was also done TWO pay-per-views in a row is also a travesty. What is even worse is that they have had the SmackDown Women’s Champion getting pinned in those two pay-per-views as well. Not that it would have made it any better if Bianca Belair were to take the pin either.
Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler (c) defeated Sasha Banks & Bianca Belair to retain the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships
As Banks was moments away from having Baszler tap out to the Bank Statement, Belair went to stop Jax from interfering. From this, Jax shoved Belair on top of Banks which broke up the submission. Baszler capitalized with a roll up on The Boss to get the win to retain the titles.
After the match, Belair and Banks get into a verbal exchange which leads to Banks calling her WrestleMania opponent a rookie and smacking her in the face.
This match was a perfect example of how lazy the booking has been with the women as of late. There was no capitalization off of Nia and Shayna not being on “the same page” and although I didn’t want Banks & Belair to win the tag titles, this wasn’t the way to have Banks “turn” on Belair. What was the point of Natalya and Tamina taking out Baszler and Belair on SmackDown if they weren’t going to play some part in the breakdown of this match?
Natalya and Tamina could have ended this reign of Baszler & Jax by being added to the match. They could have pinned one of the champions and won the titles. This way Banks nor Belair would have been involved in the pin. The turn from Banks to Belair didn’t need this match to happen in the slightest.
Banks has now been pinned in two pay-per-views back to back. It makes zero sense to have the champion of your ONLY women’s match so far booked for WrestleMania lose consistently, even if it is to another champion.
Alexa Bliss defeats Randy Orton
In the intergender match between Alexa Bliss and Randy Orton, Bliss ends up getting the win after The Fiend reemerges. Although I would have liked a little bit more to it, this was done pretty well. As Orton did what he could to try and get his hands on Bliss, she constantly had something up her sleeve to avoid his attacks.
By the end, The Fiend returned as he came up from underneath the ring and assisted Bliss to get the win.
On the Kick off show, it appears that the stable RETRIBUTION is over. Or at least Mustafa Ali is no longer the leader. Reckoning took the first step in walking away after she was berated by Ali after his match with Riddle. For more details on this, you can click here.
Let’s get to the Winners & Losers of this event.
WINNER: Reckoning/Mia Yim
The only true winner of the event was Mia Yim who can hopefully do something rather than just stand around as RETRIBUTION lost match after match. Knowing what has been happening lately though I just expect her to just sit in catering. With that being said, is she really a winner from this event then?
LOSERS: Everyone else, including the fans
Ever since the Royal Rumble, the women’s division on the main roster has lacked any sort of effort. Sasha losing back-to-back pay-per-views just so she could turn on Bianca which was going to happen anyway is terrible. Bianca taking the recent pins she has, terrible. Having several other tag teams but Nia & Shayna having to defend against those who shouldn’t even be in their storyline, terrible.
Even with Alexa, they keep just doing the same thing over and over again and didn’t bring anything new to the table with what took place at Fastlane. WWE has less than three weeks until WrestleMania and only one women’s match on the card. Get it together.
Hopefully Rhea can save us.
What did you think of Fastlane? Who were your Winners & Losers? Discuss in the comment section below.
