Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to those of you still celebrating. As always, I am your Khaleesi, the one and only Cryssi, some people call me Cryssi Cryssi (when I’m drunk, usually), and today I’m bringing you a Redux full of Christmas cheer. I realize that we celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ on Sunday, but the WWE was off until Monday, and last night they had plenty of wonderful gifts to hand out. We got Divas galore in all forms; a backstage segment, a fun mixed tag team match, and a promo cut right on the stage. Vickie Guerrero brought the fierce, as we’re all accustomed to seeing, and overall it was just fun a night of pure WWE entertainment. Goodness, never thought I would write a sentence like that. But hey, on a night where people can suddenly praise Johnny Ace, if for one night only, anything can happen. If that’s not a Christmas miracle, then I don’t know what is.
Kicking us off tonight are former SmackDown buddies Kelly Kelly and Big Show. There wasn’t really a point to this segment other than for Kelly to put over the Diva fitness and beauty tips on another website. Big Show seemed shocked he needed beauty tips, and the segment was interrupted by my favorite referee Scott Armstrong. He told Big Show that Johnny Ace needed to see him in his office. Both Show and Kelly ignored the plucky ref, but Armstrong was insistent that it was incredibly important. Show finally relented and Kelly teased him that he was probably in trouble. Big Show handed Kelly back her iPad and that was that.
Nothing wrong with the segment. They put over something the Divas had done, and really, who can complain about that? Big Show and Kelly were also adorable on SmackDown when they had segments together. He always watched her back like a big brother and it was fun to see it again, even if it was so brief. Love it.
Moving on, we had a special treat last night with our match. It was longer than two minutes (because it was a mixed tag, I realize that) and it featured the reunion of two very popular stars – Miss Natalya Neidhart and Tyson Kidd! They took on the team of the new United States Champion, Zack Ryder, and his crush, the lovely Eve Torres.
Zack and Tyson kick things off for us, and Tyson shows off his ruthless Canadian aggression by getting Zack in the corner and absolutely pummeling him. Ryder is beat down, kicked, has his head stepped on for a count of four. It’s not pretty, but male wrestling usually isn’t. Tyson backs off, gets Ryder up, throws him across the ring, and takes him down with an elbow. Tyson follows it up with a sick kick to that spot right between the shoulder blades, and he goes for a cover. He barely gets a two count before Zack is kicking out. Tyson gets them both to their feet and he brings Zack across the ring again. This time, the champ slams into the opposite set of turnbuckles, and Tyson charges. Ryder manages to get his knees up and he catches Tyson in the face. Kidd stumbles back and that allows Zack to scale the ropes and launch himself off. He catches Tyson with a beautiful drop-kick and that sends Tyson to the corner to make the tag to his girl.
Natalya comes in looking to have some fun, and since it’s just a mixed tag, Eve comes in as well. Nattie screams at Zack to get out of the ring, which made me giggle, and she sorta locks up with Eve. It’s more like a shove, but then the ladies end up locking horns. Nattie gets shoved into the corner, and that prompts the referee to break it up. He forces Eve back, which also Nattie to collect herself. She goes right for the former 2-Time Diva’s Champion, but Eve is ready. She brings Natalya down with a nice little arm drag, and follows it up with a kick to the stomach and a snapmare.
(Don’t you guys love that I’m actually using the real names of moves this week?!)
Eve spins around and levels Natalya with another kick, and unfortunately that gives her time to do her God-awful booty pop. I hate it. Zack likes it. She adds a standing moonsault in there, and then goes for the second cover of the match. Natalya is able to get her shoulder up. The blond Diva crawls to the ropes, and Eve follows her. But Natalya is finally able to mount some offense and drops Eve across those very ropes. Eve is temporarily out of commission so Natalya takes advantage and kicks her opponent in the stomach. Eve flops over on her back and Natalya decides she wants to go for the Sharpshooter. She wastes a little to much time playing to Tyson, and Eve is able to kick her back. Natalya goes flying into the ropes. Eve makes the tag to Zack.
Zack comes into the match, and Tyson launches his own self off the top rope. The champ anticipates this and is able to duck, then catch Tyson with a clothesline. It’s a flurry of extreme fast-paced offense from Ryder, and poor Tyson is forced to suffer from it. Ryder has the crowd in the palm of his hand. He wants to finish things off, but Tyson is able to get in one last ditch effort of offense. Ryder ends up turning it to his advantage and gets Tyson in a pinning position. Natalya makes the save, but Eve makes sure she doesn’t do that again when she makes Nattie eat a drop kick. Side by side, Zack and Eve fist pump to the sky. They go for their respective opponents, and Eve ends up booting Natalya clear out of the ring. Zack gets Tyson in perfect position for his finisher, and he scores a huge win for himself, and his crush!
He got the win, but can he get the girl?
If some of you are wondering why they did such a random pairing with Zack and Eve, then just stop. It’s not random. If you’re viewers of the WWE.com videos, and of Z! True Long Island Story, then you’ll know that Zack has a little crush on Eve. She’s a pretty good replacement for the evil Princess Leia who dumped Zack a while back, so it’s cute that the WWE put them together in a tag match. I actually really liked this match, and this team. I hope we get to see more of it.
On the other side of the coin, Tyson and Natalya are so darn adorable. Having them reunite onscreen was such a treat. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of that either. Perhaps he can run around with Nattie and Beth? I don’t know. I just know it’s a shame the WWE seems to waste Tyson. Maybe this match will catapult him into a feud with Ryder for the U.S. Championship since my baby Dolph is now going to be involved in the main event?
The hits keep on coming. My girls, Brie and Nikki Bella, made their presence felt. For weeks we’ve seen them crush on Alberto Del Rio. And this week they decided to join him while he and Ricardo Rodriguez were cutting a pretty sad promo on the stage.
Alberto is injured and apparently that means he won’t be around for awhile. He has a pulled groin. The Bellas come out and Brie is quick to get on the crowd. She wants them to show Alberto some respect. Nikki agrees, but she also says that once Alberto has fully healed, she is going to throw a party in his honor. I can only assume that it will be a welcome back party. Brie gets a little miffed and claims that she was going to throw the party. Nikki just shrugs and reminds her that basically anyone can throw a party. That leads to Brie accusing her sister of copying her, and the twins arguing over Alberto in his wheelchair. The former WWE Champion gets really annoyed by their bickering and sends them away.
It’s nice that the WWE acknowledged this storyline, instead of just pretending like it never happened thanks to Del Rio getting injured. I’m all for random segments, and storylines, especially when the Bella twins are involved, so this segment was a lot of fun for me. I like the twins constantly arguing and I’m curious to see if it will spill over into a future match. Surely if they’re not on the same page, or just fed up with each other, they’re not going to be able to get along in the ring? Lets hope this doesn’t just abruptly stop.
And speaking of things that should never stop, Vickie and Dolph. This week, our blond hero was involved in a gauntlet match along with his stable-mate, Jack Swagger, and the World’s Strongest Man, Mark Henry. If any of those three men would be able to defeat CM Punk, they would become the number one contender to the WWE Championship. No doubt this left Vickie salivating, as she had a two out of three chance to get one of her men into the title picture. When Swagger failed, it was up to Dolph. Lets take a look.
skip ahead to 12:12 if you want to see just Vickie and her involvement!
Words can not express how perfect Vickie Guerrero is in her role. She’s the type of manager every heel wrestler should want, and they just happened to put her with the best heel on the roster. In my opinion, a lot of Dolph’s success is to her credit. She’s gotten him so over with the crowd. His wrestling skills just back up why he should be over. Vickie was perfect tonight. She saw Swagger eat defeat, and she certainly wasn’t going to let Dolph suffer the same fate. When things started breaking down Ziggler, Vickie involved herself in the match. She held on to Punk for dear life, giving her man another chance to try and make a comeback. She got caught, too. Johnny Ace stormed the ring and ordered Vickie and Jack from ringside. But lets be honest, he just wanted to distract CM Punk. It ended up working in Dolph’s favor and next week we get to see him in a championship match. I can only hope that Vickie plays a huge role in that match. Surely that’s not to much ask? As someone who has always been a fan of managers, she’s such a throwback to the glory days of wrestling. I definitely put her right up there with the likes of Bobby “The Brain” Heenan and Sherri Martel, two of the all-time great heel managers. Dolph and Vickie actually remind me of young HBK and Sherri in a lot of ways. The WWE needs to keep these two together, forever.
What a happy Redux this has turned out to be. See, WWE. It is possible to do the right thing when it comes to your Divas. Now just give us single matches that last for over five minutes on Raw and I’ll never write another bad word about you again. That probably won’t happen but I’m going to remain optimistic. 2012 is a chance to wipe the slate clean and start fresh. I have faith in this company. I have always had faith in the Divas. Lets see if next week we can ring in the new year right.
Until then… Cryssi out!
