What’s up Diva fans and welcome to this week’s SmackDown Redux. The blue brand gave us a tag team match this week to cope with the fallout of last Sunday’s Elimination Chamber. The match saw Divas Champion Kaitlyn team up with Layla to face Aksana and Sunday’s unsuccessful challenger, Tamina Snuka. Layla will have a score to settle with Tamina considering the Samoan princess pinned the British beauty on last week’s SmackDown and Tamina will have to prove that Kaitlyn’s win on Sunday was a fluke. Who has the bigger drive in order to get the victory? Let’s take a look.
The music that unites all fans of Spin the Bottle blazes through the arena as our triumphant Divas Champion Kaitlyn makes her entrance alongside Layla. We then cut to a WWE Active segment featuring both girls and Cody Rhodes. Layla high fives Kaitlyn before promising to see Kaitlyn at the curtain. Then, as Kaitlyn is about to leave, she awkwardly bumps into Cody. Both try and walk past each other before Kaitlyn breaks the ice and says to Cody that she likes his mustache. Cody says thanks before declaring that some ladies have apparently called it a “lovestache”. Kaitlyn then laughs and looks like she wants to get out of there as soon as possible, which she does. Guess Cody’s not the best at talking to women!
We return to the ring to see that Aksana and Tamina are already there and look ready to compete. They don’t have the best track record as a team so will that change tonight? Aksana starts things out with some weird hand gesture which I have no idea of the meaning and Layla responds with her usual goofy/sexy/weird dancing, which surprisingly gets a reaction from the crowd. Aksana then throws some sultry moves of her own that involve shoving her behind in the air. Layla then kicks that bum to the mat before using her own ass-ets to ‘booty pop’ Aksana’s face. What is it with the Divas division and spanking or giving each other black eyes with their bums?!
Layla then tags in the Divas Champion Kaitlyn, who charges at Aksana with a shoulder tackle, which she follows up with.. a headlock. Again, what’s with the abudance of headlocks recently? Tamina tries to enter the ring to distract our two-toned title holder and she succeeds, as Kaitlyn relinqueshes her grip on Aksana, and the Lithuanian Lovely clubs Kaitlyn to the outside. From there, Tamina takes advantage of the referee’s back being turned and she clotheslines the stuffing out of her arch rival. Kaitlyn makes her way back into the ring, and she walks right into a sidewalk slam from Aksana. After a two-count, Aksana whips Kaitlyn into the corner before whipping out her ‘Sexy Slug’ impression for the week. I honestly have no idea what Aksana thinks this does for her.
Goldust’s former wife then slaps the taste out of Kaitlyn’s mouth but the Hybrid Diva returns the favor, rendering both girls senseless! Aksana gets the better of the exchange via an elbow, which sends the Champ to the ground. Aksana locks in a headscissors and the audience seem to be responding, but honestly, I think somebody in the crowd might be doing something a bit more exciting to get the fans’ attention. Aksana then hip thrusts Kaitlyn’s face into the mat before Aksana genuinely makes me laugh by patting her chest, raising her hands and shouting ” Thankyou”! Antonio Cesaro’s former squeeze (she gets around nearly as much as AJ) then kicks Kaitlyn in the head and just when you think she’s about to connect with a splash, she doesn’t.
Both girls make the tag and Layla is on fire! After a hairgrab takeover and clothesline to Tamina, our Little English Muffin wallops Tamina with a flurry of kicks, including her hit and miss combo. Lay continues her fancy footwork with a dropkick and spinning thrust kick before rebounding up the ropes in the form of her LOL. Tamina rolls through Layla’s signature crossbody and tries to hit a Samoan Drop, but what she doesn’t realize is that Layla has tagged in Kaitlyn. Layla slides down the back of the Chaotic Exotic and Tamina literally doesn’t know what hit her when Kaitlyn bulldozes her with a Spear for the win!
After the match, Layla grabbed the Divas Title and began to stare at it lovingly, before the referee had to let her know that it wasn’t hers! Layla laughed it off like she had in a backstage segment a few weeks back and continued to celebrate. Layla vs Kaitlyn at Mania, perhaps? Very interesting indeed!
Thoughts: Other than the finishing sequence, I really wasn’t into this match at all. In my personal opinion, Aksana’s offence was sloppy throughout, and Kaitlyn’s selling was a little too rough around the edges for me. To finish my point on Aksana, what ON EARTH is that crawl thing she does? It’s just… weird. That is honestly the only word I can use to describe it.
Also, what’s going on with Tamina? The girl has gone from #1 Contender to literally only hitting a clothesline in the entire match. One move. With February seemingly being Tamina’s stand-out month year after year, it seems as though she’ll be back in the shadows come March, as the booking being this performance was completely uninspiring.
However, there are still some positives that can be taken from this week’s action. Aksana did show a moment of hilarity, which makes me scream out for a face turn and the debut of ‘The Aksana Show’ on WWE TV. Aksana is not as good in the ring as she once was back in FCW, and I honestly think that she needs more training, and she can do that whilst being a funny personality on-screen. Some will argue that you learn best when you’re actually carrying something out and I can agree with that to some extent, yet Aksana has been an active member of the roster for a while now and in some cases, it doesn’t get any better (Maryse, Rosa Mendes etc).
Another positive was that Kaitlyn has finally found a finisher that I absolutely love in the Spear. It’s a move that can look beautiful and brutal at the same time, and those qualities sum up her ‘Hybrid Diva’ nickname perfectly. The finish was well executed in this match and Tamina sold it well too. Overall, an uninspiring match on this week’s SmackDown that just left me wanting so much more. With Tamina pinned twice in a week, it looks like her push is over, and with Wrestlemania season well underway, I want to see a good feud with a good storyline leading into Wrestlemania. Will I get what I want? Probably not, especially if Maria Menounos returns (weilds garlic and a silver cross)! And with that, stay tuned, Jack will be back!
