A few weeks ago, Brie Bella and AJ Lee squared off for the Divas Championship in a match that was pretty perfect. It had everything that we has Diva fans could hope for and a little bit of extra. Brie showed great fire and passion, determination and heart, while AJ did everything she could to hang on to the thing that means the most to her in the entire world. The ending of the match was controversial, to say the least, with Tamina getting involved by attacking Brie’s twin sister, Nikki Bella, and distracting the challenger from ultimately winning her second championship. Brie would earn another shot at the champ and that’s what brings us to this match tonight. AJ and Brie are going to face off once again for the championship, and you can believe that Tamina and Nikki will be at ringside.
Who’s going to win this time?
I can tell you one thing, Brie and AJ are going to have to step it up. The WWE threw us a nice little curveball for Hell In A Cell. Since debuting on the main roster at the side of Fandango, Summer Rae has grown in terms of confidence, personality, and charisma. We watched her go from being a little bit awkward with her new character and role, to being one of the best female personalities in the entire company. Tonight, she got to make her in-ring debut.
When Summer stepped out in that outfit, and with no dance shoes, I KNEW that we were finally going to get a chance to see what she’s really capable of. Fandango took the microphone and shushed the crowd, while Summer just stood there and looked fabulous. The opening little promo was cute and I loved how they decided to salsa until Natalya, Khali, and Hornswoggle finally interrupted them.
The Divas start the match on the ring apron, but Fandango eventually tags in Summer, who jabs her fingers into Khali’s chest, as if he wasn’t three times her size.
Natalya comes in, as is the rule, and Summer is game to fight her, starting with a tie-up that Natalya turns into a side headlock. Summer eventually shoves Natalya into the ropes, but on the return Natalya merely knocks her over. Summer leaps over an attack from Natalya and hits her with a hip toss! Guess we’re not pretending Summer’s a newbie to the ring…
Summer is kicked away by Natalya, but she’s relentless, grabbing Natalya’s legs and flipping into a bridging pin, which Natalya bridges out of, getting to her feet without breaking the hold and turning it into a backslide pin of her own.
After Summer kicks out, she hits Natalya with a dropkick, gloating about it while Natalya just looks dumbstruck. Why did no one tell her Summer could wrestle? Wasn’t it Hornswoggle’s job to look into it? He’s so fired.
Meanwhile, Summer shimmies a bit in the ring, allowing Natalya to come up behind her and sweep her feet out, getting her in a front face lock. She slams Summer to the mat but finds herself in a leg scissors, which she kips out of quickly. She wrenches Summer’s arm behind her before shoving her into the ropes and hitting her with a drop toe hold on the return. She slaps Summer on the butt for good measure before making a mistake, arm dragging her directly into her own corner, where she tags in Fandango.
Fandango comes shimmying in, but Natalya is having none of this, dropping him to the mat and attempting to lock in the Sharpshooter. That’s the Natalya we love! Fandango worms his way out of the ring and out of the hold, sending Natalya back to her corner.
Eventually, after more abuse from Khali, Fandango tags in Summer, who tries to distract Khali with a bit of dancing. Natalya comes storming in, finally returning Summer’s slap from last Friday. It’s a nasty one, too, and Summer is knocked to the mat. She hits Summer with a series of slams and a discus clothesline, going for the Sharpshooter, but Summer scrambles to the ropes before she can lock it in. She trips Natalya into the ropes and immediately rolls her into a pin, holding enough weight on Natalya to pin her! Summer wins her debut match!
It was no shock that Natalya was ready to get her hands on Summer, but the guys started the match off. Luckily, Khali manhandled Fandango and he was very quick to tag in Summer. She’s so feisty! She didn’t hesitate to get right up in his face and jaw jack with him. Natalya came in and the ladies got to put on an absolute show. It’s a bit of a shame when they tag in their partners, but thankfully the ladies are the ones who get to finish off the match. I have to say that her in-ring debut is probably one of the best Diva debuts in recent memory.
Wow!
Summer was perfection, what can I say? I’ve been waiting a long, long time to see her work on the main roster and it was well worth the wait. Natalya was the best person to put Summer with in her first match because Natalya is such a generous opponent. She does nothing wrong and the chemistry the two had was absolutely off the charts. I was so hoping that little scuffle on SmackDown would lead to something like this and sure enough, my hopes and dreams came true. I loved the cheap win Summer got and I hope we get a singles match between the two on Raw. Surely, Nattie isn’t going to handle a loss like that very well, and given how well they worked, they deserve a chance to have their own Raw moment.
Summer’s character was spot-on. I LOVED the salsa-inspired ring gear and how it kept with her character. Her sass and charisma drew your attention, and her ring skills her sharp and perfectly timed. Natalya came off as a flawless queen, which is what we expect, and we have a very, very high bar set for the Divas Championship tonight.
I want to give a shout-out towards Kaitlyn, who looks beautiful as a brunette. And I want to applaud her for putting the Divas over and making them relevant on the superstar panel. Well done, girly!
The Divas Championship match took place between the two main events; after John Cena returned and won the World Heavyweight Championship (shocker) and before Daniel Bryan took on Randy Orton in a Hell In A Cell match.
We start the match with a tie-up, Brie taking control and shoving AJ against the ropes. AJ eventually breaks the hold and the two decide to talk trash instead, jawing at each other in the middle of the ring.
AJ shoves Brie by the face, and Brie tries to return with a punch, but it’s blocked, and she gets socked in the face instead. Her next hit lands, though, and sends AJ to the mat. Brie rolls AJ into a bridging pin, but AJ kicks out.
Brie goes for another pin after turning an arm wrench into a bridging suplex, but again AJ kicks out. Brie goes to climb the turnbuckle after thwarting an attack from AJ, but AJ grabs her by the hair, eventually hot-shotting the back of her neck against the top rope. And out she goes to the floor below, right in front of Tamina.
Tamina keeps her distance, though, allowing AJ to toss Brie back into the ring and go for a pin, which only results in a one-count. AJ then locks Brie in a sleeper, but Brie quickly powers out, only to be slammed to the mat by AJ.
AJ removes Brie’s headband and tosses it aside, surprisingly choosing not to choke Brie with it. She decides instead to choke her against the ropes, a knee to the back of Brie’s neck. As the ref count for a rope break, AJ adds some leverage to the hold, pushing both knees into Brie. She then breaks the hold.
AJ hits a neckbreaker and celebrates, skipping around the ring. The Divas trade control until AJ locks in a headlock, her legs wrapped around Brie’s waist.
Brie falls to her knees and slowly gets back up, AJ holding on like a tenacious Chihuahua. Brie eventually knocks her off by barelling her into the turnbuckle. She hits AJ with a missile dropkick, starting a chain of offense that she caps off with a pin attempt. AJ kicks out.
AJ fights off more offense from Brie by driving a shoulder into her stomach and shoving her into the corner. With Brie on her knees, AJ goes for the Black Widow, but Brie whips the champ off her back, immediately going for a Bella Buster that AJ counters, grabbing Brie’s legs and trying to pull her up by her hair. Brie rolls that into a single leg crab, and AJ’s in trouble!
Sensing this, Tamina climbs up to the ring apron, distracting the referee. Nikki comes up from behind and knocks Tamina off the apron, tackling her to the floor and taking it to her! Wow.. I didn’t know Nikki had it in her!
Meanwhile, AJ gets a rope break when she makes it to the bottom rope. Brie preps for her running knee, yelling out “Brie Mode!” She runs toward AJ, but AJ moves and it’s Nikki who’s in the wrong place this time, taking Brie’s knee to the side of her head.
Brie is distracted and turns around right into a headscissors and a Black Widow! Brie fights hard, but she eventually has to tap.
This match was pretty solid, and I think I liked it better than their last title match. Brie’s confidence in the ring grows by leaps and bounds every time she gets the spotlight and her new ring gear looked awesome. The Bellas can rock red like no one else can, if I do say so myself. I’m not entirely sure what look Tamina was going for… but… yeah.
Regardless.
The match was very nice. I loved the pace of it and both girls have proven to be a great match for one another. Brie continues to bring a lot of character to her matches, and AJ does the same thing. I will admit that the match was kind of a rerun of last month, but what made it more interesting to me is the way it ended. I felt in my heart all day that AJ was going to end up retaining and it would be due to some type of drama on the outside, and I was right. Trust me when I say I wanted a title change, but I think this kind of benefits all parties. Nikki took a nasty knock to the head thanks to her own sister, and she showed a lot of guts by going after Tamina the way she did. There is definitely a lot left that all of these ladies can do.
I don’t necessarily think I want to see Brie get another title shot, but I would love to see Nikki actually feud for the belt next. It would had a lot of layers to this feud, which has kept me pretty interested, and it switches things up. More and more I see this leading to a feud between the Bellas and no, I am not okay with that. I wouldn’t even know which side to pick, and that really, really kills me. What happens next is something I’m not even going to bother to predict, but I just hope that these four aren’t totally done with one another. There’s no one else who really stands out to me who can step up and be the next challenger to AJ, especially with Natalya losing to Summer.
I love it when the Divas are interesting and I love it when the ‘E gives me a lot to speculate about. I would definitely say that Hell In A Cell proved to be very, very kind to the Divas. We got two solid matches, one amazing debut, and a main storyline that is far from over. What more could we want?
Great show! Definitely giving this one an ‘A’! Congrats to AJ on retaining her title, and kudos to Summer Rae for picking up a huge win in her first main roster match. I’ll see you guys for Raw! Until then… Cryssi out!
