I remember joining Diva-Dirt just over 2 years ago and when I started, we were in the climax of the Sasha Banks VS Charlotte Flair feud and Hell in a Cell was a groundbreaking opportunity for the women… fast forward 2 years… yeah that’s fizzled out pretty quickly. Guys, Hell in a Cell is this weekend and I don’t think the majority of us even realised! So, with an event coming up, let’s see what they had in store for the women in their take-home show.
Kicking off the show, the Bella Twins (Brie and Nikki Bella) post a video to their YouTube channel as they arrive to the arena. Unfortunately, they walk into a room that has been trashed by The Riott Squad, who are sending a clear message that they aren’t too impressed with the Bellas’ return.
Nikki Bella (accompanied by Brie) takes on Ruby Riott (accompanied by Sarah Logan and Liv Morgan) in her first singles match since February last year! In quite a nice return match, Nikki shows that she’s not skipped a beat as she works solidly with Riott. Riott tends to have momentum for most of the match, until the inevitable face comeback. Logan tries to interfere, but gets knocked off the apron by Nikki. Nikki hoists Riott into position for the Rack Attack 2.0, but Morgan runs into the ring. Brie drags Morgan out the ring and lays her out with a clothesline. Nikki gets enough time to hit her finisher and pins the leader of the Riott Squad.
The Bellas celebrate knocking up another victory against their Super Showdown opponents.
Last week, it was announced that RAW Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey would team up with Natalya to take on the team of Alexa Bliss and Alicia Fox. Ahead of the show, Bliss reveals that she has decided to switch out Foxy for Mickie James, due to former having a poor history against the Champion.
If you thought that this match would consist of James and Natalya mainly working together with Bliss being a coward, Rousey getting a hot tag to hit some spots and James doing the job… then you’re perfectly correct and I owe you a follow on Twitter. The only thing that was a little different was that towards the emiddle of the match, Bliss targets Rousey’s ribs – throwing her into the ring barricade (pretty sure that happens every week now) and providing a breaking point for the heel team to attack. However, after her signature triple arm drags, Rousey gets James in place and locks in her armbar while Bliss looks on outside the ring. Rousey and Natalya celebrate, but Bliss kicks Rousey in her ribs one more time and runs out the ring. Looks like this was a step too far as Rousey isn’t happy and is ready to get her hands on Bliss for Hell in a Cell.
Backstage, Charly Caruso asks if Rousey is okay following the attacks to her ribs, but Rousey isn’t phased. She warns that she will be at Hell in a Cell and on her worst day, she’s still the best.
Thoughts: First off, let me shout out Mykel who has been covering me for the past two weeks! Right, so let’s dip straight into the action… which was pretty whack. I still can’t believe that we are a couple days away from Hell in a Cell, the RAW women’s division is a state right now. With Super Showdown, Evolution and the Mixed Match Challenge, it’s clear to see that too much is going on for the basic RAW writers to deal with. Like, can we grab some of them from SmackDown please?
So, The Bellas VS The Riott Squad… it was cute last week, but it got boring quick. First off, let’s talk about that basic-ass ‘riot’ they did to the locker room… a tipped over table and marking on the walls? Lame. If they really wanted to heat it up, they could have gone bad Girls Club style and had them throw out the Bellas suitcases or cut their gear up. Fast forward to the match and of course the leader of the Riott Squad loses. Ruby Riott should really be their new incarnation of Paige, but they have done a terrible job with her.
I’ve never been the biggest Nikki Bella fan, but I’ll give her credit here. She’s working a bit stiffer and she’s looking stronger than ever, but I can’t help but clench when I think they’re working too hard with her. However, it was quite nice to see her bring back all the signature moves and make it feel like it was 2015 all over again. I think it’s pretty clear that she’s going to be involved in a big match at Evolution, so let’s hope they have something decent in store and hope that she can keep up. This whole Bella VS Riott Squad feud needs to stop at Super Showdown though. I wouldn’t be surprised if Nikki ended up using that event to challenge Ronda…
Then onto the title scene picture… yikes. I mean, first up let’s address them taking Foxy out the match only to have James job and arguably look even weaker? Mess. The whole dynamic within that trio is a mess. Seeing James in the background just irritates me! This woman is a legend, she has a match against one of your HOF Legends, so stick her on a microphone and hype her up. They got all the time for Triple H and Undertaker to chat shit for 20 minutes, but zero to hype up our current Evolution situation.
The match was all the way off too. I do have to address how strong Natalya is though, not in a physical way, but the fact that she has gone straight back to the ring and is wrestling weekly after such a tragic loss to someone so close proves how strong she is. Much love to her!
It was just very evident that something went wrong towards the end of the match. Someone looked like they missed a spot, you could see the referee calling the spots and Rousey’s inexperience made it very obvious that she wasn’t a quick thicker. It’s a shame, but definitely wasn’t the worst botch we’ve seen.
So now we have a predictable title match coming up at Hell in a Cell that none of us are excited for. SmackDown, it looks like you’ve won this month.
Are you looking forward to Hell in a Cell? Are you happy that Sasha Banks and Bayley didn’t appear this week for a change? What are your thoughts on this Bliss VS Rousey feud? You know what to do in the comments!
