After a couple weeks of Trish Stratus goodness, the Divas Champion, Eve Torres is back in the spotlight. On this week’s edition of Monday Night Raw, Eve defends her belt against one half of the Bella Twins, Brie Bella. Does the champ have a plan to combat The Bellas’ twin magic? Check out the match below:
We come from commercial to find both Bellas in the ring, both in ring gear (surprise, surprise). Out next is the Divas Champion, Eve and she’s come prepared. Eve whips out a permanent marker and has the referee mark Nikki Bella‘s hand, so she knows which one is in the ring. Very smart strategy from the champ. With the twin Divas successfully sorted, the official signals for the bell and out championship bout is underway.
Brie goes right after the champ with a kick to the gut, followed by a few forearms to the face of the champion. Brie stays on top of Eve, whipping her across the ring into the turnbuckle, and laying her out with a northern lariat. Brie continues her assault by stomping the champion out in the corner, before taking her down with a snapmare/facebuster combination. Instead of going for the pin, Brie locks in a modified abdominal stretch to wear down Eve.
Eve manages to fight her way out of the submission with a couple of forearms and a impressive bulldog, sending both Divas down to the mat. Eve follows up with a dropkick to the face, a flurry of strikes and a standing moonsault for a nearfall. Brie scrambles to the corner and avoids a clothesline from Eve, but the champion get the upperhand and ties her up in the tree of woe and hits a running clothesline.
Eve continues attacking Brie, prompting the referee to pull her away. While the referee is distracted, Brie and Nikki switch places, but Eve isn’t fooled. Eve takes Nikki down with a dropkick and grabs her hand, showing the ref the mark from earlier. The official ejects Nikki, but Brie is able to take advantage and level Eve with a facebuster for the win, becoming the new Divas Champion.
Post-match, Eve is approached by Gail Kim in the locker room about her loss. Eve proceeds to tell Gail off, saying everyone in the Divas locker room only cares about themselves and their next shot at the title. Natalya comes up next and gets the same treatment before Eve storms out of the locker room. While Gail and Natalya are left to ponder Eve’s words, Tamina comes by and steals someones BlackBerry out of their cubby. Bad Tamina!
Honestly speaking, I was pretty disappointed with the match overall. While there was no botches, the match just felt like it was missing something. I’ve seen Eve have much better matches with The Bellas Twins, and I hope when they have a rematch, it’ll be a bit more impressive.
Of course the big story here is the title change and it was just as lackluster as the match, in my opinion. This title match seemingly came out of nowhere and title change meant nothing to anyone. I would have much rather seen this feud develop some more over the next couple of weeks and culminate in a title match at the next PPV. In any case, let’s hope WWE has a plan for Brie Bella as champion, because they sure didn’t have one for Eve.
On the other hand, I really liked the backstage segment. I was good to see Eve finally show some personality and even tease a heel turn. It seems like they are teasing a “every woman for herself” concept, so it’ll be interesting to see when that goes in the next couple of weeks.
Finally, the big story of Monday Night Raw. We finally got our first glimpse of Awesome Kong in WWE, and it delivered big time. Check out the first Awesome Kong vignette below:
Wow…. Just wow… It’s great to see the WWE is sticking with the monster heel gimmick that Kong is known for. It’s also good to see WWE putting so much effort into a Diva debut. I’m excited to see what we get from Kong next week.
All in all, a decent episode of Raw this week. While we didn’t get the most impressive title match, the segment backstage and the Kong promo made up for it. With a new champion, a budding heel turn and a new Diva on the horizon, next week’s Monday Night Raw promises to be a really interesting night for the Divas.
