Only would WWE television lead me to choose a title quite like the one for this week’s Raw Redux!
Charlotte‘s blossoming heel turn continue to bloom last night, alongside help from her Dad who was in attendance for the second week in a row. Great to see Bob Backlund again. Or is her Dad IRS? Silly me – of course it is Ric Flair. How could I forget what with the INCESSANT referencing?!
Raw got off to a sizzling start last night (and no I don’t mean Rhyno) as Summer Rae was the first Diva in the limelight:
Sadly, she barely did anything. I do wonder why WWE bothers putting characters together and making what should be major debuts, only to them do absolutely nothing with them.
And I do realise that Charlotte was momentarily seen backstage before Summer was shown, but like Paige, who isn’t sick of the Flairs? I get that they are related. I don’t need another unnecessary reference. I could have went with making a beast reference to bridge our WWE Divas Champion and the ECW irrelevancy original but that would have made Rhyno look even more inadequate!
After a display in how not to build a Pay-Per-View title match (Dean Ambrose throwing popcorn and a fizzy drink at Kevin Owens) we witness some Divas not lucky enough to get a pay-per-view match, Team Bella and Team B.A.D.. Their side feud continues this week as Team B.A.D. look to showcase yet again that they are by far the strongest unit in the Divas Division, if not the entire WWE. Who needs to split up when you’re all about UUUUNNNNIIIITTTYYY!
After Team B.A.D. discuss their UUUUNNNNIIIITTTYYY in a mini-tron promo (I missed them mention the UUUUNNNNIIIITTTYYY last week – sorry guys!), Alicia Fox and Brie Bella make their entrance. Tameezus is sitting this one out as Naomi and Sasha team up for the tag team match.
‘Lic and Sasha start off with a shoving war until Sasha cowardly darts to the ring ropes for safety. Alicia drags Sasha off and drops her to the floor before smashing her with a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. Sasha kicks out and tags in Naomi, who also soon gets the backbreaking treatment after a textbook down-up-down-up exchange of dodges and dives from the two.
Naomi moves to the outside but Alicia and Brie keep their momentum alive by hitting tandem baseball slides on Naomi and Sasha. Unfortunately for Team Bella, Tamina shuts that momentum right down shortly after by dropping Alicia with a perfectly timed head grab. Not going to lie, I always wince in case Tamina mucks her interference up (I bet it’s hard to move in those tight trousers) but she nailed it here.
Naomi stomps her frohawk off of Alicia as we see Tamina buzzing with her achievements. Sasha tags in and Alicia is sent straight into her boot. Sasha taunts and mocks before Naomi comes back into the fray. Alicia is sent right into her boot too, which was positioned on the top turnbuckle. Alicia is then blasted with a gorgeous corner dropkick from Naomi, and that sends the former’s weave into something resembling Cousin It from the Addam’s Family.
Naomi headlocks and knees It in the stomach before tagging in The Boss, who snapmares Alicia into oblivion. Alicia accidentally oversells the snapmare, which turns into a 450 splash and Foxy lands on her face! Foxy tries to mount a comeback, but Sasha keeps her down with a clothesline. It isn’t long before Sasha charges at Brie with a second running strike, sending Brie crashing off the apron. Alicia uses this moment though to counter Sasha’s next potential offense, sending her into Naomi’s boot! Naomi tags in and tries to rebound, but Alicia kicks her into Sasha and Brie gets the hot tag.
Brie hits a duo of clotheslines and a bulldog before pummelling Naomi with “Shades of Her Husband”. A dropkick and knee strike later and Sasha interferes. Alicia tries to throw Sasha out to the floor, but the former NXT Women’s Champion has the talent to reverse. Brie then throws Sasha out, but the latter lands on her feet and pulls on Brie’s legs as the referee is distracted with Tamina. This brief moment is all Team B.A.D. needed as Naomi capitalizes with the Rear View for the win.
Sidenote: Can Michael Cole please, please stop saying “And she calls that the Rear View!” So annoying.
After the match, The New Day make their way down to the ring and present Team B.A.D. with unicorn horns. TAMINICORN is born.
Following what was quite a good match, it is time to witness Charlotte on the mic. WOOOO! Woo. She and Ric are guests on Miz TV, because Charlotte and Miz on the mic together hasn’t tanked before:
Charlotte takes exception to the way her Dad was introduced by Miz, and she goes on and on and on about his achievements. I am so annoyed by this, making it perfect for a heel character. Miz then brands Charlotte arrogant and Ric retorts that he proud of Charlotte and can’t wait to be in her corner at TLC for her title defence against Paige.
Miz then lists off adjectives that have been thrown around this past week relating to Charlote’s behaviour, and she is not impressed. Charlotte stands up, questioning why Miz is “attacking her”. Charlotte then insults Maryse in a reference that I thought made no sense whatsoever, but well, neither does anything WWE books so I shouldn’t be too surprised.
Miz says that this isn’t about him, his wife, it’s about Charlotte’s behaviour. Charlotte doesn’t want to answer Miz, and she says that she will say what she needs to say to Paige at TLC. Ric then pipes up again, telling Charlotte that this situation isn’t worth it as Miz just wants the ratings to spike for his segment. They certainly may do just that, as Paige then makes her way to the ring after a very babyface-esque introduction from Miz. Isn’t Paige a heel? Or is she a tweener now? *rubs chin*
After skipping most of Charlotte blabbing on (not her finest mic work), Paige speaks up, sarcastically branding the segment as “riveting”. LOL, we agree! Paige squares up to Charlotte, but Ric tells his daughter to back down. Paige doesn’t do that however, and she slaps Ric across the face! Flair then changes his mind and tells Charlotte to get her! The Divas scrap until Paige… retreats? Looks like we have two tweeners on our hands.
Becky Lynch fans can get their fix this week on Raw Fallout, where Becky gives her two cents on what went down on MizTV:
She compares her situation to that of someone stranded on an island. She says she’s going to sip back, sip her coconut and watch what goes down at TLC.
Finally, Lana is in the spotlight again. She, Rusev and the side pony are colliding with Ryback again this week:
Lana feigns an injury yet again, only to reveal that she had faked the injury. The match ends in a double count-out as Rusev makes Ryback pass out to The Accolade. A short and sweet moment here to highlight Rusev and Lana’s bond, and also her cunning behaviour. She certainly makes a major difference being in Rusev’s life, and this showcased that fine.
Thoughts: Any particular reason WWE cast so much spotlight on Becky last week, only to not use her this week, outside of Raw Fallout? Disappointing and annoying.
Speaking of annoying, this was not Charlotte’s finest hour on the mic. She started off well but towards the end, it was painful. I will say that her constant referencing of how her Dad taught her this, and that she’s like her Dad like that made for very annoying, heelish TV. If she is to be a heel, the Flair funny business needs to be cranked up to 1000%. I thought she looked awesome as well. All black to go with her new darker persona.
The situation we interestingly have here is tweener vs tweener. Whilst Paige got a mega face reaction, she backed away from a fight, not exactly a characteristic of a good guy. It was Charlotte who didn’t back down from the fight, but she was the one acting like an unbearable, pretentious snob throughout the entire segment. A really, interesting dynamic here and quite a brave one for WWE to try and pull off. I have to commend them for that.
And I have to commend WWE for letting Paige slap Ric Flair. I’ve been waiting for it for weeks and it was by far the highlight of the segment. Would a face slap an old man? There’s another case for Paige being a tweener. Or just WWE making it up as they go along.
I have a feeling however that WWE will kill this story off after TLC, unless they pull of a complete double turn at the pay-per-view and have Paige win the title, with Charlotte then destroying her. Where do they go from here though? I’m not even going to begin predicting. There’s more chance of me winning the lottery than there is correctly predicting anything logical in this division any more.
From the downright confusing to sheer entertainment, I love that WWE gave B.A.D. Day more screen time. The Unicorn-ing of Team B.A.D. was awesome. I really enjoyed the match with Brie and Alicia too. Foxy was solid as usual when it came to both in-ring work and selling, and everyone was on top form. I’m loving Team B.A.D proving that they are very much like a female New Day; despite a few mishaps along the way, they stick together through thick and thin. I would quite like to see one of them (Naomi) win the title and the others still support them to prove this theory.
TLC is only a few days a way and I am disappointed that Paige and Charlotte don’t have a stipulation for their match. What is great is that a dastardly 2x Hall of Famer will be at ringside, so we can surely expect plenty of shenanigans? Right? Don’t be selling the dirtiest player in the game short, WWE.
