Good afternoon ladies and gents, and allow me to welcome you to this weeks Raw Redux. If you had been expecting Cryssi to show up to the festivities, I’m sorry to disappoint you. But it is I, Bobby, here. And I am ready to recap the action. The last time we had an actual Raw Redux, I believe it was the infamous Raw Roulette which just so happened to land on a Las Vegas Showgirl Lumberjill Match (which I don’t remember seeing on the wheel, but let’s just try to forget it ever happened and not even ask questions). Since then, the division has sort of went missing from Raw and SmackDown until last Friday night when Layla and Tamina Snuka took center stage on the blue brand.
And then we have last night at Elimination Chamber when Kaitlyn defeated Tamina to retain the Divas title. Most of the Divas were looking on backstage, perhaps signaling something interesting brewing? Well it turned out to be another red herring when it comes to the females because hardly any of them were seen tonight. What we did get though, I’m not going to lie, felt like Christmas come early to this recapper considering it contained my personal favorite of the females. Brodus Clay, Tensai (who I’m actually… liking now. Please don’t judge me), and Naomi teamed up to take on the trio of Primo, Epico, and Rosa Mendes in mixed tag team action. Planet Funk’s opposing Funkadactyl, Cameron, also made her presence felt as she cheered her mixed group of three on from ringside… literally! She had pom pom’s and all.
Rounding out our Diva delights for the night are appearances from AJ Lee and a woman whose identity remains a mystery to me, so let’s jump right into the action and then we can get to asking if Groundhog’s Day actually in some way meant that we would be getting six weeks of not seeing Kaitlyn on our screens. Or also questioning if the Divas Title is legitimately cursed because she’s not the first to win it and then mysteriously vanish from TV.
P.S. – If this becomes some sort of Funkadactyl appreciation post, I’m sorry in advance. It helps if I know when their matches are coming ahead of time so I can prepare myself. If I annoy anyone, please don’t resist to contact me through Twitter and I’ll send you a complimentary gift basket filled with every Adele CD known to man because… well, everybody loves Adele.
Rumor has it, I’ve been watching this video nonstop for the past few hours and can probably write up the entire thing off the top of my head, but just to be sure I get this correct, I’ll recap as I watch. Ahem… the funky dance music of Brodus Clay hits and out walks he, Tensai, Naomi, and Cameron. Suddenly, they’re cut off by the theme music of Primo and Epico. The duo storms out alongside Rosa Mendes. And truth be told, I thought this was a tag team match until Rosa’s kneepads came into view. As all seven stand near the ring, it appears that Naomi has been blessed with the opportunity to compete tonight! Following my own personal ceremonious victory dance (P.S. – I love Cameron as well, but I have been waiting for this moment and hopefully she understands), the bell sounds and the Divas kick things off.
Rosa slaps Naomi in the back of the head, which fires her up as she Irish Whips Mendes off the ropes. Naomi lands that vivacious booty call from her FCW days, which brings me visions of bright green spandex, braids, and sneakers. Rosa scurries into the corner nearby, but Naomi is hot on her hip swaying trail. She goes for another Irish whip; however, Rosa counters this one and sends her flying into the corner. Naomi doesn’t let that stop her from getting the upper hand though, as she simply flips over the turnbuckle and lands on her feet on the ring apron! From there, she drills Rosa with a shot to the face and leaps off the top rope with a springboard crossbody for a two count!
Epico seems to have a problem with this, and while I like to believe this was done just to cause me to explode with joy, Naomi runs forward and plants him with a hurricanrana! He flies to the outside of the ring, while Rosa runs over and tags in Primo. Tensai charges in and takes Primo down with a set of clotheslines and an elbow. Epico now breaks things up and slides to the outside once again to check on Mamacita Mendes. Naomi takes it upon herself to slide through Tensai’s legs and drill both of them with a baseball slide! Back inside the ring, Primo nails a dropkick and as Tensai falls into the ropes, Brodus blind tags himself in. The two take Primo down with a double headbutt and follow it up with a two man splash for the monstrous victory! Following the match; Brodus, Tensai, Naomi, Cameron, members of the crowd, and myself all dance in celebration of tonight’s actions.
Also check out AJ Lee below, as she, Big E Langston, and Big E Langston’s deteriorating attire manage Dolph Ziggler this week in his match against Alberto Del Rio:
…And because I want this to get as much spotlight as possible (and since it technically has a female in it), check out the following video promo for one of the greatest people in wrestling… former Maxine love interest that seems to have moved on to a new mystery woman, Johnny Curtis aka Fandango:
Thoughts: Okay, where do we begin? I don’t want to discuss Naomi too much because I’m sure everyone knows I have nothing aside from positivity to spread regarding her. I do, however, want to send a giant thank you to the WWE Gods/powers-that-be for not sacrificing she and AJ like some of their previous fallen comrades that I’m still not over such as Angela Fong, Caylee Turner and Sonia/Su Yung who never got to wrestle on Raw or SmackDown. It’s nice to see that through the many profiles removed from FCW’s website over the years, those two actually are getting to shine on the main shows in their own respected ways.
Now onto tonight’s match. Even if I wasn’t clearly biased, this was more entertaining to me than getting a rushed minute and a half long singles match between Kaitlyn and someone she’s faced twenty times before. I love watching Kaitlyn compete, but there’s only so many times I can see her face Aksana before I go a little (someone plug AJ’s ears) crazy. I do still wish they would have at least had her in a backstage segment with some of the other Divas and maybe built up to a battle royal next week or something because they were all watching the screen during Elimination Chamber last night and for that to just go nowhere is pretty sad. I swear the belt is cursed. It’s like the butterfly secretly plots how it can keep the Diva holding it off TV for another week and laughs maniacally when it succeeds.
I also want to discuss Rosa, who looked way more fluid in the ring tonight than I’ve seen in a while. Rosa does not get a lot of credit from people, but truthfully I find her to be a lot more entertaining than half the people main eventing pay per views. That being said, I can admit that I know she isn’t the strongest when it comes to wrestling. Tonight though, although she didn’t really do any moves of her own, she kept up with Naomi and it didn’t feel like Naomi had to slow down so she could get to her feet or get in place for the next move, which I’ll say is something I’ve noticed with some of Naomi’s past opponents in developmental and so on. I know Rosa has talked about how she wanted this to be the year she does more physicality in terms of wrestling and competing in the division, so who knows? Maybe she’s really working at it behind the scenes. I hope so, because I’d love to see more interaction between she, Naomi, and Cameron in the future. This feud has me entertained and the tweets are killer if you haven’t checked them out.
If it were up to me, and I’m not even going as far as to predict WrestleMania because it’s 99% not going to be something we want to see for the Divas, and thus there’s no reason for me to plan that much ahead. But if it were up to me in terms of next week, I’d organize a battle royal involving Tamina, Aksana, Rosa, Naomi, Cameron, Natalya, Alicia, Layla, and AJ. I would have AJ hide in the corner for majority of the bout, as it comes down to Tamina and Natalya for the supposed final two. Natalya finally tosses Tamina out and acts as if she won, when out of nowhere, AJ runs up and throws her out as well. In my opinion, AJ is the only option if they want to put Kaitlyn in a fresh, credible feud with a heel that’s already on the main roster. A match between the two has the benefit of a built in story and a woman that WWE will invest storylines in, plus it also has that sort of mystique of being a fresh match since it’s only happened in FCW when Kaitlyn was really new and on SmackDown when they were given about thirty seconds. In other words, we don’t know what to expect between them if they receive lots of time. Kaitlyn is very low on challengers right now, which is likely what’s hurting her reign at the moment, and the Kaitlyn/AJ bout seems to be the Beth/Kharma of this years WrestleMania as the match most people want to see. While I don’t think we’re going to get it unless my arch rival, Maria Menounos has plans that weekend, I’m definitely pulling for it as well and hoping for the best. Just please no Santino in drag. Nothing is worse than Santino in drag.
Alright, hopefully that made sense considering I’m barely functioning right now due to extreme tiredness. Remember to contact me if at any point you felt discomfort reading this and you can expect some Adele CD’s in your mailbox soon. Until next time — peace!
