WWE has been exciting for the women recently right? Steel cage matches, fatal-4-way matches, mystery luchadoras running around… oh wait, this is the RAW Redux. The RAW women’s division hasn’t been the most riveting lately, but let’s see what was in store this week as we draw closer to the Royal Rumble.
First up, we see pre-show footage of Sasha Banks being assessed in the ring, to see if she can be cleared to wrestle following her ‘injuries’ sustained at Roadblock. However, mid way through she gets ambushed by her recent foe, Nia Jax, who tries to aggravate her injuries by hitting a leg drop on her unexpecting victim.
Later on in the night, Nia Jax gloats that she “broke the Boss and now people are buzzing about the ‘right’ woman”.
The main course of the night sees RAW Women’s Champion, Charlotte, make her way down the ring to mock everyone’s fan favourite, Bayley. Much like the last few weeks, Charlotte stresses the point that Bayley doesn’t belong on the main roster and is just a fan like everyone else. She even brings up old pictures of a young Bayley taking pictures with John Cena, Ivory (who she failed to name drop), Rob Van Dam and Bret Hart. She then brings up some of the poetry that Bayley used to write, talking about her dreams of becoming a wrestler.
Charlotte begins to mock one of her poems, until Bayley comes out and stop the fun. As she charges to the ring, Charlotte rolls out to avoid any physical confrontation. Bayley wins the crowd emotions over, in Sasha 2016 style of saying how she’s an ‘every woman’ who had a dream to become a wrestler. Bayley then hits a trio of rhymes that would have made John Cena proud, ending with “You’ve called me a child and you say I don’t deserve to walk down that ramp, but in two weeks you can call me the NEW Women’s Champ!”. Bayley’s music plays and the whacky-waving inflatable tube men drown out Charlotte. Oh you WWE writers, such lyrical geniuses!
After last week’s 205 Live show, the budding romance between Cedric Alexander and Alicia Fox seems to have come to a crashing halt. While Cedric takes on Brian Kendrick, Alicia comes to ringside to show her support. A distraction allows Cedric to pick up the win, but instead of celebrating together, Cedric ducks under Alicia’s attempt to hug him… #SwervedAndCurved! However, backstage a sneaky Noam Dar looks on…
Crazy Fox makes a brief appearance as she shrieks, “I don’t want to talk about it!” when asked about why she was curved by Cedric just moments ago.
Another Emma promo… babes it has been like 3 months. At this rate, we might not even be alive by the time she makes her debut.
Finally, I have to include the tribute to Jimmy ‘Super Fly’ Snuka, which includes mention of his daughter Tamina. Rest in Peace Superfly, we know Tamina is ready to carry on that legacy!
Thoughts: Oh RAW… you’re really falling behind and it’s such a shame. For the pros; I’m happy we didn’t get a match as I’m tired of these combinations and I’m loving how Alicia Fox is getting an actual character again… but that’s where the compliments end.
Last night’s segment between Charlotte and Bayley really fell flat. The pictures and poems just weren’t an avenue to go down, topped off by the fact that Sasha had literally cut similar promos before all of this… and Becky Lynch was cutting some of the same herself over on SmackDown. Sure the promo seemed to pick up towards the end because the crowd love Bayley, but it’s just such a weird childish feud that seems such a step down from the intensity between Charlotte and Sasha.
Moving onto Nia Jax… it really would have been nice to see her doing something other than a leg drop, but I feel like a broken record. It’s the same basic moves over and over again… oh Nia, the internet isn’t buzzing about you, I don’t think we have since you took on Asuka several months ago. I’m not knocking the potential there is in this feud, but right now it just seems so slow and plodding. I’m not getting any excitement about it at all.
Finally, I’ll go off the record and just mention Tamina. Despite Jimmy’s court case before his death, it’s still the death of a wrestling icon. Also, we still have one of our women superstars losing their father. Tamina has been known to be one of the ‘mother hens’ backstage, with her own shoulder and so I hope she’s coping well. Here’s to a happy and well-awaited return for when she’s back and fully ready to go, thoughts go out to the Snuka family.
Are you getting into this Bayley/Charlotte feud? Did you like the pre-show attack angle? Do you know where Emma is? You know what to do!
