Raw newcomer Gail Kim scored a huge win in her first night back on the brand, when she pinned Maryse in a tag team match, also featuring Alicia Fox and Mickie James.
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Last night’s Raw was much anticipated from my end, with two of my favourite Divas now part of the Raw brand and they didn’t disappoint. Gail and Alicia mixed well with their new peers, with Gail being booked very strongly getting the victory and making a lasting impression on her first night as a Raw Diva since 2004. And my, how the landscape hath changed — the last time Gail was a Raw Diva, she was wrestling the likes of Trish, Lita and Molly Holly.
How does Gail’s win over the Divas Champion affect the Mickie-Maryse feud? I’m not sure that it does, they could easily have a match next week with Maryse pinning Gail to gain momentum into her match with Mickie at Night of Champions, however I hope they don’t go that route and kill the momentum Gail has gained on Raw. It seems as though these specific trades were made with these specific Superstars and Divas in mind, that said it looks like Vince and co. actually want to get their money’s worth out of Gail and putting her on Raw and actually giving her a chance to swim, works well for everyone. It looks like they saw potential in Gail and Alicia, thus the promotion to Raw — now can they book them right?
Mickie and Maryse make the start and there’s nothing too exciting here, except Mickie’s cartwheel. These two have had good chemistry, so it should be exciting to see their match at Night of Champions. Alicia tags in and just like she showed us on SmackDown, Alicia shows that she can hang in there with the best of them and in WWE’s eyes, Mickie is arguably ‘the best’. Alicia looks incredibly comfortable in the ring, sells moves well and is a much welcome change from the Rosa Mendes matches we’ve seen in the past few weeks.
We now see Alicia vs Gail, these two have worked together a lot on SmackDown and deliver much of the same great work they did over there; it seems to me that Gail’s impressive moveset isn’t as lost on the Raw audience as it was on SmackDown as she gets some crowd reaction for her moves. We can’t be sure of anything until next week when Raw actually goes live, but this looks promising, I hope Gail is able to get over with the Raw audience better than she did on SmackDown so she can get the push she deserves.
Gail storms the ring and hits one impressive move after another, from her hurricanrana to her jump through the ropes into that jump on Alicia on the ropes that we saw on SmackDown a couple of weeks ago.
Maryse hits a cheap shot on Gail from the apron, but eventually comes into the match for the final portion of action. Maryse hits her really nice backbreaker, but then seems to hurt her leg in the turnbuckle. Maryse blocks a tag from Gail to Mickie knocking Mickie off the apron, but Gail manages to gain some strength hitting her patented straight-leg jawbreaker for the 1, 2, 3!
Good first outing for Gail, I hope this is the start of big things for her! But like I say, I think the crowd really needs to get behind her to make a push possible; hopefully we’ll see that when Raw returns to it’s live format next week. There’s a whirlwind of possibilities for both Gail and Alicia on this show and I’m excited to see them work with Mickie, Maryse, Beth, Kelly and Jillian. Alicia vs Kelly seems like a feud that could be very interesting as they were both signed at the same time after being discovered from the same catalogue. Gail vs Beth could also be a great feud to watch, that some would aliken to Gail vs Kong.
Another good week for the Raw Divas.
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