Last night’s Raw saw Rosa Mendes finally get a match of her own and WWE marked the occasion by giving her an entrance theme to call her own & by taking off the Glamazon-shaped training wheels, as we saw Rosa send her mentor, Beth Phoenix to the back rather than accompany her to the ring. Rosa faced off against Mickie James, with Maryse at ringside. Check it out below:
I joked on our Twitter page and in my audio bulletin, that it was weird that WWE gave Rosa the spot against Mickie because it seemed very much a ‘Job to Mickie’ match, and matches of that sort tend to be right up Jillian‘s alley. I immediately thought, “Something’s going to happen to Jillian.” We’ll see.
But anyway, Rosa – in her tacky skirt ensemble – gets her first singles opportunity on Raw, and it was interesting to see Maryse at ringside during this match. Three years ago, these two started their careers out at the same time in 2006 Diva Search and while Maryse is very much one of the company’s top Divas, Rosa seems to be falling into Jillian territory.
Another interesting dynamic was the way Rosa sent Beth to the back, I have to wonder if they are going somewhere with Rosa & Beth finally, after all this time. It just seemed like an unnecessary skit to add in if it didn’t mean something, why not just have Rosa come out to the ring by herself in the first place? So we’ll see if they do anything with those two. PS: Rosa’s music is so annoying.
In the ring, Rosa manages to get a head start on Mickie clubbing her across the back, but Mickie fights back and Rosa flees the ring. When she gets back in, she does hit a nice neckbreaker but that is about it for the rest of the match, she checks out from there and it’s left to Mickie to carry her to the end mark. Gotta admit, I thought maybe if she had a singles match, Rosa may show some flare in the ring, but she hasn’t much like SmackDown’s Eve. There’s nothing impressive in their moveset, it seems like the basic moves they teach you in FCW. She hasn’t impressed me, I find her blah in the ring. Perhaps that’s a good thing, because she did have an okay match with Mickie, but not a memorable one. I could go to sleep tonight and forget it ever happened.
After the match though, we get a nice exchange between Mickie and Maryse. I really liked it, because it shows just how narcissistic Maryse’s character is. Getting up on the apron to do the hairflip could easily provoke Mickie to knock her right off, but still she does it anyway – she just can’t help it, she has to do something to piss Mickie off. In that sense, I think Maryse is the perfect heel. Nicely done and more memorable than the match prior.
