Hello there Diva fans, and welcome to this week’s Raw Redux. It’s Eleri here, filling in for Cryssi who’s not feeling too good! Hopefully she’ll be better in no time at all! Last night we saw another little segment between Summer Rae and Jericho, then AJ Lee took on Layla and Kaitlyn sought to find out who her secret admirer might be with Natalya at her side. It was an interesting night of entertainment, so let’s get right to it.
Our first glimpse of the Divas came in the form of Summer Rae, who accompanied Fandango to the ring for a tag match, in which he partnered with Wade Barrett against Jericho and the Miz. She sparkled in her yellow dress, but she still looks a little awkward as a dancer. Still, I give her props for going out there and doing it anyway. She’s improving for sure, but I’m looking forward to when she breaks out on her own on Raw. Summer sort of hangs around at ringside for the most part of the match, but soon Fandango comes to her to have a little dance at the ringside. Meanwhile, Fandango’s partner, Wade Barrett is having to hold down the fort himself in the ring. Depsite his team’s loss, Fandango looks quite happy on the outside as he continues to dance with Summer. But then Jericho and Miz corner the dancing pair, and Fandango leaves his lady to the wolves as he heads right out of there through the crowd! Miz goes off in pursuit, leaving Jericho with Summer Rae.
At first Summer looks a little weird, but as the crowd begins to get into what might happen, she eases into the situation. Jericho throws out a hand to her, and they have a short but sweet exchange. Jericho dips Summer to finish it off, and when she’s upright again they’re face to face. Not gonna lie, I thought Jericho but give her a little kiss. But then he does something that’s very Jericho and leaves her high and dry! As he exits, Summer is screaming after him, embarrassed and angry.
I sort of wish I was Summer during their little dance.
AJ accompanied Big E Langston to the ring in the absence of Dolph Ziggler (may he make a speedy recovery!) and once that match was done, AJ hung around in the ring to await Layla, who was set to be her opponent. Layla’s gone back to brunette, thankfully. Before the match begins, we’re shown a recap of what went down between Divas champion Kaitlyn and AJ, who is still the number one contender for Kaitlyn’s title after winning a battle royal a few weeks ago. Kaitlyn and AJ traded insults, and Kaitlyn attacked AJ after a certain pig comment. They brawled backstage with the Bellas and Tamina (who was eating a banana at the time) cheered them on. Some referees managed to drag them apart, but it took a little while!
Back in the ring, AJ looks unhappy with the recap. As Layla busies herself in the corner, getting ready for the match, AJ comes in quickly and takes down her opponent with a very harsh clothesline! AJ follows it up with a pair of neckbreakers. She goes for the pin and gets a two count early on. Layla fights back with some forearms to the head and mid-section, but AJ takes control again with a vicious back elbow off the ropes. Laying Layla out, AJ skips around her fallen opponent as we are shown Brie and Nikki Bella backstage. They’re watching the match and are busy insulting everything about AJ they can find, from her height to her ’80’s style shorts’. They even call her a rat. Meow!
Back to the match at hand! AJ finally finishes skipping around and heads over to where Layla is still down, but it appears Layla has been lying in wait for her opponent! Layla connects with a kick to the face and AJ is sent flying across the ring. AJ is now the one down, so Layla takes the opportunity to mock her opponent and begins skipping around the ring, much to the audience’s pleasure. They start to cheer the last ever Women’s Champion! Love it. Layla tries to drag AJ back to the centre of the ring but AJ grabs the ropes, refusing. She crawls over the corner but Layla is in pursuit, hitting AJ repeatedly with kicks to the head, the mid-section, the chest… The referee gives Layla a caution. I’m loving Layla’s aggression in this match.
Layla heads back to AJ, still in control, but is caught out as AJ quickly wraps her up in the Black Widow! Uh oh! Layla taps out. In celebration, AJ blows Layla a kiss and then heads out of the ring.
Later that night, we caught up with Kaitlyn and Natalya backstage, who are still trying to figure out who Kaitlyn’s admirer is. Kaitlyn excitedly reveals that she now has a phone number for her admirer, and Natalya asks for the phone number so that she can once again get Khali to snoop around and try and find out who it is. Seriously? A seven foot tall dude sneaking around in the locker room? Sure, no one’s gonna see that.
As the ladies discuss the matter at hand, Cody Rhodes walks into view, and he just happens to be texting. He stops by the divas, asks if he has something in his lovestache, and Natalya proceeds to subdue him as Kaitlyn steals his phone to check whether her admirer could be Cody.
It’s not. The champ declares that Cody is just uploading pictures of himself to the internet. Natalya replies with a simple ‘ew’ and Kaitlyn tells Cody that she’s glad it’s not him. Hmm… she might have liked it a couple of months ago though, when she and Cody had a little somethin’ somethin’ going on between them. No? Alrighty then.
Thoughts: I liked the show tonight. I thought Summer Rae’s interaction with Jericho only did good things for her, especially in the eyes of the crowd. Even though it looks as though he’s not interested, I’d still quite like her to turn on Fandango in the near future and side with Jericho, maybe play them off against each other, and then break out on her own in the end as a heel. It’d be a great way to set her up for a singles career, especially if she screws over someone as popular as Jericho. See Eve/John Cena.
As far as the match goes, I didn’t mind it. I thought there were a few good spots, like the clothesline to start it off, the kick from Layla to AJ and finally AJ’s finisher. It wasn’t anything special, but I do like how they’re setting up AJ to be dominant with her submission move, especially as I think we’ll be seeing her match with Kaitlyn for the title soon. Maybe even at the Payback pay per view?
Finally, the secret admirer storyline. I don’t hate it, I just hope it does go somewhere, even if it is just the Bellas playing a cruel trick on the champ. It’s great that we’re getting Kaitlyn on TV. Let’s be honest, her title run has been pretty lackluster thus far. Also, didn’t she fancy Cody a few months ago, and now she’s glad it’s not him? I quite liked the segments between the two and I was a bit bummed when it was cut short after the Bellas returned. Ho hey, it’s all in the past now.
I enjoyed last night’s show. For now, Eleri out, and I’ll see you with the Impact Write-Up on Friday!
