While most Diva fans were expecting the likes of Lita, Trish and Sable to be in attendance for WWE’s ‘Old School’ Raw, WWE truly lived up to the old school aspect of the show and treated us to an impromptu match between the legendary Mae Young and Co-Divas Champions, Lay-Cool. Check out the match and the delightfully un-PG promo that came beforehand:
We start off with “Mean” Gene Okerlund introducing Mae Young. Young comes through the curtain, being propped up accompanied by The Bella Twins to a lukewarm reception from the Hershey, PA crowd. Okerlund goes on to call Mae Young the “Original Diva” (Somewhere, Sunny just leapt off of a bridge) and a picture of Mae Young in her heyday comes up on the TitanTron. Say what you will about me, but Mae Young was freaking hot! Anyhoo, Okerlund give the mic over to Mae, and she says she has been wrestling since she was 17 and plans on wrestling until she’s 100 before Mean Gene takes the mic back.
Next, Gene segues into a video package featuring some of the forgettable moments Young has had over the years. The crowd cheers at the end of the package and Okerlund goes to follow up, but is drowned out by the familiar music of Lay-Cool.
As expected, Lay-Cool rip into the legendary Young, running through every old person joke they could think of. Jurassic Park? Check. Depends? Check. Ensure? Check. While I appreciate Lay-Cool’s enthusiasm, they definitely lose points for originality. After the BFF champs are done, Gene asks for a comment from Mae Young and boy, does she give him one. While most of Mae Young’s comment was drowned out by the crowd and the commentators, judging by the use of the words “Sluts” and “Bitches”, I don’t think she was was inviting Lay-Cool to her next birthday party. From what I could make out, Young challenged the champs to a No-DQ match. Not to be outdone, Lay-Cool raise the stakes and make the match Falls Count Anywhere as well. A referee comes out and signals for the bell as Lay-Cool laugh their way up the ramp. Unfortunately for Lay-Cool, the joke was on them as Melina, Eve, Gail Kim and their opponent at Survivor Series, Natalya made their way out to back up Young.
The champs try to make a stand, but are quickly overcome by the babyface. McCool is taken out by Natayla, giving Mae Young the opportunity to slap the taste out of Layla‘s mouth. Natalya follows up by taking Layla down with a sick lariat on the ramp. Mae Young covers Layla with one foot to pick up the win over the champs.
At first, I was a little peeved that there was no build of any sort of the Lay-Cool/Natalya feud, but after some careful consideration, I’ve gotten over it. Most of the Old School was a bunch of fluff. With the exception of Ted DiBiase starting a program with Daniel Bryan and The Hart Dynasty breaking up, there was no focus on any major storylines, so I shouldn’t be surprised that it carried over to the Divas. I had my expectations unrealistically high and was shot down as a result.
All in all, it was a fun segment. As I said, I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the predictability of Lay-Cool’s promo, but the segment fit in perfectly with all the other antics that took place this week. While there was no Survivor Series build-up, there’s always SmackDown for that.
