‘Ello everyone, and welcome to this week’s edition of the Raw Redux! This week, Kaitlyn goes for the gold… err, silver and pink, as she takes on Divas Champion, Eve Torres, with the title up for grabs. Not only that, but former champion, Layla sits on commentary for the bout and gives her two cents on both women, and the entire situation dealing with Kaitlyn’s attack at Night of Champions. Who will walk out as the Divas Champ? Let’s find out!
We spot Eve walking towards the ring as Jim Ross promotes that Kaitlyn will be going for the Divas Title after the break! Given that I love title defenses on Raw and SmackDown, this greatly pleases me. We head to the ring and see Layla sitting ringside to do commentary on the match, as out comes both champion and challenger making their grand entrance. Eve is all smiles of course, blowing kisses and playing with her hair… but Kaitlyn doesn’t seem to be at 100%. Don’t get me wrong, she looks ready to go, provided you ignore the big white tape all over her ankle. Perhaps not the best time to cash in your match for the title, but maybe Kaitlyn is on a high from her birthday, or you know, maybe AJ forced this to happen since clearly she has no remorse towards Kaitlyn.
Layla informs us that she is in shock that a fighting champion like Eve would accept Kaitlyn’s match for the title knowing that she isn’t 100%, clearly from the taped up ankle. But that doesn’t seem to phase our bubbly champion. Kaitlyn is all business tonight though, for as soon as the bell rings, she’s on Eve like a government mule… yes, I just said that and I never will again. Kaitlyn throws Eve across the ring and scores with a shoulder tackle, before hitting a few punches and a nice snap suplex for a two count. Eve capitalizes now with a kick, but ultimately ends up on the canvas after a back body drop for another near fall. Kaitlyn looks to attempt an Irish Whip, but ends up lifting Eve up in some sort of modified torture rack! Eve escapes out the back though, and takes the control until Kaitlyn hits a backbreaker. Unfortunately, she hits it on the leg of her injury and it seems to aggravate it.
Kaitlyn limps over to the corner, but Eve kicks her down and now targets the ankle. She slams it, kicks it, steps on it, and drops it with some sort of leg type DDT. From there, Eve locks in a heel hook and after a valiant effort, Kaitlyn ultimately taps out. Eve doesn’t let go through, which shocks us all! Layla gets up from the table and heads in to stop this madness, which sparks Eve to now show concern for the injury she just tried to aggravate. Layla isn’t buying it though, as she shoves Eve back! Eve tries to apologize, before heading up the ramp while staring off with her future competition, Layla!
Thoughts: I really enjoyed the match between Eve and Kaitlyn. It felt different from the usual Raw bout because they continued to play up the story of Kaitlyn’s injured ankle and had Eve target it as opposed to being decimated for a bit and then hitting the neckbreaker out of nowhere. I thought it was a great touch that Layla added the line about Eve accepting this match when Kaitlyn’s ankle still wasn’t 100% (and also noting that Eve opted to face an injured Kaitlyn instead of a ready to go Layla) because it adds more to the story about why Kaitlyn’s title shot is happening here instead of at a later date. Eve, being the friendly competitor that she is, doesn’t want to simply let Kaitlyn down by denying her title shot, even if her ankle isn’t fully recovered yet. Of course, she welcomes all comers, but Kaitlyn’s been waiting longer for this since she didn’t get her promised match at Night of Champions after winning the battle royal, so Kaitlyn’s shot must come first! And another excellent touch was Eve leaving the heel hook locked in past the point of Kaitlyn tapping out. It makes us continue to question where her loyalty lies, as she continues to play up both sides to perfection. I, for one, am loving the division at the moment. Even if they only seem to be using a few select women, we actually have a storyline going and they seem to be putting emphasis on Eve’s title reign which is much needed for that belt as the past few reigns have seemed to go from hot to cold in a matter of weeks with champions disappearing from TV all the time. Eve is getting spotlight, and it’s really refreshing to see as a whole in the division when it comes to their title holder.
But the mystery attacker thing is starting to worry me a little. I don’t want it revealed now or anything, but I do want more clues towards it. It feels like we haven’t moved forward in discovering their identity at all since Kaitlyn stated it was a blonde. I’m not sure if maybe the plan is changing or something and they need to get everything ready, but I feel like it’s been a few weeks now of playing up the big mysterious blonde, but we need a new clue to keep it fresh because there are only so few blondes left in the company and the two I thought it could be the most are now seemingly gone. They could always make it be anyone though and just use a blonde wig, but maybe let us see the footage next week, or at least a short clip of it, so we can feel like we’re another step closer in discovering the identity. If Kaitlyn was able to see it, then we know it exists. I think that would be a cool way to go since you can’t really describe anything else about them given that Kaitlyn said you can’t see their face, and I assume they were probably covered up everywhere else to conceal their identity!
Overall, big thumbs up tonight and I hope we’re leading towards a triple threat feud between Eve, Kaitlyn, and Layla down the line before incorporating some of the other Divas in the title picture after the mystery attacker is revealed.
