What’s up Diva fans and welcome to this week’s SmackDown Redux. I am back, covering for the incredibly lucky Steven who is in Illinois ready for SHIMMER. I wish I could bring some action to rival that of what Diva Dirt’s Steven, Cryssi and Katelyn will see this weekend, yet sadly, that is not the case. You’ll see what I mean shortly. This week’s bout is a 6 Diva Tag match pitting Divas Champion Kaitlyn and The Funkadactyls, Cameron and Naomi against Tamina Snuka and Brie and Nikki, The Bella Twins. Without any further ado, let’s get into the action.
The segment begins with the heel team out first. Tamina awkwardly stands in the middle of the Bellas meaning they don’t do their patented back-to-back pose on the apron and that definitely got a laugh out of me. Further hilarity then ensued when the face team made their way to the ring, with the Funkadactyls theme song! The champ doesn’t get to use her own theme? Wow.
Kaitlyn and Tamina start things off and it’s the latter Diva who gets the best of the early going with a kick to the gut and a hair pull throw to the ground. The self-proclaimed “Chaotic Exotic” then pushes both Funkadactyls off the apron yet the gets a Spear for her troubles from Kaitlyn! Our butterfly belt holder goes for the quick win but one of the Bellas (who I will refer to as Bella 1) breaks up the pin attempt by landing on Tamina. Kaitlyn is definitely undeterred by this interruption and hits Bella 1 with another Spear after she is concerned after landing on Tamina. Whilst this has been going on, Tamina has tagged in Bella 2 and Kaitlyn takes control of her too, ramming her into the turnbuckle.
The champ then tags in the Diva capable of starting her own religion, it’s the godly Naomi! Naomi decks Bella 2 with a beautiful springboard crossbody which she follows up with a flipping clothesline. The NXT Season 2 runner-up then does what I can only describe as an armscissor takeover followed by her signature move, the bootylicious Rear View. Naomi then tries to whip Bella 2 into the corner yet the terrible twin reverses it. Momentum is switched back in the Funkadactyl’s favour for a brief moment thanks to a stiff kick, yet she loses it after Bella 1 trips her off the second rope whilst the referee is tending to Tamina, who has just been took out by a Naomi kick.
Bella 1 then talks trash to Cameron and Kaitlyn on the apron, with the latter of the two being barged to the floor by Bella 2. Cameron then Lou Thesz presses Bella 1 on the outside, leaving Bella 2 the only girl standing. She then slams Naomi to the ground by her hair… and gets a 3 count? Wait, what?
Thoughts: Given the time the girls had, this was by no means a bad match at all, but WHAT ON EARTH was that finish? As the WWE video games call it, a beat head? Really? That finished the match? I’m sorry but that is a completely unrealistic way of ending a match. Why couldn’t Bella 2 have just use used the Bella Buster? Naomi was clearly still shook up from her second rope fall so logically, Bella 2 could have easily executed her more realistic finishing move, right?
Sorry to do this, but I’m about to go on a rant! Where does the division go from here? I wouldn’t have minded this match had the finish not angered me so much yet it really did. The division is sadly as dull as dishwater right now and I am longing for that bit of umph to get us back on the right track. Naomi hit everything on-point in this match, yet her doing the same moves every match isn’t going to keep me throwing hyperbole praise left, right and center.
We need longer matches and storylines and we need them now, especially the storylines. All the girls in the ring on SmackDown and the rest of the roster are more than capable of putting on great matches and developing exciting characters that fans can connect with and care about. I shouldn’t learn most about a Diva’s personality from their Twitter account; it should be on TV. Kaitlyn’s reign thus far as Divas Champion has been so beige and it’s not her fault at all. With all the girls down in NXT showing infinite promise, I feel like they should want to stay in developmental as that’s where storylines are happening, characters are growing and where the belt doesn’t look like a unicorn went to the toilet on it. The developmental territory should be good, yet we would expect it to be worse as the girls there are still learning. It’s frankly embarrassing that WWE’s writers don’t care about their main roster girls and the supposed trainees are delivering better goods week in and week out.
Trish Stratus recently said in an interview on this very website that Stephanie McMahon really pushed for the Diva storylines and airtime back in the day and I am urging Stephanie to take this same interest again. There is only so little patience fans can have when they get to see the odd amazing match on Superstars every now and again. That’s simply not enough. WrestleMania season is over and the wrestling calendar is beginning once again. It’s time to give these fantastic female athletes the respect they deserve. We want storylines. We want character development. We want more airtime. Surely, the three main elements of what makes good wrestling TV aren’t too hard to create WWE. Right? And with that, stay tuned, Jack will be back – hopefully with a happier Redux!
