This week on Friday Night SmackDown, Natalya trades in her fellow Diva of Doom, Beth Phoenix for the feisty Alicia Fox, as they face off against the team of former NXT rookie Diva, AJ and the reigning Divas Champion, Kelly Kelly. Can the champ ride her SummerSlam momentum to another win over the Divas of Doom, or will Nattie do what Beth couldn’t and knock Kelly down a peg or two? Check out the match below and find out:
First out is the team of AJ and Kelly Kelly, who are both looking fantastic. Kelly’s gear is giving me some Michelle McCool, while AJ’s new baby blue gear is stunning. Hell, even Josh Mathews noticed it. Alicia and Natalya enter next and Nattie looks like she’s all business tonight. Despite having faced each other several times in the past, both Alicia and Nattie appear to be on the same page. That said, appearances can be deceiving… The official signals for the bell and Natalya and AJ kick things off in this Divas tag match.
Natalya and AJ start off with a basic collar and elbow tie-up, but Natalya gets the upperhand when AJ tries an armdrag is unable to take the veteran over. After being (wo)manhandled back to her feet, AJ tries her hand at a schoolboy pin, which is unsuccessful as well and gets a stomp to the gut for her trouble. Using her significant size advantage over AJ, Natalya grabs her opponent by the throat and muscles her into the corner, leaving her cowering in fear.
After some prompting from the referee, Natalya backs off of AJ for a moment, but charges right back in for the kill. Luckily for AJ she saw it coming and manages to get her feet up, sending Nattie reeling. AJ tries to take advantage of the moment and take Nattie down with a flying crossbody, but once again she’s not able to take the third generation Diva off of her feet.
After wiggling out of a powerslam from Nattie, AJ runs straight into a stiff back elbow, but manages to recover quickly and take Natalya down to the mat with a beautiful floatover headscissors. Nattie kicks out quickly and brings AJ’s momentum to a screeching halt once again. Natalya whips AJ into the corner and charges at her again. AJ sees her coming and tries to get her feet up for a kick. Unfortunately for AJ, the same trick doesn’t work twice. Nattie blocks the kick, snaps AJ down to the mat and drags her over to her team’s corner, before tagging in Alicia Fox.
After a bit of double teaming, Alicia takes AJ down with a snapmare, followed by a few knees to the side and head of AJ. AJ tries her best to get her partner, but Alicia grounds her with a headlock, effectively neutralizing AJ’s high flying abilities. AJ also fight her way out of the submission, only to be pulled back down to the mat by Alicia and dragged to the opposite side of the ring.
After a double vertical suplex from Nattie and Alicia, Nattie goes for the pin but only gets a two count. Looking to keep control of the match, Nattie tags Alicia back in and Fox goes to work on AJ in the corner. The referee pulls Alicia off of AJ, which gives her just enough time to fight her way out and get over to her partner, Kelly Kelly.
Kelly comes into the match like a house of fire, taking Alicia down with a Thesz Press, followed by her patented headscissors and a running bulldog. Stunned, Alicia crawled to the corner, setting herself up for a Kelly Kelly stinkface. Kelly tries to end things with a hurricanrana, but Natalya makes the save and ends up brawling with AJ on the outside of the ring.
Looking to capitalize on her partner’s distraction, Alicia goes for the Scissors Kick, but the champ evades and counters with the K2 to pick up the win for her team.
Post-match, Alicia and Natalya get into an argument, which ends in Alicia getting blindsided by Nattie and locked in the Sharpshooter on the outside of the ring.
Very good match from the Divas on SmackDown, this week. Up until now, Beth Phoenix has been the face of the Divas of Doom, but Nattie showed that she could hold her own this week. Hopefully, we’ll see Natalya get a shot at the Divas title soon. Also, props to AJ and Kelly, who held their own this week. While Kelly will never be a world class cheerleader, she did well in her role as the hot tag and AJ took a beating the entire match, but had a few shining moments of her own.
Lastly, I really enjoyed the post-match segment. I’m assuming that this solidifies Alicia’s face turn, which is a damn, because she made a pretty good heel, in my opinion. We’ll see how it turns out. As long as she does to dance like she did the last time she was face, she should be ok.
And what would Fridays be without our weekly dose of Aksana? This week’s Aksanaism is a doozy. Check it out below:
Oh, Aksana…
