Welcome everyone to this week’s SmackDown Redux! Filling in for Steven this week as he braves the battle of Hurricane Irene shall be yours truly, normally NXT Watch-er, Bobby. This week, we saw a first time match up, as the Booker T-proclaimed Warrior Princess, Tamina, took on the overly perky & nice (alright, gotta shake off the NXT/Maxine rust here) Divas Champion, Kelly Kelly in one on one action. Alongside the non-title bout, we also had a brief segment with Aksana backstage…so without any further ado, let’s kick things off!
We head back from a commercial break to Tamina standing in the ring. Of course, she uses this new theme song whenever she doesn’t get to actually enter on TV, but nonetheless, Tamina sports some sick new gear as well, and looks as menacing as ever standing in the ring. Out next comes the fan favorite, who has grown accustomed to the blue brand as of late, Divas Champion, Kelly Kelly. As she makes her way to the ring, we get a brief promo from Natalya shot earlier in the night. She proclaims that Kelly Kelly is beautiful, much like the WWE’s version of a barbie doll…only she doesn’t play with dolls. (Note: Natalya’s got a pretty mean looking stare as the promo ends… if looks could kill).
The bell sounds, as the two divas circle each other around the ring. They lock up as Tamina takes the quick upper strength advantage. Kelly ducks a punch in the corner and begins going crazy on Tamina. A thesz press soon follows, as she proceeds to slap Tamina right in the ass. This infuriates Tamina, and brings out my favorite feature in her…the bitch face. She can master it like no other, but back to the match…Kelly runs off the ropes with a spinning headscissors takedown that sends Tamina into the ropes. She slowly tries to flip over to the outside of the ring, but finally does so as she manages to avoid a kick from the champ.
Kelly locks in a handstand leg choke to reach a four count, but Tamina takes control, snapping K2’s head off the ropes. Tamina slides back into the ring and drops Kelly with a bodyslam. From there, she applies an arm lock, before Kelly manages to flip it over into an arm drag. K2 drops Tamina with a kick to the knee, before pounding her face into the mat and following it up with a bulldog.
Kelly picks Tamina up and sends her into the corner. She runs up and hits a nice handspring elbow, proceeding with the stinkface. You know that’s gotta piss Tamina off…but nonetheless, Kelly climbs to the top rope and jumps off with a crossbody attempt, only Tamina is able to catch her in mid air. Kelly slips out through the back, however, and drops Tamina with the K2 for the victory! The Divas Champion celebrates with her title, as the segment comes to a close.
In other news, we had a very brief Aksana segment this week, where it’s discovered that we have the option to ‘turn her on’ this Tuesday night on the live edition of Super Smackdown.
Thoughts: The match was pretty standard. Yes, there was a sloppy part after the headscissors, but other than that I thought it was pretty much your average match. Kelly has picked up a lot of wins since becoming champion, which definitely makes her look strong heading into her eventual fight with the Divas of Doom. Speaking of which, I thought Natalya’s promo was awesome. She has a very old school feel to her when she’s on the microphone, and I enjoy how she doesn’t just stand there and sound like she’s reading off of a cue card, rather she puts emotion into her mic work and I believe she means what she says. As for Aksana, I don’t even think she could grasp a cue card, and I do believe every misinterpreted thing that she speaks. All in all, an average edition of SmackDown. Hopefully the live Tuesday episode doesn’t disappoint.
