Monday’s Raw wasn’t kind to the Diva Revolution, so it was up to SmackDown to tend to its bruised ego. However, with Alicia Fox and Paige off doing their Tough Enough duties, we only had two-thirds of Team PCB and Team Bella on hand to correct Monday’s mistakes.
Nonetheless, the Diva Revolution would attempt to get back on track when Becky Lynch and Charlotte faced Brie and Nikki Bella. Team B.A.D. were on commentary to add their two cents, lest we forget them (as Raw certainly did).
In a pre-match WWE.com exclusive interview, Team B.A.D. took center stage, talking to JoJo about their loss SummerSlam:
Naomi praises Sasha‘s performance at TakeOver, calling it one of the greatest Divas matches of all time. Sasha says Team PCB’s win at SummerSlam was a fluke, since she wasn’t at 100%. Tamina says they heard that crappy crowd reaction on Raw and have something to say themselves, indicating that they’ll do some talking on commentary.
On SmackDown itself, the Bellas encountered Becky and Charlotte backstage for some pre-match mind games. Well, an attempt at mind games:
The Bellas express some faux sympathy for Becky and Charlotte, since their “leader” Paige isn’t there. Charlotte corrects them, saying that everyone in PCB is a leader in their own right. They go back and forth a bit, the Bellas working to create a wedge between C, B and P. Becky and Charlotte don’t fall for it, saying that they have respect, loyalty and integrity. Charlotte references the Bella feud from last year (didn’t we retcon that???), which seems to rattle Brie a bit. It’s not enough to bust up the Bellas, though, and they move on to the match.
The two teams make their entrance as Team B.A.D. settle in at the commentary table. Charlotte and Nikki start things off, tying up. Nikki tosses Charlotte to the mat, maintaining the hold. Charlotte kips up and does the same, tossing Nikki down while keeping the tie-up intact. She holds Nikki’s shoulder to the mat, but the champ kicks out easily.
Charlotte backs Nikki into the PCB corner, where Becky tags herself in. The pair take out Nikki with a double dropkick and kip up in unison. Becky covers Nikki, who kicks out. Becky locks Nikki in a hammerlock, but it doesn’t last long, Nikki freeing herself with an elbow to Becky’s face. Nikki hammers on Becky’s back before taking her down with a sunset flip, holding her shoulder down for the pin. Becky kicks out.
Nikki takes Becky to the Bella corner, where Brie tags in. The two slam Becky to the mat by her hair and Brie covers her for the pin. Becky bridges out before the referee can even begin his count and drops Brie with a dropkick. Becky hits Brie with three consecutive legdrops, Charlotte tagging in on the third and joining the action. She attempts a knee drop, but Brie rolls out of the way, causing her to slam the knee on the mat painfully. Brie immediately goes for that very knee, hitting it with a low dropkick. She covers Charlotte for the pin, but only earns a near fall.
Brie continues to focus on the knee, punishing it with a modified half crab. Brie breaks the hold before Charlotte can reach the ropes, but she can’t maintain control, getting scooped up by Charlotte. She slips free, though, Charlotte’s knee giving out. Brie kicks her away and attempts to continue her assault, but Charlotte battles back with some chops. She sends Brie out onto the ring apron and hits her with a forearm that sends her flying to the outside, buying her some time.
Charlotte slowly crawls towards Becky, but Nikki sees an opportunity to keep her in the ring, charging at her. Charlotte pulls open the ropes, sending her straight to the outside. Nikki gets a bit of revenge, though, yanking Becky off the ring apron before Charlotte can tag her in. Becky isn’t having this, knocking Nikki silly with a forearm. She climbs back on the ring apron, only to be met with a blow from Brie. She joins Nikki on the floor outside.
Meanwhile, Brie is taken down by Charlotte, who rolls her into a pin and bridges over it. It’s enough to keep Brie down for the three count and earn PCB a revenge victory!
On SmackDown Fallout, Becky and Charlotte talked about their win:
Becky says, like butter, PCB is on a roll (since we’ve collectively decided to wipe Monday from our memories). Charlotte assures JoJo that PCB isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Lana and Summer Rae also made appearances on the show, but unfortunately didn’t do much else but stand in their respective corners during a tag match:
Thoughts: This match wasn’t anything special. It’s probably most notable for being one of the shortest Diva Revolution matches thus far, though if I’m honest, I enjoyed it more than that long, drawn out tag match from that SmackDown a few weeks ago. Sometimes, a longer segment is just a shorter segment stretched beyond its means. This one was just about as long as it needed to be, since it didn’t exactly advance much of anything. In fact, the backstage segment could have worked on its own, with the Bellas trying to plant seeds of dissension between PCB. The match that followed kind of killed that thread, with PCB getting the win and all. It would’ve made more sense if the Bellas won – at least we would have a reason to suspect some PCB tension. They don’t have to actually bicker, but it any sort of break from this endless cycle of matches would be welcome at this point.
I was glad to see Team B.A.D. back in the equation – really, why keep them off of Raw entirely? – but they didn’t add much to the segment from the commentary position. All this tells me is that the WWE desperately needs to break out of the lazy, boring Diva match archetypes, sticking Divas on commentary when they don’t know what else to do with them. Is doesn’t count as character development when they’re saying the same old stuff.
I don’t really have much else to say about how badly the Diva Revolution is stalling – my SummerSlam review covered that pretty extensively. Unfortunately, this was just another segment without any real advancement. They’re just treading water at this point. The question is, what are they waiting for? Night of Champions? Nikki’s Divas Title milestone? Whatever it is, I’m not sure it excuses how stagnant things have been. At the end of the day, it’s just more proof that, fancy label or not, the powers behind the Diva Revolution are the same ones who brought us the boring storylines that preceded it. The same tendencies and issues are there, no matter how much the WWE wants to pat themselves on the back. You know what every revolution brings? Substantial change. Yeah, we could really use some of that.
