Hello readers and welcome to this week’s Smackdown Redux! On The Road to WrestleMania, all bets are off as the triple threat match for the Divas Championship heats up with champion Charlotte‘s constant goading of her challengers Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch.
This week, Charlotte invited both Sasha and Becky to have a face to face to face confrontation in the middle of the ring. What words will be said? Will this end in chaos? Let’s get to it!
Charlotte makes her way to the ring with her Hall of Fame pops, Ric Flair. She starts her diatribe by stating her and her opponent at WrestleMania have known each other for almost her entire adult life and that she would not be where she is today without those two. So she hopes that they can remember their story past in NXT and accept her invitation to speak in the ring and out comes Becky Lynch.
After trying to figure out where was Sasha, Charlotte tries to patch things up by saying she could always count on “Bex”. The LassKicker cuts her off by saying the only thing she could count on is Becky winning the Divas Championship at WrestleMania. Charlotte tries to get a rebuttal in, bit is cut off by Sasha Banks’ theme. The Boss is on her way to the ring!
When Sasha enters the ring she immediately lets Charlotte know that she is a boss and she’s on her own schedule. Becky is tired of the arguing in Charlotte agrees and she reminds him of the time they were in NXT and she was impressed by them and she talked her dad and explain how impressed she was by their ability and Ric Flair that they remind him of the Horsemen.
Charlotte goes on to say that she owes a lot of people an apology Sasha, Becky, the fans, and Ric Flair. And her apology is that she ever thought that they were worthy of being called Horsewomen. Becky quips that she was waiting for the real Charlotte to show up and she’s finally here and Sasha ask Charlotte why would she bring them out there just to embarrass them.
Becky and that she does not care what she’s called because at WrestleMania he is going to break Charlotte’s arm and become the new WWE Divas Champion.
Sasha Banks begs to differ and give us all a history lesson by reminding us that she was the woman to defeat Charlotte for the NXT Women’s Championship as well as since making her debut on the main roster has yet to be pinned or submitted. You have more than proven her case to have this match WrestleMania and tells Becky that she’s had her chance already. Becky clocks back saying that she still has on her way to the championship match at WrestleMania and she would be Divas Champion if it wasn’t for Ric for his interference in her match at the Royal Rumble. Becky keeps the shade going when she follows up by saying where she is from if you are a boss you don’t need a self inflated ego and Dollar Store jewelry.
Sasha is clearly feeling some type of way about this because she starts taking off her jewelry and it looks like it’s time to fight. 4267 chatted back and forth when they realize that Charlotte is laughing at her work coming to fruition and then they divert their attention to Charlotte with a suplex from Becky and a backstabber from Sasha. Charlotte cowers out of the ring and Becky and Sasha getting her face to end the segment.
Thoughts: Wow, what a segment! I love the story that is being told with these women on The Road to WrestleMania. In many ways, Charlotte is the one that created the 4 Horsewomen stable and it only makes sense now that she, as a heel, is trying to destroy what she created in order to give herself the advantage of Wrestlemania.
As far as this segment goes, I think all three of these women shined equally but I have to give a lot of credit for the evolution of Charlotte’s character. I love the prissy, spoiled, little rich girl kind of angle they have running with her. I think of the attacks, and different ways to try to pit Becky and Sasha against each other after my children and I think that finally letting them attack her it was a great move. It was also good that they didn’t get too much offense on her and she was smart enough to power out of the ring. I think it’s also cool that Ric Flair was used sparingly in the segment he was just there to walk with her come to the ring and be part of the topic of the problem but not be overly involved it let the women shine and he wasn’t a distraction this week major bonus with me.
Another major bonus for me was the fact that Sasha finally addressing the fact that she not only defeated Charlotte for the NXT Women’s Championship but is also undefeated on the main roster. It allows there to be a sound byte for the promo video for Wrestlemania and also adds credibility for her being one of the contenders.
And now we talk about Becky, who is really showing that she is a great baby face and this episode of SmackDown to really prove to be old school she was there there to talk about the match and whatever was going on and she took no prisoners and she didn’t cower to anyone. I think the narrative of 2016 hopefully, is how Becky Lynch propelled herself to become the number one babyface in the Divas division.
All in all I think this was a great piece of build-up for the triple threat match at WrestleMania. And even watching it I got quasi emotional because I can’t believe that we’ve come to a point in the WWE where the women are getting the opportunity to have an actual story being told months before the match at WrestleMania instead of years past where we found out the RAW before WrestleMania what the Divas match would be. And all three of these women are taking the ball and running with it. Charlotte is doing a great job of trying to pull the puppet strings and trying to come up with a grand plan to retain her title. Sasha is doing a phenomenal job of keeping her character alive and especially this week proving her point of being in the championship match by yet to lose a match. And Becky Lynch is doing a great job of being the Babyface Underdog and the wildcard in this match. Fingers crossed that we get a swerve and Becky wins the title, but it really doesn’t matter because the fact that we’ve gotten this much buildup, this much anticipation, and this much storytelling is a triumph in it of itself.
I guess it safe to say that I have a more glowing review of SmackDown this week than I did last week. I like seeing stories me move forward on this show yes it is the be so but if they continue to have moments matches and segments like they’ve been doing for the majority of this year so far tonight so I can regain some prominence as a show that deserves to be watched because you may miss something important.
And now I turn it over to you what did you think of this week’s segment? Let me know in the comments and as always, thank you for reading!
