What’s up Diva fans and welcome to this week’s WWE Main Event Redux. After a week off due to no NXT, Main Event or Superstars action, I’m back in action this week ready to recap all three! Up first this week, it’s Main Event. Obviously, you know that as you just clicked on the article and are reading this now. You will also know that the Bellas are involved, as are Aksana and Alicia Fox. However, other than a match, you may not have been aware that were was also a backstage segment this week too. A nice bonus, if only I understood a word Aksana said. Let’s take a look.
TO THE VIDEO!
Up first this week is the backstage segment, a rarity for Main Event and we see Brie Bella touching up in the mirror. Nikki approaches her from behind and says that she can’t believe Brie must have known about Daniel Bryan playing The Wyatt Family the whole time. Tension is then teased between the girls as they bicker about when they were kids and the daft argument is broken up by Foxsana. The bad girls tease Brie about her and Daniel being back together as the “perfect couple” and Aksana sounds really quiet to me/maybe more foreign than usual and literally, all I can understand her saying is something about a swamp wedding. The segment ends with an angry… or is she ecstatic… maybe she’s nervous… oh no, that’s Brie’s annoyed expression. Couldn’t work out what Brie’s face was telling us for a moment there!
Out in the arena now and it’s the Bellas who are out first. Brie was all angsty backstage and now it seems as though she’s totally forgotten about the comments she just stood there and took. Think of the minor details, Brianna! Out next are Alicia and Aksana, who enter to the music that haunts my nightmares along with images of the sexy crawl, it’s Aksana’s saxophone jam. Someone cover my eyes whilst I stick my fingers in my ears!
The match starts with Aksana taunting Brie in the ring about her having lice in her hair. Brie smacks Aksana with some forearms and some knees before tagging in Nikki and hitting a basement dropkick. Nikki dropkicks Aksana in the back. Following a near fall, an Irish whip and a monkey flip, Brie is tagged back into the match and hits a textbook second rope dropkick. Aksana completely no sells the move and begins to club Brie over the back before hitting some elbows and bruising Brie with a few stomps.
WORST. MOMENTUM SHIFT. EVER.
Aksana rams Brie into her corner and tags in Alicia, who chokes Brie out on the second rope. Brie then counters by draping Alicia’s throat on the second rope, a move which she follows up with a knee to the face. Alicia tags in Aksana, who shuts down Brie and wallops Nikki off the apron. Aksana debuts a ‘Sexy Strut’ which is a million times better than the crawl before she stomps at Brie. She tags in Alicia and the two hits a nice double team move in the corner.
Alicia locks in a chinlock that has Brie reeling for a while. Brie tries to fight out yet Alicia slams her to the mat and reapplies the chinlock in a different position. Brie shrugs Alicia off after a short time and decks her with a jumping snapmare. She tags in Nikki and business is about to pick up!
Nikki levels Alicia with a clothesline before performing a sick back body drop. She then knocks Aksana loopy with a dropkick before knocking out an interesting new knee strike on Alicia. She then yells “THAT’S RIGHT”, which boggles my mind as I have no idea what she is in fact saying is correct, but nevermind. Nikki squashes Alicia between her clothesline and the turnbuckle before hitting a bulldog. Brie takes out Aksana who tried and failed to make her presence felt again, which leaves Alicia and Nikki. Alicia charges at Nikki and misses, allowing Nikki to hit The Rack for the three count.
Thoughts: Firstly, I’ll get into the really annoying backstage segment. Are we expected to believe that Brie and Nikki have not discussed Daniel double-crossing The Wyatts at all in a week and a half and have chosen to only speak about it now on WWE’s D show? Brie and Nikki are inseparable identical twins who are seen together a lot on TV and Total Divas. Whether they could be together in person or not, if this was real life, they clearly would have at least spoken about this on the phone. As much as people hate on the WWE App, an App segment last Tuesday of them discussing Daniel and The Wyatt Family would have been plausible, yet a 10 second mention nine days later? Booking like that makes Brie and Nikki look completely stupid and it’s pretty patronizing to the fans.
The rest of the segment was fun yet Alicia and Aksana look terrible together and besides being heels, they don’t have anything in common and they are better off separated. You could argue that at least WWE are trying to make them seem more of a pairing considering they team together all the time, yet they just look odd together in my opinion.
Speaking of odd, whilst she still looks like a shiny object that even a magpie wouldn’t pick up and take to it’s nest, Aksana’s new attire is a plus for me. The full length catsuit deal wasn’t good and I think her new style looks sexier (if you like what Aksana’s got going on) and is more flattering.
Onto the match, I hate to be negative all the time yet it was very run-of-the-mill and basic. Where were Alicia’s signature standout moves like the Northern Lights suplex or the tilt-a-whirl backbreaker? Her and Aksana’s offense was totally bland I’m afraid. I did however really like the double team move they did in the corner. That style of dragging slam looks pretty weak a lot of the time but the added Alicia made it look painful for once.
Before I get to the positives, I have to address the way Aksana’s no sold Brie’s dropkick and then proceeded to just hit her as a way of creating the opening she needed. Pretty boring to be honest. Normally there is a big spot, like a reversal that would send Brie to the outside or crashing to the apron. Perhaps Brie could have went for a monkey flip only to be dropped face first onto the top turnbuckle? Instead, Aksana just smacked her a few times. Oh well.
The shining star of this match for me was Nikki Bella, who is really coming into her own in the ring. She was impactful, crisp and I loved when she sent Alicia’s face into her knee. Alicia sold the move well too, which made it look even better. I am enjoying the Bella Twins differentiating themselves in terms of their look and moveset; with Brie working as a faster, agile worker and Nikki showcasing power moves. With a certain ‘Hybrid Diva’ gone from WWE, I can definitely see Nikki moving into the powerhouse Face role just fine.
And with that, stay tuned, Jack will be back!
