What’s up Diva fans and welcome to this week’s Superstars Redux. Tamina Snuka and her dodgy contact lenses are in action tonight as she faces off against Natalya and her dodgy bladder. Can Nattie avoid Tamina’s cold blue stare or will Tamina freeze Natalya solid with her frosty gaze… and perhaps a superkick or two?
TO THE VIDEO!
Out first this week is Natalya and she’s all caped up! She also appears to be donning an old ring attire and she’s looking good whilst she high fives the fans. Old Blue Eyes herself Tamina is out next and she’s still rocking those red jeans. Another element that makes Tamina visually arresting…
The match starts with Natalya chain wrestling all over Tamina before sliding underneath the Island Princess. Paige‘s Extreme Rules opponent then beats on Nattie’s leg before the Dungeon Diva flips out and trips Tamina to the ground. Following a pin attempt, Tamina winds Natalya with a punch to the gut and then has her scoop slam reversed. The girls run towards the ropes, with Tamina holding on to them and Natalya holding onto her. I’m surprised Nattie can with all the sweat! Natalya relinquishes her grasp before kipping up.
The pair face off before Natalya goes for a crucifix pin. Tamina’s strength initally halts Nattie’s pin attempt yet she eventually maneuvers down into a sunset flip position. Tamina is still too strong to take down yet the #1 Contender makes things easy for Nattie by missing a bonzai drop. The two exchange forearm shots before Tamina ducks Natalya’s discus clothesline and hits a samoan drop. Very nice, seamless exchange.
Tamina then carries out the inevitable leather waistcoast throw before getting a two count. After working over Tal on the ropes, Tamina knees Natalya in the kidneys, which no doubt means she now has more temperamental organs other than her nose and bladder. I think Nattie needs rubbing out and re-drawing at this rate! Following a strange sideslam and near fall, Tamina wrenches her foe with a chinlock. Nattie eventually elbows free yet she gets sent back down to the mat by the hair. Tamina then urges the crowd to be silent, yet let’s be real, if I was in the crowd, I wouldn’t listen to anyone rocking trousers like that!
Tamina goes for the strange sideslam/rack move again and it just looks awkward. After running into several hits from Natalya, the Hart Dungeon graduate gets her momentum going and hits a nice butterfly suplex. After a two count, Natalya hits a unique yet awkward backslide variant yet she makes up for it with a nice basement dropkick. She then tries to lock in the Sharpshooter yet Tamina grabs the bottom rope. With her ankles still in Natalya’s mitts, Tamina climbs up the ropes but ends up slammed on her back. Nat then gets yet another near fall with a jackknife cover. After some dodgy editing of the match, Tamina reverses a suplex attempt and out of nowhere, she hits a stiff superkick for the win, complete with the killer noise of boot meeting face.
Thoughts: Other than the superkick, double underhook suplex and discus clothesline/samoan drop sequence, I really didn’t feel this match. A lot of the motions felt jagged and not fluid enough for me. Tamina’s offense was incredibly generic and what was with those weird rack/sideslam things? They didn’t look good at all. The match also helped me once again realise,
I AM SICK OF BLAND CHINLOCKS!
Switch them up please Tamina and don’t be so basic all the time. If you’re capable of nice sequences like the seamless Samoan drop you pulled off, then you can clearly do other things as aesthetically pleasing. And I’m not talking about your wardrobe, we all know that’s beyond repair. But that’s why we love you.
I’m kind of looking forward to Extreme Rules as of course, my wife is involved yet it’s obvious she’s going to defend her championship. I will change my Twitter picture and background to that of Tamina and change my handle to @TaminaLover should she win the belt. I am that confident she won’t. I liked Diva Dirt’s Erin’s approach by describing Tamina and Paige‘s ‘build-up’ as like a boxing match and looking at it that way, I wouldn’t mind this if I thought it would continue after Extreme Rules. However, I see Paige retaining, AJ returning and that’s that. Obviously Tamina is aligned with AJ yet it’s not the same. I’m hoping for another month of Paige vs Tamina with things getting more personal, yet I won’t be counting my chickens…
And with that, stay tuned, Jack will be back!
