Guess who’s back? Back again? It’s WWW of course! After being absent last week, the Women’s Wrestling Write-Up is back. After being at Leeds Festival last week watching bands such as Foo Fighters and Paramore, I certainly saw my fair share of superstars, and this week follows on from that trend as we have some awesome spectacles inside the ring! I’m sure you will all implode with excitement when I tell you that we have 2 Natalya matches this week, on RAW and Smackdown, and there is also some action on IMPACT. Sadly, there were no NXT or Superstars bouts but we do have appearances from significant segments featuring Vickie Guerrero, AJ and Aksana to beef this baby up. With no more introduction needed, let’s jump into this week’s Opening Contest.
To kick things off this week, we are heading over to RAW to witness WWE Divas Champion Layla face the Queen of Harts and the perfect candidate to be the Pink Power Ranger, Natalya Neidhart. Natalya lost to Layla in a stellar Superstars showdown a few weeks back so can she get her revenge tonight? Or will the Little English Muffin (choc) chip Natalya down until she can hit the Bombshell? Before I reference anymore muffin flavours, let’s take a look at the action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CelBXkIb4to
My Thoughts: Considering Vickie and AJ were a part of this segment too, I’ll review the whole thing together. This match was essentially a worse version of the Superstars match between the two a few weeks back. There was some decent offence from Nattie by using the apron to trap Layla yet we saw that a few weeks ago. We also saw Layla reverse a suplex a few weeks back, we saw Layla dance, etc, etc. The match was ok yet there was nothing new about it and luckily, the aftermath saved the segment from being totally meaningless.
AJ slapping Vickie and assaulting her was by far the OMG of the Week! Although it’s happened before, I didn’t see it coming considering AJ is the GM now, but it just shows that WWE are keeping AJ true to herself and not watering her down as the General Manager. This part of this week’s Divas action definitely saved it from being in Midcard Mediocrity yet it was a very close call. Although AJ shocked us all with her sick pyscho-ness, there was one thing that really bugged me about what we saw on RAW. Why did Vickie have to overshadow the entire match by being out there from the start? Why couldn’t she have just interrupted Layla’s celebration and then go off on her tirade? The camera continuously cutting to Vickie seriously irked me as parts of the action weren’t caught on screen and Vickie being the focus of the commentary took away from the match too. In saying that though, Layla and Nattie managed to both showcase some personality, and whilst us hardcore Diva fans may have seen it before, it was perhaps refreshing to the casual viewers that tuned in.
Onto this week’s Midcard Mediocrity now and the lovely Lithuanian Aksana made an appearance all of her own to try and distract Santino Marella and his… Cobra during their match against Heath Slater. Let’s have a brief glance at this before swiftly moving on!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oawCEP5xVNo (Skip to 6:45)
My Thoughts: Never did I think I would write a review on a sock puppet being obsessed with a woman who is scared of being beaten with a shovel – life surprises you at times! This segment was horrible and the booking was totally illogical. Santino Marella has a rematch clause and he wants to get his United States Title back from Antonio Cesaro, so it’s up to him to get into the head of Antonio, right? Well according to WWE, Aksana, who is a Heel is interested in Santino’s business, even though her boyfriend just beat him and should want to forget all about him and not bring attention to himself in order to keep his belt for as long as possible! On top of the daftness of the booking, Aksana didn’t even seem annoyed that her plan to distract the Milan Miracle had backfired. So close to the Death Slot yet unfortunately, some other booking proved worse than this this week! Moving on!
Our next stop on this week’s Midcard Mediocrity is Smackdown and a very angry Vickie Guerrero interrupted a backstage interview with the blue brand’s GM, Booker T. Vickie had some choice words for AJ and I think we should see what she had to say.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lqFMCuU-jQ
My Thoughts: This was short but sweet piece of mic time for Vickie Guerrero which is hopefully the start of a very fruitful storyline for both her and AJ Lee. Whilst AJ is the GM and she appears a lot on RAW, the stories aren’t about her anymore, so it’s nice to see that WWE are thinking of ways to make her reign more memorable and are allowing her to get over and show off her persona. Who better for her to go up against than the woman who garners more heat than anyone else, Vickie Guerrero. Whether the board of directors get involved or whether Vickie takes matters into her own hands, RAW will be exciting to say the least.
As a final nugget of Diva goodness (and perhaps the final time we’ll see Cameron due to her DUI arrested and attempted police bribe), the Funkadactyls accompanied Brodus Clay to the ring for his tag team match. Like usual, they also acted like they were having seizures of excitement outside the ring.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcwvE7GWfns (Skip to 11:17)
Up next is the dreaded Death Slot and I’ve bigged this one up to be a horrible one. The horrendousness took place on IMPACT and normally, TNA are spot when it comes to their women and although this week’s segment saw mic time, the in-ring action and booking were just lame to say the least. Madison Rayne assumed she would be facing Brooke Tessmacher in her rematch for the Knockouts Title yet instead, she faced a different champion; one half of the Knockouts Tag Team Champs (remember those, yeah me neither) ODB! Will the One Dirty Bitch come back with a BAM (see what I did there) or will the Killer Queen make ODB look like the jester of her court? Let’s see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG_5Cr7SndM
My Thoughts: Urgh, a 25 second match. Really? The former Knockouts Champion being squashed. Really? Before it feels as though I’m doing a Miz impression, I’ll stop ‘Really’-ing but I can’t get my head around this annoying booking. Unless this is the start of the Knockouts Tag Titles rise to prominence again or a tag feud featuring ODB and Madison, then I’m not interested. Not only does this win for ODB make Madison look like crap, it also makes Miss Tessmacher look weak because she managed to lose to a woman who was beat up in 25 seconds. Speaking of the champ, where was she? WHAT THE HELL happened to her potential promising story with Tara? There are lots of questions to be answered right now and I would much rather see Tara and Tessmacher in a feud than seeing Eric Young strip to his USA underwear.
Speaking of EY, his return wasn’t funny at all and I hated it. I seriously hope him and ODB lose the Knockouts Tag Titles soon. At this point, as much as I would love to see some new girls come in to TNA to challenge for the belts, I think the best thing for them is to be thrown in the trash can in an Alundra Blayze styley. The division is more deceased than the Divas Division and the character of Eric Young being half of the champs makes them even less interesting to me and I suspect most others.
I seriously hope TNA rebound well from this next week. I want to see some tension between TnT and I actually wouldn’t mind if it was perhaps against ODB and EY, as those belts need to be kept in the spotlight. Actually scrap that, all Eric Young matches are horrible, so please Brooke Hogan, end the Tag Team division please.
Ok, with all the negativity out of my system, it’s time for this week’s Main Event! We’re heading over to Friday Night Smackdown and it’s time for our second helping of Neidhart as Nattie squares off against the Number 1 Contender for the Divas Title, Kaitlyn. These two have been arguing and trash talking on Twitter all week so who will walk the walk to go with the talk they’ve been talking?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoHSbpe9lTw
My Thoughts: This was my favourite segment of the week and that’s because the match was decent, the character development was great and the guest commentary from Eve added to the match as opposed to being a distraction. I’ll firstly discuss the match and whilst it was pretty short, it didn’t feel it, which was very refreshing. The action was also something we haven’t seen much of and I loved how it spilled to the outside too, with Natalya ferociously thumping Kaitlyn’s head to the ground. I also loved Natalya’s epic Abdominal Stretch and although we’ve seen it before, we’ve not seen it in a while and the extra hooking of one of Kaitlyn’s legs shows off how epic Nattie is.
Another aspect of the match that I loved was how the girl’s personalities came across. Natalya didn’t act like her usual childish self in this match and her quest for respect reflected the storyline behind the match regarding the girls’ Twitter war. Kaitlyn also did something I’ve never seen before when Natalya had her in a side headlock. Instead of trying to get out the move right away, Kaitlyn put her hand over Tal’s mouth to shut her up – brilliant!
As for Eve’s commentary, I am getting more and more intrigued by her changing character and the front she is putting on. She is obviously trying to kiss up to Booker T but now she’s smooching the behinds of all the Divas too. What’s going on? Only time will tell.
Overall, this week was a decent week for the WWE Divas. Although the build-up for Layla vs Kaitlyn at Night of Champions has so far just been about establishing Layla as a tough champ and Kaitlyn as a worthy challenger, I think that’s all we need thus far. Fans need a reason to root for Layla and need to familiarise themselves with Kaitlyn and so far, the booking has done just that. I think things need to get personal after Night of Champions, and at this present time, I see Kaitlyn winning the Divas Title and Layla turning Heel. Let’s see if I’m right in 2 weeks!
Well that’s all for this week’s WWW here on Online World of Wrestling.com. Join me next week for another instalment which will likely feature more Layla/Kaitlyn goodness and the Board of Directors decision regarding AJ. Until then, have a good week. J
— Jack (@Jack5326 on Twitter)