#also naomi having this whole history with the tag belts specifically and how much they mean and the lengths you have to be willing to go to

[happyendingsong]

smth i can't get out of my head is bianca telling naomi "and i need you to tell me right now cause i will walk out of this ring and you will never hear from me again" and this being the thing to get naomi to finally confess.

like this isn't a threat that gets used in wrestling! the only way conflict gets addressed is having these people fight each other over and over and over again. typically the threat is "ill never let you live it down," "you'll never have a moment's peace again," "ill force the truth out of you next monday in cincinnati," etc.

so there's something extra haunting about the threat of bianca just leaving naomi's life, just deciding she's not worth it anymore. that naomi couldve done all this -- brutalised jade and kept it hidden for months, lied to everyone's faces, all for the sake of bianca and keeping her shining and getting to shine with her because it shouldve been her, it shouldve been them -- only for bianca to turn her back and walk away for good.

and bianca still turns her back on her, while naomi's screaming til her throat is raw. starts screaming the worst things she can think of ("i shouldve pushed her harder! i wish i pushed her sooner! you ungrateful bitch!") just to get bianca to look at her again. she'd rather bianca hate her than to lose her.

[mikebookswrestling]

Becky v Rhonda: TLC to Mania and Beyond

So it seems fairly inevitable that Becky Lynch is going to drop the Smackdown Women’s Title at TLC and I can’t really blame them for it because it’s a way to take the belt off of her without really beating her and hurting her momentum, setting up her transition to Raw and the much-anticipated feud with Ronda Rousey.

But what if it wasn’t inevitable…?

Becky retains at TLC in a brutal affair. All three women look strong, all three elevate themselves. This is the beauty of ladder matches. There’s no pinfall so no one has to look weak or beaten, just a bunch of badasses, one of which happens to have won.

Building to Royal Rumble

Now along the line of no one losing, both Charlotte and Asuka want another shot at Becky but once again the rest of the women’s locker room wants their shots at the top as well. So Paige says that in two week’s time there will be a fatal four-way elimination match to determine the number one contender to Becky’s belt at The Royal Rumble: Charlotte and Asuka are automatically in, the other two spots to be determined by a pair of triple threat matches on this week’s and next week’s Smackdown. (Because we need to start building up some more members of the SDL Women’s Division if Becky is potentially leaving to feud with Ronda.) This week it’s Billie Kay, Sonya Deville, and Carmella with Sonya winning, next week it’s Peyton Royce, Naomi, and Lana with Peyton Royce going over (with help from Billie of course).

So it’s a Fatal Four-Way Elimination match because Becky had to fight her way through the entire women’s division to get her shot at the title, so “If ya wan a shot at The Man’s title, ya can do da same ting!” This match is on Smackdown but you want to build Sonya and Peyton… and Asuka for that matter, so this should be given about 20 minutes with zero eliminations in the first ten. Eventually, Peyton is forced to tap to the Asuka Lock, then Sonya catches Charlotte with a hard knee shot and pins her. Shock. Then it’s Asuka vs. Sonya and while it isn’t easy, Asuka does win, again with the Asuka Lock.

The Royal Rumble

So it’s Becky versus Asuka one-on-one at the Royal Rumble because we deserve nice things. I’m certain that they could and would have a great match, only somewhat tainted because it goes to a No Contest because of Charlotte and her kendo stick once more. After a brutally hard-fought match, she lays into both of them relentlessly. Charlotte goes Full Heel.

She also enters the Royal Rumble at number one. Number two is Bayley and oh it’s a bad day to be Bayley. She gets a little bit of offense in before Charlotte takes over and just lays into her. Number three is Dana Brooke and there’s just this brief look between the two of them before they both go to work on Bayley. Now I’m not going to do the whole Rumble, but in general, there are going to be a whole lot fewer Legends and a lot more spotlight for the NXT/PC ladies: Nikki Cross, Shayna Bayzler, Biana Belair, Dakota Kai (wearing her Kingslayer shirt, ofc), Kairi Sane, others make appearances. Billie Kay takes her time entering at number 12, gets to the ringside area, stops and waits. Then Peyton Royce enters at number 13 and they go in together and stick together.

Bayley despite having the absolute crap kicked out of her the whole time just refuses to be eliminated.

About number 19 or 20 Nia Jax’s music hits but she doesn’t come out. Cut to backstage where Nia is laid out in an area that looks like it was hit by a hurricane. There has been some sort of wild brawl here. Alexa Bliss is there, Paige is there, no one seems to know what happened until Becky’s music hits out in the arena and The Man comes to the Royal Rumble. She’s covered in welts and bruises from the earlier beating but she’s still coming, still carrying the Smackdown Women’s Title. She hands off the belt to a referee and makes a beeline for Charlotte, eliminating her in pretty short order with Bayley’s help. Charlotte stares daggers back up at Becky and once again very audibly Becky calls Charlotte a bitch.

Have Sonya Deville go on a tear eliminating a lot of people, have her get six or seven total (because the current record holder is Michelle McCool and no one is helped out by her having that distinction).

Eventually, the final four are Becky, Bayley, Sonya, and Sasha Banks. Sasha is super-fresh, having come out at number 29. Bayley is your iron woman, having been in from the start at 50+ minutes on now, mostly due to sheer determination at this point. Becky has been through a war with Asuka already, then Charlotte and her kendo stick, then the Rumble match itself. And Sonya is on a roll right now.

Becky immediately goes for Sasha judging her to be the biggest threat. Sonya eliminates Bayley just past the 56 minute mark, giving her the new record for the longest time in the Rumble which builds her up. Sonya then jumps Sasha from behind and lays her out.

Then she squares up with Becky and because we’ve built Sonya up over the last month, it starts to look like maybe… just maybe they’re going to go this way instead. For a minute or two a wrestling match breaks out in the middle of the Royal Rumble. Sonya is fighting with Becky rather than just trying to eliminate her, seemingly to prove to herself that she can hang with The Man, which proves to be her undoing because Sasha gets back up and throws her out of the ring. Becky and Sasha then go at it for a couple of minutes before Becky just manages to get Sasha out of the ring.

Becky grabs the microphone and says, “Hey, Ronnie, ya didn’t think I forgot about ya, didja? I’ll see you at Wrestlemania.” She drops the mic. She holds the Smackdown Women’s Belt up with one arm, then she holds the other arm up the same way as though it had the Raw Women’s Title in it.

The Road to Wrestlemania

Now, Becky/Ronda is going to suck up a lot of oxygen in both women’s divisions so I would use this as the opportunity to announce the cross-branded WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles and the tournament to crown the inaugural champions culminating at Wrestlemania. This gives the other women something to fight for that’s actually worth fighting over, so they aren’t just all in a battle royal for the fifth time in just over a year. The finals at Mania should be Sasha and Bayley vs. The IIconics and The IIconics should win.

Becky defends her title in The Elimination Chamber and wins. I’m not going to get into the specifics of it but you have enough credible challengers to make this look like Becky is definitely going to lose the belt here and then she overcomes.

Now things are getting interesting. What are Shane and Paige going to do? Ultimately they decide that they can’t force Becky to vacate the title and they can’t stop Becky from fighting Ronda, she earned that right by winning the Rumble. They can, however, book a Smackdown Women’s Title match for Wrestlemania. And suddenly “Oh my god, is Becky Lynch going to have to pull double duty at Wrestlemania?”

Paige suggests a gauntlet match with all the Smackdown women to determine who gets the shot. Shane likes that idea but decides he’s going to one-up it and makes it an Open Invitation Gauntlet Match, any woman from any WWE Brand can show up and be in the match. Now, this is a gauntlet match like we had earlier this year on Raw, where it’s a series of full-length TV matches that take up most if not the entire episode of Smackdown, and like that match, Naomi will be playing the part of Seth Rollins. She beats Carmella. She beats Mickie James. She beats Dakota Kai. She beats Lana. She beats Ember Moon. She beats Liv Morgan by DQ when the rest of the Riott Squad jumps her. (They are all ejected from the match and from the building as a result.) She just beats Mandy Rose with a well-timed head kick and FTG. 

Next comes Asuka and try as she might, Naomi is exhausted. She’s been fighting for 50+ minutes. Asuka would be a challenge if she were fresh, like this she’s got nothing. One spin kick and Asuka pins her. Asuka beats Nattie and Candice LaRae and Alicia Fox. (No IIconics, Sasha, or Bayley because they are in the tag team match at Mania, no Nia Jax because I don’t like her, she clearly doesn’t know how to work a safe match, she needs to go back to the PC and relearn her fundamentals.)

Then out comes Charlotte, but before she can get to the ring, from behind Ronda Rousey with a kendo stick blasts Charlotte again and again and again and again. While the referees are dealing with that, Mandy and Sonya drag Asuka from the ring and hurl her into the ring steps. They put her through the announce table (a spot someone would have set up earlier in the gauntlet). They roll her back into the ring and Sonya makes the cover. Mandy gets a referee to notice what’s going on. He makes the three-count. 

Sonya stands up to see if there’s another challenger and no sooner than she’s turned around, she’s slammed to the ground with a judo throw and locked into an armbar. Sonya taps. Ronda is seething at the mouth and staring up the ramp towards the back, no one else wants a piece of her. The new number one contender for the Smackdown Women’s Championship is Ronda Rousey.  

The match at Wrestlemania is now Title v Title, winner takes all, winner gets to choose their brand going forward. Only one other time in Wrestlemania history has there been a Title v Title match. That was billed as The Ultimate Challenge, this is The Ultimate Fight! This is your main event of Wrestlemania 35.

Again, Becky wins (by pinfall, neither of them can get their submissions locked in). She’s the absolute hottest act anywhere in the company. She’s a fantastic worker, she a great promo, she’s basically social media royalty at this point. After all this build, it costs Ronda nothing to lose to her so there’s literally no downside to closing your biggest show of the year with your hottest act, your biggest babyface holding all the gold.

After Mania: Becky is The Man!

Monday on Raw they hype is “What will be Becky’s choice? Raw or Smackdown?” Before that happens though, Becky’s walking around backstage and runs into Bayley and Sasha who are upset that they lost the tag title tournament. Becky basically says, “So what ya lost? Ya gonna let it get to ya or ya do sometin about it?” “We’re gonna do something about it,” they answer in unison. “That’s my girls,” Becky says walking off.

So come time for the announcement and it’s Becky in the ring with Renee Young and when asked what brand she chooses she says, “Both.” Asked how she plans to do that she says “I am The Man and I will be The Man every day of the week and twice on Sundays and anyone who wants to take either of these belts offa me, inside the ring or out, better come ready for a fight.”

No one is really interested in sharing Becky across brands so both sides start making plans to get the belts off of Becky at Backlash. Stephanie and Alexa’s strategy is that if Ronda wins the Raw belt back Becky’s going to want another shot at it and they’ll force her to declare herself for Raw in order to get it. Shane books Becky into a Triple Threat Match against Sonya and Mandy that essentially a handicap match convinced that he is actually going to force a feud between Becky and him. He’s a bigger target than Ronda Rousey, Shane’s a McMahon, after all (just to intentionally belabor the comparisons between Becky and Austin some more).

Backlash: An (Un)Equal and Opposite Reaction

Naturally, Becky plays Sonya and Mandy against each other and swoops in at the opportune moment to tap out Mandy, jump-starting a Mandy-Sonya split. Then against Rousey, Becky gets her in the Dis-Arm-Her and Rhonda won’t tap, won’t tap, won’t tap but can’t seemingly escape either. Eventually, she can’t answer the referee’s call and the ref stops the match.

After the match, Shayna Bayzler, Marina Shafir, and Jessamyn Duke hit the ring and put the boots to Becky. Rhonda comes to momentarily and gets in Shayna’s face asking what they’re doing? Shayna responds, “Are you done trying to act like a good girl, yet?” Rhonda thinks about it for just a second before saying, “Yes.” Then the beating resumes. As the segment closes, they stand over Becky’s laid out body, flashing the four fingers.

Elsewhere on the card Bayley and Sasha won the Tag Titles from The IIconics who want their rematch on Monday. 

The Man Goes to War

The tag title match only gets a couple of minutes in before Duke, Shaffir, and Bayzler jump in and start fighting everyone, though Billie and Peyton take off pretty quickly. Sasha and Bayley put up a fight but are outnumbered until The Man comes for her girls. Ronda’s crew isn’t at all interested in a fair fight just at the moment so they clear out. Becky, Bayley, and Sasha stand tall and, in true Horsemen style, hold all the gold so they all throw up the four fingers despite them being only three.

Tuesday opens with Paige in the ring with Becky, Bayley, and Sasha. Bayley and Sasha are there to give The IIconics an actual rematch but they’re here for Becky’s announcement too. Becky says:

“For almost three years now, I’ve been proud to represent Smackdown Live. I was the first woman drafted to this brand, which is how I knew that Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan were smart enough fellas that I wanted to work for them. Because they could see that, even then, that I am The Man. I was the first woman to hold this belt. I was in the first ever Women’s Steel Cage match on Smackdown Live, I was in the first Women’s Money in the Bank match, the first Last Woman Standing match… and with all due respect to AJ Styles, he did not build this house alone.

But Sunday night at Backlash, Rhonda Rousey started a war and it’s a war I aim to finish, but I can’t do that while my attention is divided. So reluctantly I have to surrender the Smackdown Women’s Title. (She goes to hand over the belt but pauses.) To alla yous in the back, just remember, I never lost this title. None a ya beat The Man, but come Survivor Series I’ll be waiting to let ya prove that ya really deserve it.”

From there, Becky, Sasha, and Bayley 3-on-4 feud with the MMA Horsewomen. I’d have Ruby Riott win MitB and then you can throw The Riott Squad into the mix with them to keep things fresh (as well as The IIconics and maybe make Lana and Carmella a tag team, too. The Dancing Queens or whatever.) 

Asuka wins the Smackdown Women’s title, for sure, and now we’ve got a strong Smackdown Women’s division for her feud with: Charlotte, Sonya, Naomi, Mandy, maybe at this point start building Zelina Vega as a serious women’s wrestler as well.

[junker-town]

What we learned from Royal Rumble 2017

The Royal Rumble was awesome from start to finish, and this is what it taught us.

The Royal Rumble has been a point of contention for WWE fans the past few years, but not this time! In 2017, we got a great Rumble, from start to finish, and a Rumble match that included surprises, comedy, violence, and beef. So. Much. Beef.

Let’s dive right in and find out what we learned from the 2017 Royal Rumble. We’ll go through the kickoff matches a little faster than the main card.

Kickoff Match: Naomi, Nikki Bella, and Becky Lynch defeat Natalya, Alexa Bliss, and Mickie James

What we learned: While this match didn’t get a ton of time despite a two-hour pre-show, it did its job of helping further solidify the direction SmackDown’s women’s division is heading in for the next brand-specific pay-per-view, Elimination Chamber. Naomi pinning Alexa Bliss in a tag match with a whole bunch of moving parts allows her to claim she’s deserving of a title shot without Bliss having been pinned in a singles match against Naomi, aka the worst possible setup for a championship match.

Kickoff Match: Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows defeat Sheamus and Cesaro to become the new RAW Tag Team Champions

What we learned: This was a shocker! Not just that Anderson and Gallows won, but that we got a finish at all considering the match stipulation had two refs, seemingly so they could argue over who the winner was. We might still get that on Monday’s episode of RAW, since Sheamus kicked one ref in the face, leading to his team’s defeat, but as of now, they dropped the belts to The Club.

Kickoff Match: Nia Jax defeats Sasha Banks

What we learned: If Sasha Banks is going to rise up and defeat Nia Jax, it’s not happening while she’s dealing with a (story line) leg injury. Sasha got some hits in, but Nia shrugged everything off and dominated most of the match. When these two get an extended period of time to show what they can do, it could be special, but we’re not at that part of the story just yet.

WWE.com

Charlotte Flair defends RAW Women’s Championship against Bayley

The official Royal Rumble card opened with Charlotte defending her RAW Women’s title and her undefeated streak on pay-per-view against Bayley. Charlotte had spent weeks basically calling Bayley a nerd who was no better than the other nerds in the audience, and Bayley has been trying to tell her that actually, being a nerd is good and is also the source of her power. She might need to figure out a way to enhance that power next time out, because Charlotte retained without having to play any dirty Flair tricks.

What we learned: Charlotte vs. Bayley isn’t going to be over, even if Bayley did lose this time. Charlotte is going to have to defend against somebody at WrestleMania 33, because as much as she’s a self-obsessed glory hound looking out for number one at all times, she also won’t want to avoid a chance to shine in the spotlight of the year. Bayley might have to work her way back up to a title match, but with Fastlane in March and a couple of months total in between now and Mania, she has time to prove that she has something to offer, even if she wasn’t born into this life like Charlotte was.

Kevin Owens defends WWE Universal Championship against Roman Reigns even though Chris Jericho was suspended above the ring in a shark cage

This match, people. This match. RAW has beat the whole Owens/Reigns/Jericho/Rollins thing to death and then into an unrecognizable paste for months now, but this match made all of that torture worth it. Owens and Reigns told a story of two guys who refused to quit, who both looked like badasses capable of taking out as much pain as they could dish out, and then put a Braun Strowman-sized bow on the whole thing to help Owens retain and set Reigns on a different path.

WWE.com

What we learned: Reigns continues to be a godsend in big WWE matches that don’t also involve Triple H, and if you can get him in a situation where weapons are legal, you are guaranteed a more-than-acceptable level of entertainment. The fact WWE let him look like a superhero without it being at the expense of Owens or his title also helps, and Braun Strowman looked like a terrifying, unstoppable force by taking Reigns down.

It’s unclear what Owens is going to do next, but it won’t be with Reigns. This sendoff of their feud is much better than the build deserved, but sometimes, the destination can make up for the journey.

Neville defeats Rich Swann to win the WWE Cruiserweight Championship

This match wasn’t what it could have been, which is disappointing. What it was, though, was Neville asserting his superiority over the champion of the division that Neville has claimed he’s king of. Swann wasn’t able to stop him, and Neville might be more violent tyrant than benevolent ruler, but you try telling Neville that’s a bad thing and see how your body feels when you wake up from him choking you out.

What we learned: Rich Swann was the class of the cruiserweights until an angry Neville showed up ready to hurt people. If Swann can’t stop Neville, is there anyone in the current cruiserweight division who can? Th reign of the King of the Cruiserweights might end up being a long one, but that’s okay: Neville is dope, even if he’s kind of evil right now.

John Cena defeats AJ Styles for a record 16th WWE World Championship

Last week, I ranked all 15 of John Cena’s previous WWE title victories. There are a few clunkers in there, but most of them are at least good, and a few of them are, without qualification, great. Typically, though, Cena’s greatest matches tend to be ones he’s lost, or from that time period where he made the United States Championship legitimate again by putting on incredible title defenses week after week in his open challenge.

Now, though, Cena finally has a WWE World Championship win that is a legitimate match of the year candidate, and that’s not just because it happened in January: this thing is going to hold up throughout 2017. It’s fitting that this is the one that ties him with the man many consider to be the greatest of all-time, Ric Flair.

WWE.com

What we learned: Learned? Probably not much, really. We knew Cena and Styles were capable of this. We’ve seen lesser — but still awesome — versions of it from them before. This is the top match between two veterans who are still at the peak of their powers despite being much closer to 40 than even their mid-30s, the kind of bout that makes you think these two were meant to wrestle each other forever.

Cena will be the one holding the championship when it’s defended at Elimination Chamber in February. Whether he’s still got it after that six-man affair is over is another story, but he’s now got 16 WWE World titles behind him, and all it will take is one more before he has more than anyone in history.

Randy Orton wins the 30-man Royal Rumble match

So much to love here. Sure, there was a lack of surprise entrants and no old wrestlers joining the match besides the ones we already knew about, but that barely matters. This was brilliantly booked from start to finish, with even the downtime in the middle existing there for an express purpose that worked out as effectively as it was written up.

Braun Strowman coming in and wrecking house was a massive highlight, and not just because the dude is huge. Baron Corbin eventually getting in and, with the help of one of Strowman’s rivals, Sami Zayn, eliminated Strowman, making Corbin look awesome in the process. Brock Lesnar came in and destroyed everyone in the ring, but then Goldberg entered and again made short work of Brock. Undertaker then eventually got rid of Goldberg, and was defeated in a similar fashion by Roman Reigns, who had the stare down to end all stare downs afterward in a moment that has me dying to see them face each other at WrestleMania.

Please, please let this happen. It would give the crowd a reason to boo Reigns, and when he’s this version of Reigns who doesn’t give a single thought to what the crowd thinks, the Reigns who has a harder edge around him and starts showing off his darker side without fully succumbing, he’s the best version of himself.

What we learned: Randy Orton ended up dumping Reigns out and winning following an RKO that hit Reigns before he could land a Superman punch. Orton as a Rumble winner in 2017 might seem odd, but with the brand split meaning two huge title matches are on the WrestleMania card along with two women’s championships, Goldberg vs. Lesnar likely a thing, an Undertaker match, and John Cena rumored to have a huge battle at Mania whether he has a championship to defend or not, well, you can have Orton win here without anyone being furious. Especially since they had Orton eliminate Reigns, who the Rumble crowd was dying to see defeated.

And, if the rumors are true about who Orton’s opponent might be, then someone new is still going to be in the WWE World Championship title picture at Mania, anyway. Hey, it’s just a rumor, but if you want to go down that rabbit hole, you know where to click.

Seriously, though, don’t give us Orton vs. Cena again. Leave that back in 2013 where it belongs.