Welcome one and all to the RAW RECAP presented by THE REVELLEUTION!
We’re heading towards the Royal Rumble and the Saturday Night’s Main Event TV special, and while there’s a Women’s Tag Team title match at SNME, we’ve yet to have any official names confirmed for the all-important Women’s Rumble Match. Will that change tonight? And who will leave as the Women’s IC Champion as Maxxine Dupri gets her rematch against Becky Lynch? Let’s get into it, and find out…
JACKIE REDMOND and CATHY KELLEY handled interview duties.
Women’s Intercontinental Championship Match
Women’s Intercontinental Champion BECKY LYNCH defeated MAXXINE DUPRI w/h NATALYA to retain.
Right before the match, a backstage segment saw Durpi being surprised by Natalya’s appearence as Natalya claimed she was there to support the woman she’s helped train, and would make sure that what happened previously (Lynch cheating to win) wouldn’t happen again. Meanwhile, to get more heat as Heel, Lynch would cut a pre-match promo on the Irish crowd to get her boo’d.
The match would be a shorter affair compared to the previous encounters between the two, and centred around Lynch removing one of the turnbuckle pads. An attempt to use the exposed buckle was blocked by both women during the match, and both women locked on their submissions of choice but both countered the holds. The high spot of the match was Lynch doing a now familiar combo of a Superplex, rolled through into a DDT for a near fall. Towards the end of the match, Dupri would put on the brakes to avoid hitting the exposed corner, and moved out of the way so a wild Splash by Lynch sent her head-first into the bolt before Dupri followedup with a high Roundhouse Kick (so high that she basically missed Lynch completely). Dupri went for the victory but, unseen by the referee, Natalya would put Lynch’s foot on the ropes and the official only saw that to stop the count.
As Dupri was stunned and tried to get answers from her mentor, Dupri was spun around and planted with a Man-Handle Slam as Lynch got the tainted victory.
After the match, Natalya attacked Dupri, repeatedly drilling Lynch with mounted shots in a beatdown that didn’t get a fully loud reaction from the fans. Eventually ended with The Sharpshooter applied to Dupri which got more of a cheer from the crowd than boos.
In the Clubhouse of The Judgement Day, RAQUEL RODRIGUEZ complained about Stephanie Vaquer (who was not on the show) not being medically cleared, but vowed to take the Women’s World Championship when she was. LIV MORGAN heaped praise on her teammate, and did the same with ROXANNE PEREZ about them becoming the new Women’s Tag Team Champions in the future.
In an in-ring segment, the Women’s Tag Team Champions Rhiyo of RHEA RIPLEY and IYO SKY cut a promo. Vowing to retain the tag gold at SNME but also declaring themselves as entrants for the Women’s Royal Rumble Match. That brought out Liv Morgan and Roxanne Perez who mocked the two, implying that they wouldn’t get along in the everyone for themselves match. Of course, hypocritically, Morgan announced that herself, Perez and Raquel Rodriguez would all be a part of the Rumble match, and Ripley questioned how those three could all co-exist. However, Rodriguez would sneak attack the tag champs, leading to a three-on-two beatdown as Sky took a devistating Tijana Bomb before, after Ripley had briefly fought off all three, Ripley got planted with an ObLIVion. Leaving the Heels standing tall days away from the Tag Team title match.
In a backstage segment, BAYLEY and LYRA VALKYRIA shared a moment as Bayley this week wasn’t mad at being ‘let down’ by Valkyria. Bayley hyped that either of them could win the Women’s Royal Rumble and both, for the moment, didn’t seem to hate the idea of the other being the winner.
The Kabuki Warriors of ASUKA and KAIRI SANE had a locker room segment where a fearful Sane apologised for letting her senpai down. Asuka ran down Sane for her recent losses, and Sane promised to do everything she could to make sure that Asuka won the Women’s Rumble. To which Asuka warned Sane not to fail her again.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
The match between Lynch and Dupri felt significantly worse than their last two matches, but certainly improved over their first contests before this recent run. That’s not merely because of the incredibly predictable Heel turn by Natalya, who hasn’t been seen in person on TV for months and has only appeared (outside of the training videos with Dupri) on indies events and AAA showcase matches. The lack of reaction from the fans showed and it’s going to be tough to get invested in a feud between Dupri and Natalya. Will there even be time on the card to show them off with Lynch still being IC Champ and, presumably, moving on to finish off the feud with AJ Lee when she next appears at the Rumble? Elsewhere, the segment with The Judgement Day and Rhiyo was solid to give their tag title match a boost. Including Rodriguez worked and perhaps will leave the door open for Stephanie Vaquer to appear at SNME and get payback on Rodriguez, unintentionally costing Judgement Day in the process. At the very least on Raw, we finally got names confirmed for the Rumble and eight (potentially nine if Sane gets in too) Superstars is a sizeable chunk. Overdue with the PLE so close and hopefully a few more will be announced on Smackdown too but still leave things open for surprises and NXT names.
That’s your lot for this week! Be sure to stop by in seven days’ time for the next edition of the RAW RECAP! See you then!