After a mysterious (and illogical) absence from last week’s Raw, Divas Champion Alicia Fox is back in action this week in a non-title bout against Brie Bella (Bella Twin #1). Will the twin Divas manage to switch their way to a upset victory over the champ? Check out the match below:

First out are The Bella Twins, who are dressed identically (I wonder why…) in electric blue. Cole and King use this time to plug the sponsor, which means I have to hear more of the Bellas entrance theme than I should. I think I’d rather watch a Khali match… The champion is out next and she’s making her way to the ring rather quickly. I guess Cena went over his allotted time this week, so the Divas have to pick up the slack as usual. The referee rings the bell and the match is on.

Alicia doesn’t waste any time going to work on Brie, laying in a kick to the gut. Alicia throws Brie into the turnbuckle, then rams her back first into the corner. Alicia snatches up Bella #1 by the hair and executes a fierce irish whip, sending Brie to the mat. Alicia proceeds to stomp out poor Brie until the ref pulls her off.

While the referee is preoccupied with Alicia, Nikki and Brie go for their patented switcheroo to turn the tables on the champ. Unfortunately for the identical beauties, Jillian makes her way to ringside and blocks their attempt to switch out. Alicia and the referee turn their attention back to the Bellas and Alicia lands a stiff kick on Bella #2, sending her down to the floor. Alicia tries to get back in control of the match, but Brie rolls her up with a school boy for a near fall. Before Brie can get in anymore offense, Alicia kicks her in the gut before landing a brutal axe kick for the win.

Post match, Jillian decides to serenade the champion with her very own rendition of Queen’s “We Are The Champions.” Obviously unimpressed, Alicia cuts her off with another impressive axe kick before leaving the ring with her head held high.

Once again, not a great week for the Raw Divas when it comes to in-ring action. The match just barely cleared the one minute mark, which is just a damn shame, to be honest. That said, this match wasn’t about the ringwork. It was about putting over Alicia as a dominant champion and in that respect, I think it served its purpose. Alicia needs to pick up some decisive victories if she wants to be seen as a serious competitors and the Bellas were the best Divas for the job.

I also enjoyed Jillian’s involvement in the match as a secondary character. It allowed her to appear on the main show as well as continue her feud with the Bellas. Her altercation with Alicia at the end was also a very nice touch. It really cemented Alicia’s place as a top heel and also planted the seeds for a future conflict between the two Divas.

All in all, it was a middle of the road night for the Raw Divas. While they didn’t quite deliver in the ring, all the little things like Jillian’s involvement, helped them avoid a truly dismal night. Unfortunately for Diva fans, this kind of performance has come to be expected from Raw in the past few months. On the bright side, at least we have something to look forward to next week…

Hit ‘show’ to see the video:

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Thanks to Diva Dirt reader Vincent for the spoilers:

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Thoughts after the cut:

Melanie
She’s backkk! I have no idea why they would put this on a taped show instead of on a live show, however. Kinda sucks the excitement out of it.

Get your Monday night Divas fix by tuning in to Raw tonight at 9pm ET on the USA Network.

Discuss the show in the comments!

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And if any of you were wondering what happened to the lengthy matches on RAW, or why a Diva like Eve might get stuck in match that only last for one minute…well, Gewirtz and Kosky had something to say about that too. “On RAW we have a live show,” Gewirtz said. “And often times you can put aside a certain amount of time for the matches that you want to see and believe it or not, and I can’t speak for this panel [smiles right at The Miz] but sometimes the talent will go over the allotted time [crowd laughs] and that creates a domino effect that cuts into the time in the next segment and then the next segment and on a live show, if a segment goes three, four minutes heavy, you’ve got to take time out of something else.” “Kind of like the Main Event stuff, with the beginning, middle and end, is going to take up the majority of the time so if something runs long then it’s the in-between stuff that gets cut,” Kosky clarified. “And that’s when you usually get your two minute matches. It’s just the cost of doing business when you do live TV.”

Read the rest here.

There you have it! Funny how it always seems to affect the Divas, though.

After losing yet another title match at Money in the Bank, Eve Torres is set out to redeem herself against former Divas champion, Maryse. Check out the match below:

Out first is Eve in her orange and gold gear from Money in the Bank. Unlike my colleagues, I really like this color on her. The gold is a bit much, but I think she looks great. Next out is Maryse, who is being accompanied my Ted Dibiase. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… Ted DiBiase is bland as all get out and Maryse is really outshining him in this pairing. I’m actually having trouble distinguish which of them is the eye candy here.

Before the match starts, Maryse removes her expensive jewelry (Why did you wear it to the ring in the first place?) and gets in Eve’s face in her usual arrogant fashion. Apparently, Eve isn’t in the mood for Maryse attitude tonight, so she piefaces her to kick things off. Eve tries to capitalize but is taken down by a kick to the gut and a slap to the face. Maryse then kicks Eve towards the ropes and chokes her out from behind.

While Maryse is pummeling poor Eve, Ted makes sure to let the commentary team and that Maryse is NOT a golddigger (very convincing) and that this is also a #1 contender’s match. Good to know… halfway into the match. *Sigh*

Maryse leveled Eve with a couple of stiff forearms, followed by an Irish Whip to the corner. Maryse rushes in, but Eve hits a elbow to the face and a kick to the side of the head. Immediately, Eve goes for the pin and at two Maryse gets her foot on the bottom rope. Despite this, the referee still counts for three and Eve wins #1 contendership… again.

Obviously upset at his woman’s loss, Teddy Jr storms the ring and gets in the referee’s face, trying to tell him about Eve’s stolen win. Not willing to see a referee be senselessly verbally abused, John Morrison is out to the rescue. A fight ensued and the Divas fade into the background… during their own match!

Dismal night for the red brand this week, after a strong showing at Sunday’s PPV and for several reasons. First of all, we’ve seen this match a hundred times before and it hasn’t really been good most of the time, so why are we having it again?

Secondly, why is Eve being given a third title shot after losing clean to Alicia not once, but twice!? Isn’t it about time someone else got a shot at the belt? I don’t think it’s ever been so obvious that the Raw brand’s roster needs to be filled out.

Third, why did Eve get the win despite Maryse having her foot on the rope? This is such a classic heel tactic, which leaves me to believe that this was a mistake on the referee’s part. I hope that next week our mysterious GM reverses this decision or at least gives Maryse a rematch.

Last, but certainly not least, where the hell was the Divas champ, Alicia Fox. After scoring a big win at Money in the Bank, you’d think she’d make an appearance at the following Raw, right? I’d would have loved to see her come out and show the ref that Maryse had her foot on the rope, keeping her from facing Eve yet again. Even a simple interview would have done the trick. A major oversight on WWE’s part.

At the end of the day, this Diva match was just poorly veiled attempt to put over the DiBiase/JoMo feud. It’s so sad that the Divas can’t have so much as a decent match without the male competitors being inserted into it. I’d like to say I’m keeping hope alive for next week, but that a blatant lie.

Get your Monday night Divas fix by tuning in to Raw tonight at 9pm ET on the USA Network.

Discuss the show in the comments!

Also, be sure to join us for The Post-Raw Show live at 11pm ET.

Raw’s sly Diva, Alicia Fox picked a picked up a win that can only be called controversial last week when she defended her title against Eve Torres. Obviously, Eve has unfinished business with the champ, as she finds her way to commentary for Alicia’s non-title match with Gail Kim this week. Check out the match below:

We start with Eve already at ringside, posing and waving to the fans (One of her favorite pastimes, along with salsa dancing.) She joined Lawler and Cole on commentary as the Divas Champion makes her to the ring.

Alicia is clad in a brand new piñata skirt, this time in red and I must say, it’s an improvement over her last two even if it still looks like she raided a Party City store to make it. While Alicia struts her stuff in the ring and taunts Eve, they show a replay of last week’s match and how Alicia picked up the win.

Out next is her opponent, Gail Kim, who is looking phenomenal tonight. Gail does the usual babyface posing for the crowd before stepping in the ring to face the champ. The referee rings the bell and the match is underway.

These women waste no time locking up, but it’s the challenger who gets the upper hand, taking Alicia down with a simple takeover, followed by an armdrag and a dropkick. Gail whips Alicia onto the corner and tries for a monkey flip. Unfortunately for Gail, Alicia holds on to the ropes, sending Gail down hard to the mat. The champ follows up with a jumping knee strike, which ellicits a reaction from Eve on commentary. She must be remembering the time Alicia nailed her with that very same move. Alicia goes for the pin and Gail kicks out at two.

Frustrated, Alicia snatches Gail up by the hair and slaps on a headlock, taking her opponent down to the mat. Note that Alicia still has a handful of hair and is rubbing it in Gail’s face while ref isn’t looking. Probably more annoying to Gail than harmful, if you ask me but it’s neat little heel tactic. Gail manages to fight her way out and follow up with a flapjack and a flurry of strikes. Gail hits her patented cross body through the ropes, but is taken down with a snapmare when she goes for the dropkick from the top rope.

Perhaps sensing an opportunity, Alicia grabs Gail by the hair yet again, but makes the mistake of taunting Eve. Gail takes advantage of the distraction and goes for ‘Eat Defeat’ or as certain colleague would call it ‘Madame Guillotine’. Unfortunately for Gail, Alicia manages to counter, forcing her into a painful looking situation. Foxy follows up with her axe kick for the three count and the win.

Post match, Alicia taunts Eve and just when it looks like things might get physical, the Mystery GM inserts him/herself via email. The GM informs us, using Cole as a mouthpiece, that due to Alicia faking an injury, Eve will be awarded another title shot at the Money in the Bank PPV. That’s right, TWO Divas matches on a PPV.

To be honest, I wasn’t too impressed with the match between Gail and Alicia. It wasn’t a bad match by any means, but it paled in comparison to some of the other matches that they’ve had in the past few months on Superstars.

I also found myself unimpressed with Eve on commentary. She stumbled and mumbled all through the entire match, but I’ll chalk it up to being nervous. However, after some pretty decent mic work from Alicia, Tamina and Maryse last week, I’d say Eve really needs to step up her game in that department.

My last complaint with this segment was the reasoning behind Eve’s second title shot. Technically, Alicia didn’t break any rules last week, although her tactics were shady. I’ve seen many competitors use this trick before and their opponents never got a second chance because of it. I guess I shouldn’t complain too much since I’m getting two Diva title matches, which is a treat in an of itself.

In other Diva news, Tamina and Natalya competed in a 6-man tag match with their respective teams:

Unfortunately, not much to say here as Tamina and Natalya’s interaction was restricted to a mere catfight. As much as it sucks, I’m not surprised to see Natalya get pushed to the background. This is a Tag Team Title feud, after all. Too bad we never got that singles match. (I hate you, Nexus)

Not to be outdone, Maryse also made her presence known on last night’s Raw:

I have to say, Maryse looked drop dead gorgeous as she accompanied her man, Ted DiBiase to the ring for his promo. Unfortunately, she was insulted by both Ted and John Morrison, who came out to interrupt the power couple. As I said last week, I really like Maryse in a manager role. As we all know, Maryse’s strong suit is her personality, so being a manager is a perfect fit. I wonder if JoMo has anyone in mind to have his back against the team of Ted and Maryse (Tedyse? Mareddy?) Hmm…

All in all, not a horrible edition of Raw, but not a terribly logical one either. However, we managed to see most of the Divas used and got a second PPV match to boot. I guess that’s a fair trade-off. Hopefully, WWE won’t take the TNA route when booking the Divas next week.

Get your Monday night Divas fix by tuning in to Raw tonight at 9pm ET on the USA Network. Florence Henderson, AKA “The Brady Bunch”‘s Carol Brady will be hosting the show.

Discuss the show in the comments!

Also, be sure to join us for The Post-Raw Show live at 11pm ET.

Note from Melanie: Erin and I are excited to promote Steven to the regular position of Raw columnist. We hope you’ll enjoy his Raw Redux, as with Erin’s, every Tuesday. Congrats to Steven!

After losing her Divas Title in controversial fashion two weeks ago at Fatal 4-Way, Eve Torres finally got her chance to cash in her rematch clause on this week’s Raw. But before that we’re treated to back to back promos from Tamina (and those atypical Samoans) and the Divas Champion, Alicia Fox.

Tamina basically busts some knowledge on Josh Mathews (and the rest of us at home), helping him figure out which Uso twin is which. While Tamina may be the strongest on the mic in her stable, I always get the feeling that she’s trying too hard. I know she’s trying to be the super tough heel Diva, but it can come off a bit forced at times. Hopefully, this will improve as she gets more comfortable on the mic.

On the other hand, I thought Alicia came off great in her promo. She pretty much gets on Josh’s case about not interviewing her, despite her being the new champion. She then lets all the viewers know that her win at Fatal 4-Way was no fluke and she’ll prove it in the ring with Eve. She then struts off to the ring as we go to commercial break.

By letting Alicia cut this promo, WWE is giving the audience a sense of Alicia as a character and judging by the heat she was getting during her rant, I’d say it’s working.

We come back from commercial to find Alicia already in the ring, stroking and kissing her precious title. In my opinion, the match had already hit a sour note. If anyone should get a full entrance, shouldn’t it be the champion? I bet they wouldn’t do that to John Cena…

Out next is Eve, sporting some new pink gear and looking perky as always. She takes some time to pose for the masses before the match gets underway. I would think she’d be a bit more focused given that this may be her last shot at the title for a while, but that’s just me.

The two ladies start off with a tie-up, but Alicia quickly gets the upper hand, nailing Eve with an elbow followed by a couple of stiff forearms. The champ whips Eve off the ropes, who counters by rolling over Alicia’s back and hitting a flurry of her own for a two count. Eve wastes no time getting back on offense, muscling Alicia into the corner and throwing her across the ring with a biel… and then things get scary.

Immediately after taking the bump, Alicia goes straight for ankle, screaming at the top of her lungs. Eve tries to keep the heat on the champ but the ref pulls her off of a visibly upset Alicia. Alicia manages to hobble to the corner while the referee asks her if she wants to continue.

Alicia insists on finishing the match, so the ref lets Eve loose. Sensing an opportunity Eve comes charging into the corner and gets a kneestrike to the face from Alicia for her trouble. While Eve is recuperating, Alicia comes sprinting out of the corner like Flo Jo (Surprise!) and hits her patented Axe Kick for the win. On her way back to the back, she even mocks the crowd with some faux limping.

If you tuned into Raw for some quality Diva wrestling, you obviously came to the wrong place. The match couldn’t have lasted two minutes bell to bell, and the wrestling that did take place wasn’t exactly mindblowing. On the upside, what this match lacked in action, it made up for in character development.

Alicia got to build some character both in and out of the ring. She even got to show off some primo acting skills. I don’t know about everyone else, but I was convinced she was actually injured. Her fake injury not only netted her a win but also got her some heat from the crowd, which is exactly what she needs as Raw’s top heel Diva.

As I said on the Post-Raw Show, this felt very much like a blow off match for Alicia and Eve, which makes me wonder: Where do we go from here? With Maryse (who apparent loves money) teamed up Ted DiBiase Jr and Eve losing her rematch, it seems as if there’s no clear contender for the Divas Title. Maybe it’s time for that Gail/Alicia feud we’ve all been itching for? (Make it happen, Erin)

Also, former Divas champion Maryse made her presence known during Ted DiBiase’s match against John Morrison, blessing us with her input on commentary:

Maryse managed to detract all attention away from this match with her unique brand of commentary, including calling Cole out (as always) and taking a phone call… in French! Vintage Maryse!!! She even gets involved in the match by jacking JoMo’s jacket and distracting him long enough for her charge to pick up the win. It’s good to see Maryse using her charisma to stay in the spotlight, despite being out of the title picture for now. I’ve said before that wrestling is not Maryse’s strong suit, so this role is a perfect fit for her. I have a feeling that Maryse will end up outshining Teddy Jr. when all is said and done between them.

All in all, it was a middle of the road for Raw this week. the in-ring action just wasn’t there, but some decent mic work from Alicia, Tamina and Maryse saved what could have been an abysmal night for the Divas. WWE really needs to step it up next week if they want to get the fans caring about Raw’s Divas division. Sorry to say, but two minute matches just ain’t cutting it anymore.

Get your Monday night Divas fix by tuning in to Raw tonight at 9pm ET on the USA Network.

Discuss the show in the comments!

Also, be sure to join us for The Post-Raw Show live at 11pm ET.

Last week, we were treated to Brie Bella vs “The Singing Sensation” Jillian. This week, perhaps seeking some revenge, Jillian faces off with Nikki Bella. Where one goes, the other follows. Will we see more twin hijinks, or will Miss Hall score a victory? Lets find out!

The Bellas are first out and we get our first hint of trouble: matching outfits and flowers in their hair on the same sides. The sky blue is a nice color but the ruffles on the legs… honestly ladies, switch up the design! You don’t have to have ruffles on everything you wear. Just a tip.

We get a recap of last week’s shenanigans before Jillian comes out in a nice purple ensemble. She looks all business tonight as she climbs into the ring. The poor dear looks fustrated! She then speaks words that drive a dagger into my heart: after last week, after what the Bellas did to her, she can’t even sing. Woe to her fans! Our weekly perk has been denied us thanks to that devious duo! However the twins clap as does the audience. Everyone’s a critic. Jillian removes her portable mic and the referee calls for the bell. Michael Cole gets one of his oh-so-witty jabs in, “Instead of Lady GaGa, they should call Jillian Lady Gag.” I hope he doesn’t write his own material. I choose to tune out the commentary and focus on the match.

Nikki and Jillian lock up, with Nikki forcing Jillian into a corner. The ref calls for them to break it up. Nikki backs away but the pop star rushes out, nailing Nikki with a strong right hand to knock her on the ground! Vicious move and the crowd signals it’s displeasure. Jilly follows up with a kick to the shoulder then grabs Nikki by her hair, jerking her back against her knee. Waiting until the last moment, Jillian finally releases the brunette, who’s grimacing in pain. Hall goes for a pin but only gets a two-count.

Going on the offense, Jillian throws Nikki throat-first into the second rope, holding her in place with her knee against her head. The refere gets her to back up, warning the pop princess, but she takes no heed. Instead she drags Nik up by the hair, pauses, and tosses her to the ground face first never letting go of her hair! Jillian is pissed and it’s showing in this match. Taunting the Bella, she goes for a cover but again only gets a two-count.

The fustration is mounting as Jillian pushes her face into the mat, then gets her into a sleeper headlock. Brie on the outside tries to get the crowd involved and it seems to revive Nikki. She jabs Jillian in the stomach with a few elbows but Jillybean is having none of it. She viciously throws Nikki onto her back using her hair yet again. She goes for a pin, getting yet another two-count. Lawler remarks, “There’s something about Jillian that intrigues me.” Sorry Jerry, she’s too old for you – she graduated elementary school a long time ago.

Screaming, “OH COME ON!”, Hall puts a knee squarely in Nikki’s back and yanks backwards using her hair. The ref starts a count but as he hits number five, Jillian releases, holding her hand up, waggling her fingers in his face. “Fiiiive!” Ooh, she’s showing some sass tonight! Getting the Bella up, Jillian snapmares her back down and follows up with a solid kick to the back. Shouting, “Now count!” the blonde siren goes for another pin but gets a two. What is our Pop Princess going to have to do to get a pin fall?!

Jill hoists Nikki up and slams her onto her knee for a hard backbreaker, then keeps her in place by folding her backwards, hand firmly on Nik’s jaw. Ms Bella hangs tough though, refusing to give up. Instead, she lands four kicks with her knee to the side of Jillian’s head, the fourth causing her to release Nikki. The brunette in blue hits Jillian with some elbows to the midsection but her offense is stopped short by a knee to Nik’s midsection. Jilly backs her up against the ropes and slingshots her across the ring. Nikki dodges and on her reverse bounce, hits Jillian with a headscissors take down. She’s up and hits the blonde with a monkey flip to keep Jillian down. As Hall sits back up, Bella hits the opposite ropes and nails Jillian with a one legged drop kick. We have a cover but it’s only good for two!

Nikki gets Jill up and throws her into the ropes but Jillian catches herself. As Nikki runs at her, the singer gets a leg up squarely into Nik’s stomach. Jillian then grabs the brunette by the hair, throwing her down onto her back. Another cover gets only two and Jillian wails in fustration. Already this match is longer than anything we see on Raw, which seems to be par for the course with Superstars. Tossed into the ropes, as Nikki comes in, Jillian moves and manages to throw the Bella out of the ring. Nikki hits the ground hard and as Brie comes over to check on her, Jillian hops out and nails Brie in the head! Both Bellas are down but not for long as Jilly hauls Brie up, slamming her face into the ring, then “stomping a mudhole” into her as JR would say. She’s getting her payback for last week no doubt. At this point, Brie is on the left and Nikki is on the right. Jillian climbs into the ring and tells the referee to start counting. As the Bellas stir, he’s up to a two count but then – surprise surprise! – the twins crawl under the ring. Uh oh..

The referee knows this but Jillian’s farther back in the ring, gloating and blissfully unaware of any hijinks about to ensue. Eventually one Bella crawls out from under the ring and wearily climbs onto the ropes. Jillian nails her with a hard knee, knocking her back outside. But what’s this? From the other side, the second Bella has crawled out, into the ring and rolls up Jillian from out of nowhere! A three count and this match is over with! But was it Nikki or was it Brie with the pin? The commentators are claiming it’s Nikki but who can be sure…not this writer at least. A shot at the top of the ramp shows Jillian with hands on hips, looking as fustrated as ever. Poor Jillybean!

Well we knew Jillian had a mean streak, but last week’s match and now this week’s has solidified it. There’s good and bad to being on Superstars: the good being that Diva matches get more time and this can only be an advantage for the Bellas to continue to grow. Jillian’s an excellent opponent and a great heel for them to work off of. The bad is they’re not featured on Raw and not in the title hunt…or is being on Raw a good thing anymore? One thing’s for certain, it’s good to see both Nikki and Brie getting ring time instead of hanging over the guest hosts. These two have good potential and they get good reaction from the crowd. It’ll be worth following to see if this feud with Jillian can stay interesting or if it will fizzle out. If it keeps Jillian on my screen each week then, in the words of DDP, that’s not a bad thing – that’s a good thing.

Alicia Fox‘s Divas Championship reign got off to a mostly underwhelming start, being saddled with a random mixed tag match right off the bat. This week, we see another tag team match, but thankfully it makes a bit more sense, as Alicia teams with Maryse against Eve Torres and Gail Kim. Watch the match below:

Maryse and Alicia enter together (I’m sure having to come out to Alicia’s music makes Maryse cheery), followed by Gail and Eve making a tandem entrance. Eve and Alicia start off the match, Alicia wasting no time, charging over and kicking Eve in the midsection. Two two trade blows until Eve is whipped into the ropes and takes down Alicia with a sunset flip on the return. Alicia halts her momentum, though, and sits on Eve into a pin, but Eve blocks it, and Alicia satisfies herself with a knee to the face. She sends Eve into the corner and nails her with a high knee and, after taunting the crowd a bit, hits her with a snapmare and attempts a pin, which Eve kicks out of at 2.

She brings Eve to her corner and, after an exchange of attitudes, Maryse tags in. They stare at each other warily and make it pretty clear that them teaming together doesn’t mean they’rre suddenly BFFs. I prefer that kind of heel interaction, because it just further sells their nasty attitudes if even kindred spirits can’t get along. Maryse kicks Eve and pulls her head back by the hair, tugging a bit before slamming her head first on the mat. She tries for a (extremely, extremely delayed) pin, which Eve of course kicks out of. Maryse pulls her up and rams her head into her corner’s turnbuckle, tagging Alicia back in.

Maryse holds Eve up for a kick from Alicia, and that seems to be the extent of their teamwork. She exits the ring and Alicia takes over. Alicia whips Eve into the corner and goes for another high kick, but Eve moves, causing Alicia to tangle herself in the corner while she tags in Gail. Gail comes in gangbusters, nailing Alicia with a flurry of offense punctuated by a frankensteiner. Alicia reverses an Irish whip into the ropes and seems prepped to flip Gail into a backbreaker, but Gail reverses it into a splash. She covers Alicia, who kicks out at 2.

Gail kicks Alicia and dropkicks her into the corner, Alicia looking like someone tugged an invisible string and yanked her backwards. Gail charges toward her but Alicia slips out of the ring in plenty of time. However, once she gets to the outside Eve gets right on her, attacking her. Alicia puts a stop to this when she backs her into the ring apron. She tries to take a breather, but Gail reaches through the ropes, pulling her to the ring by the hair. Maryse immediately slips in the ring, attacking Gail from behind. Gail fends her off pretty easily, but this allows Alicia to take advantage of Gail’s distraction, knocking her to the mat and waiting until the perfect moment to hit the axe kick, pinning Gail and getting the win for her team.

This match made a lot more sense than last week’s jobber fest, and made for some interesting interaction between Maryse and Alicia. It does a lot, in my opinion, to make it clear that Maryse isn’t happy playing second fiddle to Alicia. Their less-than-friendly exchanges add a bit of dimension to both of their characters, especially their face-off at the end of the match. It put them in interesting spots: Alicia, the cocky, triumphant champ, and Maryse, the bitter second stringer.

Eve showed a bit more fire in this match when she attacks Alicia outside the ring, and even though it lasted only a few seconds, it made her seem more interesting as a character. At least now she seems upset about losing the title. Last week, she kind of gave off a happy-go-lucky attitude that only served to make her seem like a lousy competitor. They need much more fire out of Eve if they want to make this feud with Alicia exciting at any level. Gail was Gail, busting out interesting moves while being the one best suited to take the fall for her team. Her time certainly hasn’t come yet, but if it were up to me, I’d be placing her in the title feud while Eve brings up the rear and takes the pins. But of course, that’s just me..

Earlier in the night, we saw more of the usual out of Natalya, Tamina, and their boys. Watch this week’s ambush below:

The Hart Dynasty comes out to the ring for a match against the Usos, but before they can even make it into the ring the Usos attack. Tamina battles Natalya next to the apron and bodyslams her onto the mat outside. That appears to be it, as the Usos retreat, but Tamina suddenly gets an idea and sprints back to ringside, tossing Natalya into the ring. She hits the Superfly splash and, satisfied, finally leaves with the Usos. The match never started, so it looks to end in a no contest ruling.

This is just another rehash of the Uso attacks we’ve seen over the past few weeks, the only interesting part being Tamina attacking Natalya and taking center stage with a Superfly splash. It puts the Divas in the spotlight, and serves to make their feud feel just as, if not more, important than the one going on between the tag teams. I have to say, though, that if they keep following this formula week in, week out, it’ll get old quick. Hell, it feels like deja-vu even now. There’s got to be more to this feud than ambushes, but I don’t think the writers have found out what that “more” entails just yet.

Both Divas feuds look to be going forward week-by-week, with no real substance being built or story being told. This could be remedied easily with some deviation from the norm, but the WWE seems to love sticking to their tried and true formulas. Unfortunately, those formulas are what got us countless meaningless tag team matches and Divas feuds that fizzled out quick and went nowhere fast. Change is good, WWE. Don’t be afraid to embrace it.

Get your Monday night Divas fix by tuning in to Raw tonight at 9pm ET on the USA Network.

Discuss the show in the comments!

Also, be sure to join us for The Post-Raw Show live at 11pm ET.

This week on WWE Superstars we have Jillian taking on the Bella Twins. Okay, so she’s really facing Brie Bella, but by now we know that when you face one Bella, it’s pretty much a 2-on-1 affair. Watch the match below:

Jillian comes to the ring all microphoned up and in keeping with the World Cup fever sweeping the world, she sings the “Olé Olé” tune until she’s interrupted by the entrance of the Bellas. With Brie in the ring and Nikki at ringside, the match begins. They start with a tie-up, Brie getting control and wrenching Jillian’s arm, but Jillian slams her to the mat. Brie regains control, twisting her arm behind her back, but Jillian quickly trips her up and causes her to hit face-first onto the mat. For good measure, I suppose, she slaps Brie on the butt. Good lord, I hope that doesn’t become some recurring thing. I can only dread what the WWE would do with a spanking gimmick.

Brie seems to take this as a personal insult, as she immediately leaps onto her and starts a bit of a tussle on the mat. After all the scrambling and hair-pulling, Jillian reverses an Irish whip into the corner. Brie braces herself against the corner, leaping and latching her legs around Jillian’s neck, but it’s telegraphed and Jillian pulls her free of the turnbuckle, letting her fall full-on onto the mat. Jillian then chokes her against the second rope, bashing her throat against it. After toying with her a bit, Jillian hits a snapmare and kicks her square in the back, attempt a pin that only garners a 2-count.

She grabs Brie by the arm and twists it back, wrenching her shoulder. When Brie starts to fight out, she simply slams her face onto the mat. Jillian hits her with a scoop slam and goes for her cartwheel splash, but is met in the midsection with Brie’s knees. This slows her down considerably, and allows Brie to go on the patented Diva babyface offensive tear (I’m sure it’s in the manual somewhere, with illustrations of dropkicks and clotheslines), hitting a series of dropkicks, a clothesline, and a bulldog. She goes for the pin, but Jillian kicks out at 2.

Jillian against reverses an Irish whip into the corner, but this time it’s Brie who thwarts an attack. She plants an elbow into Jillian’s face and scales the turnbuckle, climbing onto Jillian’s shoulders chicken-style and tires to roll it into a pin, but Jillian stops her mid-roll and sits down into a pin of her own. Brie manages to kick out at 2 and regains momentum, hitting Jillian with forearms and whipping her into the corner, leaping onto her and prepping for a monkey flip, but Jillian simply dumps her over the ropes and outside the ring. Nikki comes over to that side of the ring. Nope, nothing suspicious about this. She’s just dressed identically to her twin sister in ring attire, even though she isn’t wrestling. Nothing suspicious at all..

She crumples onto the mat outside next to Brie, and of course, they can’t tell who is who! The referee confronts them, and can tell that Brie is the one who looks all flustered, and orders her back into the ring. +1 point for referee competency! Before Brie can get back into the ring, Jillian attacks her and brings her back there herself. She stomps a mudhole in her in the corner, coming unhinged a bit, and the referee has to restrain her. This provides an opening for Nikki to switch in with Brie, and of course neither the ref nor Jillian can tell the difference. -1 for referee competency. Brie Nikki dodges an attack from Jillian and immediately rolls her up into a pin for the win.

The match was your basic heel vs. face match–nothing special, but not really all that bad. Jillian looked good being the relentless heel, maintaining control for most of the match. Brie, on the other hand, looked weaker than ever, barely getting in any offense (aside from the requisite babyface pieces of flair) and needing her sister to come in the finish the job. I know it’s their ~gimmick~, but it’s an old gimmick. In fact, I believe it’s eligible for the AARP card. It’s just old hat at this point, nothing new or entertaining, and only serves to make their opponent and the referee look like dunces while making the Bellas look like the weakest of the weak–even the lowliest Divas are able to finish a match on their own, for God’s sake!

I think, even though the switcheroo gimmick is meant to catch fans’ attention and make the Bellas look cunning, it’s outgrown its usefulness. It’s no longer an unexpected twist–you can see it coming from a mile away (see the beginning of this column, for example). Like I said, all it does is make them look like weak competitors and does nothing to build either of them to a level that makes them worthy of a consistent push outside the occasional match on WWE Superstars.

I wish the WWE would come up with something new for the Bellas, because I think these girls have potential. Making a babyface take a beating for the whole match is meant to set them up to battle back valiantly at the end of the match, not set them up to tag out and catch a breather while the fresh one immediately goes for an evasive pin. Sure, it’s something the bends the rules a bit, but in this case, I think it sets them back rather than forward like some outside the box ideas do. The message that the WWE’s sending is that one Bella is interchangeable for the other–there’s no difference. Nikki’s just a spare Brie, and vice-versa. Using both girls to their potential is something I’d like to see, and I’m sure the Bellas would appreciate being treated like individuals too.

Last night’s Fatal 4-Way PPV left open a lot of possibilities. The mission of tonight’s Raw was to pick that up and run with it. But unfortunately (if we’re sticking to the running metaphors), they pretty much stumbled just out of the gate. They just didn’t keep the excitement going. What did they actually do? Well, good thing you asked..

The first thing we learned about the post-F4W Raw landscape is that Maryse is now managing Ted Dibiase, effectively replaced Virgil. Watch their adventures below:

They seem to have good chemistry, and while it may be seen as a demotion for Maryse to go from being in the thick of a Divas Championship feud to merely managing, it’s good to see that the WWE is still thinking of things for her to do. She wasn’t going to be at the forefront forever, so it’s great to know that she won’t just be sitting on the sidelines twiddling her thumbs until her number gets called again. Plus, this can help put to use what many fans deem to be her greatest asset–her personality. We’ll see if it goes anywhere interesting, but for now, it’s got potential.

Later, Natalya and the Harts were interviewed by Josh Matthews. She speaks a bit on the NXT rookies’ attack on Bret Hart, saying that they should be in jail, not rewarded with contracts. Natalya also mentions that, in a moment, she will be making her Raw singles match debut. Cue flailing:

She is, of course, wrestling Tamina. I’m afraid that they’re pulling the trigger on this too soon, but better this than nothing, right? I just hope they can keep the fire burning with some outside the ring action rather than putting it all out there so quickly. Watch the match below:

Tamina gets the first blow in, kicking Natalya in the midsection. She powers her into the corner and pummels her by smashing her face into the turnbuckle, kicking her, and finally choking her with her boot. She pulls Natalya to her feet and full-on headbutts her, something you certainly don’t see every day in Divas matches. Natalya battles back after Tamina whips her into the corner, moving just in time to divert an attack. Natalya then bounces off the ropes, hitting a hard clothesline on the return. She hits a scoop slam and runs for the ropes, but stops in her tracks when she sees the Usos ready to grab her when she gets within reach.

Distracted by this, Natalya doesn’t see Tamina come from behind before she knocks her down. Tamina hoists her up, prepping for a Samoan drop, but Natalya slowly but surely fights out of it, switching her position so that she can roll Tamina up into a pin. But instead of holding the pin, she pulls up Tamina’s legs, prepping for the Sharpshooter.

At that moment, of course, the NXT rookies decide to interrupt this match, and Natalya and Tamina head for the hills. They had interrupt THIS match, a fresh, interesting one-on-one Divas match, out of all the others in the show. Figures. Hey, at least it leaves us wanting more out of Nattie and Tamina. And, I guess that gives the NXT fellows the heat they’ve been trying to get, but it’s probably limited to those of us on Diva Dirt who actually care about Divas like Natalya and Tamina. For the little time they had, I think they did quite well, and Tamina showed off some powerful moves, such as a brutal headbutt. For all of her supposed greenness, she’s covering it pretty well by simply being intimidating and powerful in the ring instead of worrying about the more detailed stuff. Natalya’s clothesline was timed perfectly and looked devastating, and I would have loved to see her lock in the Sharpshooter on Tamina, but hey, I guess we’ll see it eventually. Hopefully the next time they meet the match won’t be interrupted just when it’s getting good.

But that’s not all! We crowned a new Divas Champion last night, remember? Tonight, new champ Alicia Fox is facing the woman she practically stole the title from–Eve Torres. The bad news is that it’s a mixed tag match. The EXTRA bad news is that their tag partners are from the jobber pool: Primo and Khali. Let’s cross our fingers and hope it isn’t a total loss:

It looks like Khali and Primo are starting things off, but Primo chickens out and tags in Alicia, which also brings in Eve. Alicia shoves Eve twice, looking exceptionally cocky. She goes for a third time, but Eve catches her arm and locks her into a side headlock, flipping her to the mat and holding onto the move. She transitions back to her feet before flipping Alicia back to the mat again, the hold still locked in place. Alicia eventually gets to her feet and powers Eve into the ropes, but Eve regains control and chokes her against the ropes.

Alicia goes for a kick, but Eve catches her boot, shoving her into the ropes and allowing her to bounce right back into a clothesline. She goes for a pin, but Alicia kicks out at 2. Alicia reverses an Irish whip into the ropes, but Eve vaults over Alicia’s crouched back, hitting a dropkick when she turns around. Eve goes on the attack again, but Alicia trips her up with a drop toe hold, landing her throat-first on the bottom rope. Alicia tries for a pin, but gets a 2-count. She slams Eve face-first onto the mat and kicks her in the same spot while prancing around the ring.

Eve tries to battle back, but Alicia stops this with a leaping knee to the face. Oh lord, that could have gone wrong so easily, but she hit it pretty damn effectively. It probably helps that she’s practically 7 feet tall. After a loud “woohoo!” she goes for another pin, but Eve kicks out at 2. She lifts Eve up and powers her into the corner. Eve regains control with a double boot to the chest and an enziguri. With Alicia prone, she climbs the ropes and hits a beautiful moonsault, going for what should be the match-ending pin, but Primo comes in and distracts the referee while Alicia rolls out of the ring. She heads for the ramp, leaving her partner behind as Khali eventually does him in and gets the win for his team. For the record, I don’t blame Alicia a bit for bailing on her lame partner. She probably should have done it sooner.

Predictably, the match suffered from the shitty mixed tag stipulation, but Eve and Alicia did decently together. They wrestled for practically the entire match, around 4 1/2 minutes of it, and that;s nothing to sneeze at these days. Still, this does nothing to build any momentum for their potential feud. In fact, with the generic set-up of this match (random pairings with the babyface and heel jobbers of the week) and virtually no fire in it following the PPV, it practically sucks the life out of it. This is something the writers would turn to in a few weeks’ time when they’re fresh out of ideas. When this is the first thing they pull out, their idea to get this feud over, it just acts as a bad omen for the whole thing. I’m kind of disappointed that this is where we seem to be going, with Eve chasing Alicia for the title. I really, really wish they would make it Gail/Alicia instead, but I guess that’s the thing of dreams, because it really would be too good to be true.

Instead, Alicia will face one of the more generically-written Divas on the roster right now, and it sucks. Eve has a lot in her, a lot of fire and athleticism, but the way she’s written and acts is just plain boring. This night showcased that, as she just smiled and played around with Khali instead of being pissed that Alicia stole her title the night before. If I were her, I’d be looking for revenge, certainly not let her prance off up the ramp in the middle of the match. It just sets up Eve to be a Diva that any woman could play, and that doesn’t make her relatable–it makes her dull. I really hope they can come up with something more interesting in the coming weeks, because I think Alicia as champ has a lot of potential. Pairing her with a ceiling light counter isn’t meeting it, not by a long shot.

Be sure to watch Raw tonight for all the fallout following Alicia Fox’s surprise Divas Championship win. Tune in at 9pm EST on the USA Network.

Discuss the show in the comments!

Also, be sure to join us for The Post-Raw Show live at 11pm EST.

After a few lackluster weeks of Raw (1, 2) and an entertaining few weeks of WWE Superstars (1, 2), it was inevitable that those two paths would cross, and they have, in the form of both a match made for this Sunday’s Fatal Four-Way PPV and a tag team match tonight.

This Sunday, Eve Torres will be defending her Divas Championship in a fatal four-way against Maryse, Gail Kim, and Alicia Fox. This, in a sense, is converging two parties that are on opposite paths: Eve and Maryse, whose feud is treading serious water, and Gail and Alicia, whose match last week was more entertaining than anything going on in the Divas Championship feud. Likely, this was just becuase of the “fatal four-way” theme of the event, but I’d like ot think that the WWE was impressed with Gail and Alicia’s work and wanted to reward them. If that’s the case, they certainly didn’t show that tonight, as Gail teamed with Eve and Alicia teamed with Maryse for some tag team action:

Before the match can begin, Maryse gets a shove in on Eve and skirts away before she can retaliate. She decides to start the match for her team, though, and gets a leg up on Eve with a series of forearms that back her into the ropes. Once she lets go, Eve kicks her in the stomach and slams her to the mat by her head. She runs the ropes, but Alicia stops her by grabbing a fistful of hair. Eve turns and takes a wild swing at her, but Alicia manages to stay out of reach. The moment Eve turns back around, Maryse nails her with a wild kick, hitting her square in the neck. She attempts a pin, but Eve kicks out at 2.

She tags in Alicia, and they double-team Eve with a face plant. Alicia goes for another pin, but Eve kicks out a 2 again. Alicia hits a suplex that she bridges into a pin, getting a 2-count. Showing considerably more frustration than Maryse, Alicia pounds Eve’s head a bit and jams her knee into the side of it. She has some words (or rather, just a look) with the referee before snapping Eve up in a sleeper hold. She holds onto the move aggressively, practically mounted on Eve’s back. Eve manages to fight out with some wild elbows, but before she can truly free herself Alicia slams her down.

Alicia drags her by the hair to her corner, tagging in Maryse. Alicia holds Eve prone while Maryse lays a kick into her midsection. She grabs Eve by the hair and slams her face to the mat. Apparently, this is enough for her, and she tags Alicia back in, holding Eve up for a kick from Alicia. While Eve crawls about on the mat, Alicia knocks Gail off of the apron. This makes Gail furious and she fights to get into the ring, the referee doing everything he can to stop her. Alicia hoists Eve up and drives her into her corner, and Maryse grabs her hair, prepping Eve for a kick to the face. Eve moves out of the way in the nick of time, though, and Alicia plants her boot square in the face of Maryse instead, knocking her out of the equation. Once Alicia turns around, Eve kicks her in the midsection, hitting her with a neckbreaker for the pin and the win.

The match, in a theme more predictable than the sun rising and setting, was criminally short. It was just over 3 minutes, which is longer than usual, but still way too short. It says a lot when 3 minutes seems like a generous time slot. Eve did well playing the underdog, though her neckbreaker finisher looked a bit sloppy, and Maryse and Alicia seem to have a decent thing going with their team chemistry, despite Maryse’s aversion to helping anyone but herself. I’m sure the kick to the face will help her lose what little team spirit she has at this point. I was disappointed that Gail wasn’t even tagged into the match, the height of her involvement being distracting the referee while the climax of the match took place. I know the WWE’s main objective in this match was to put over the fighting, resilient Eve, but does that mean they need to keep her in for the entire match while Gail keeps the bench warm?

Tonight’s Raw was underwhelming, despite the PPV match announcement. The match was a rushed haphazard build-up to a PPV match that’s less than a week away, and we saw nothing of Natalya or Tamina, whose budding feud has been the most interesting part of the show for the past few weeks. I think that was the most disappointing part, actually.

I can only hope that this Sunday’s four-way Divas Championship match is given considerably more time than the recent Divas matches on Raw, because I really like the idea of these four Divas facing off, and it can only reach its potential if they have some room to breathe. The match brings up a lot of possibilities and is much more interesting than a regular Eve/Maryse match could be at this stage. I really do think each girl has it in her to match the match special and memorable. Gail and Alicia work well together, and we know that Eve and Maryse have it in them to bring some fire to a match, though we haven’t seen that in a while. As I see it, the match’s fate rests firmly in the will of the Raw booking team, in my opinion, and if recent trends have any indication, that’s not a good place to be.

Tonight’s Raw is hosted by “Royal Pains” star Mark Feuerstein. Tune in at 9pm EST on the USA Network.

Discuss the show in the comments!

Also, be sure to join us for The Post-Raw Show live at 11pm ET.

Last week’s episode of WWE Superstars gave us two solid Divas matches, one of them being one of the best Divas matches (in my opinion) so far this year. That match featured Gail Kim, and this week we’re treated to another Kim showing. This time, she’s taking on Alicia Fox:

The Divas start with a tie-up, and Alicia gains control, locking Gail into a side headlock. She quickly brings it to the mat, flipping Gail to the ground while keeping the hold locked. Alicia gets back to her feet and Gail fights free, but it stopped in her tracks when Alicia yanks her to the mat by her hair. Alicia goes for a pin and Gail kicks out rather quickly. She latches on another side headlock, but Gail soon pushes her against the ropes, shoving her across the ring and freeing herself. On the return, however, Alicia knocks her down with sheer momentum.

Alicia makes a move for the ropes, but Gail grabs a leg, stopping her short and causing her to land face-first on the mat. Gail quickly bridges over Alicia for a pin, but she kicks out. After a few blows dealt to Alicia, Gail goes for another pin, but the result is the same. Alicia manages to reverse an irish-whip from Gail, sending her into the corner. She eats boot when she tries to attack Gail, and is subsequently sent flying with a hurricanrana. Alicia, with her long legs, is sent all the way to the other side of the ring and is practically hanging out of it. Gail stops Alicia from mounting a return attack, keeping her against the ropes.

Alicia uses the ropes as a refuge for a moment, darting away from am attack by Gail but turning right into a body splash. She manages to catch Gail, though, and rams her into the corner. She suplexes Gail and bridges into a pin, getting a 2-count. Frustrated, she starts to play a little dirty with Gail, ramming her hair against the mat and grabbing some hair. She hits a body slam and takes a moment to pose a bit for the crowd, looking quite confident as she winks and sends out an air kiss.

Gail takes advantage of this self-distraction, battling back and going for a tilt-a-whirl headscissors. Alicia manages to stop her momentum, though, and hoists Gail up, slamming her down into a backbreaker. This calls for another pin attempt, which draws a 2-count. Alicia send Gail vaulting into the corner with a rough irish-whip, and Gail slams into it and falls to the mat. She goes for another pin, garnering the same count. She props Gail up against her knee and pulls her head back by the chin. Gail battles back and goes for another headscissors, but only it results in another backbreaker. Gail looked like a damn pinwheel there!

Alicia goes for two separate pin attempts, getting the magical 2-count both times. Her frustration visible, Alicia sets up for her scissors kick, but Gail ducks out of the way, hitting a series of clotheslines. Her momentum is broken when Alicia reverses an irish-whip and clotheslines her. She plants a boot into her back and when she gets to her feet, whipping her into the corner. Gail again skirts out of the way of an attack, hitting a scoop slam the moment Alicia turns back around. She attempts a pin of her own, but Alicia kicks out at 2.

Gail nails Alicia in the corner, slipping through the ropes and climbign up the turnbuckle. Just as she gets her footing, though, Alicia jerks the ropes, causing her to land stomach-first into them. With Gail draped over the top rope, Alicia hits a scissors kick, brining Gail back to the mat and allowing Alicia to get the pin and the win.

This match, while not as great as Gail’s match with Jillian last week, was still very exciting. Alicia has a bit of a vindictive streak going, and I’d like to see her expand on that a bit more, perhaps being more relentless with various submissions and choke holds. Gail was as firey and exciting as always, though I feel she may need to start taking out certain moves and not perform them every single match. It gets repetitive, and you know Gail’s got the ability to do more than that “nail opponent in the corner and slip out of the ring” move in every match. Still, she’s got the ability to make every match seem fresh with how she breaks out moves seemingly out of nowhere.

Alicia and Gail compliment each other well, as Alicia is able to take Gail’s high-flying moves and sell them well by flailing her tall body around the ring. The two of them have drastically different body types, yet they utilize each other’s stature to pull off interesting moves–Gail with her ring-spanning hurricanrana and Alicia with her momentum-stealing backbreakers. I especially loved the scissors kick parallel to the ropes–it was a unique spin on Alicia’s signature move and gave the match an unexpected ending.

If given more time, I’m sure Gail and Alicia could build something great. I love that there’s a venue for these types of matches, and girls like Gail and Alicia (and Jillian last week) are getting a chance to show that while they may sit on the sidelines on Monday nights, they’re more than deserving of getting a slice of that spotlight.

Tonight’s Raw, being billed as a 3-hour, “viewer’s choice” show featuring wrestlers from both Raw and Smackdown, was destined to be a little cluttered, given how many elements were in the mix. Unfortunately, very little of that mixture consisted of Divas. In the whole span of three hours, the Divas (all 12 of them) took up about 4 minutes of time. That’s a “needle in a haystack” situation if I’ve ever seen one. But, there’s always hope that they make the most of the little time they were given. Did they? Let’s see..

The stipulation of the Divas match was, like the rest of the matches, determined the fans’ vote. The choices were either: a 6-on-6 Tag Team match, a battle royal, or a champion vs. champion match, which would pit Eve vs. Layla. The fans picked the battle royal, and I’m sure the WWE were glad for that (if the vote wasn’t rigged, which it probably was) because that means MORE DIVAS!!!~~~~~. Nothing can ever go wrong with fitting as many Divas as possible into a 4-minute slot, amiright?:

We start with the 64 12 Divas in the ring, and they all more or less pair off. A double-team by Brie and Nikki Bella sends Rosa Mendes flying out of the ring. Sucks for her, but it’s better than when she practically threw herself out of the ring in the last battle royal. Tiffany is eliminated next, falling from the top turnbuckle while pummeling Michelle McCool. Kelly Kelly gets knocked off the ring apron by Michelle while trading blows with Layla.

Gail Kim and Alicia Fox eliminate each other while tussling on top of the ropes, a modified hurricanrana taking out both the deliverer and the recipient. Michelle and Layla stop a Bella Twins attack on Maryse and eliminate the both of them with tandem dropkicks. Eve attacks Laycool, fighting valiantly and hitting some impressive spots before eliminating the both of them by shoving Layla into Michelle, causing them to slip through the middle rope.

Maryse and Jillian join forces to taken down Eve. Eve, again, fights back against two Divas, kicking at Maryse while Jillian has her up against the ropes (literally). Sadly, gumption isn’t enough to keep her in the match, and Maryse and Jillian irish-whip her through the ropes and out of the ring, eliminating her. Jillian is enthusiastic about being one of the final two, and even gets a double high five from Maryse. This harmony doesn’t last long, however, and Maryse, not liking the idea of being a double winner, kicks Jillian and tosses her roughly out of the ring. She’s the last Diva remaining, winning the battle royal.

I’m disappointed that the fans chose the battle royal, because, in my opinion, a champion vs. champion match would have been much more interesting. It would have been a decent push for both Eve and Layla. However, as it was destined to be, the WWE saw fit to shove every Diva into a 4-minute match. I have to say, though, that it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. Yes, there was random, sloppy action around the ring, but certain spots were interesting, like Gail and Alicia’s dual elimination and Eve battling back against two double-teams. Still, the ending confused me. Why push Jillian’s silliness when there’s a great opportunity to put Eve in the final two with Maryse and inject some much-needed fire into their fizzling feud? Clearly, tonight wasn’t meant to advance feuds, but with every week that passes by, Maryse and Eve’s feud is losing more and more heat. They need to act fast, or it will be a lost cause.

Another opportunity for great Diva action was thwarted when fans voted for Hornswoggle and the Great Khali to face the Hart Dynasty instead of the Uso Brothers. This would have set up for an inevitable confrontation at ringside between Natalya and Tamina, but we had to settle for a gag match and a rushed post-match attack. This attack lacked the fire of the last two encounters, but I’ll chalk it up to it being rushed. Hoepfully next week they’ll try something new–I mean, how many times can these teams fight each other without actually fighting each other? Several, apparently. Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait much longer to see an extended confrontation between Natalya and Tamina; we all know Eve and Maryse isn’t going to be serving up that kind of intensity any time soon.

Tonight’s special 3-hour Supershow “Viewer’s Choice” edition of Raw will be hosted by the trio of Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley, and Rampage Jackson, stars of the movie “The A-Team”. To see them, catch all the inter-brand action, and possibly decide the fate of the show yourself, tune in at the special start time of 8pm EST on the USA Network.

Discuss the show in the comments!

Also, be sure to join us for The Post-Raw Show live at 11pm ET.

This Monday’s 3-hour Raw is billed as a “viewer’s choice” show, with the fans determining what happens based on who and what they want to see. The extent of the viewers’ actual power is likely small, but it presents an opportunity for Diva fans to tell the WWE what they want to see. Of course, Melanie and Erin have a few ideas of their own–read through them and vote for the one you’d vote for this Monday night:

Melanie’s Ideas

Viewer’s Vote for #1 Contender — We all have our favourites and we all want to see our favourite in a title feud or get a title shot. My idea would be to allow the so-called WWE ‘Univese’ to vote for which Diva faces Eve Torres later in the night for the Divas Championship. And I’m not talking about a rigged vote either. I’m talking about a legit vote as they did with the Diva of the Year last year and as they’ve done in the Halloween costume contests over the years. This could be a way to really put the power in the fans’ hands: Will they choose the obvious favourite, Gail Kim? Or will the WWE Universe swerve us and go with Maryse? Regardless of whether or not she’s a heel, Maryse is incredibly popular amongst the fans at home who would vote via WWE.com. If it’s a real, legit vote, I think the result could be extremely surprising. With no Melina, Mickie James, Kelly Kelly or Maria, there’s no clear cut most popular Diva on Raw. It’d be really telling of how the fans think to see the winner of the poll become the #1 Contender and face Eve on Raw. I think the result would be shocking… I’m not convinced that Gail would win it, despite being the obvious ‘babyface choice’. The competition would be wide open to all of the Raw Divas, which would make the result that much more exciting. Could you imagine Brie Bella winning and challenging Eve? The shock value would make Monday’s Raw extremely buzz-worthy.

Lay or Cool? — Option number two for me is the fans voting which of the co-Women’s Champions compete in a champion vs champion match against Raw’s Divas Champion, Eve Torres. We know that SmackDown will be part of the big three-hour Raw and Lay-Cool always seem to pop up whenever we have one of these interpromotional events. Will the fans vote for Layla vs Eve or Michelle vs Eve? Like the first option, the vote really could go either way.

Raw vs SmackDown –Putting the power in the fans’ hands, the WWE Universe could decide which Raw Diva faces off against which SmackDown Diva in an interpromotional match. You could even have all the other Divas at ringside, lumberjack-style. Continuing my trend, there’s no clear cut winner for each side because the usual top dogs [Melina, Mickie, Beth etc.] aren’t around. Who would get the vote for Raw and who would get the vote for SmackDown? It’d probably come down to popularity which means we’d likely see Kelly Kelly in action for SmackDown, but which Raw Diva will the fans vote for?

Erin’s ideas & reader poll after the cut:

Erin’s Ideas

Battle Royal for Title Shot — I’ll give credit where credit’s due; Cryssi had this idea on last Monday’s Post-Raw Show, and I liked it so much that I decided to put my own spin on it here. I’d like to see, near the beginning of the show, a battle royal featuring Divas from both Raw and Smackdown. In a perfect world, this battle royal would be given a generous amount of time and would feature at most 5 Divas. The choice of Divas would address current feuds while giving deserving, underutilized Divas a shot at the spotlight–Maryse (addressing her feud with Eve), Gail Kim, Natalya, Kelly Kelly (addressing her budding feud with Laycool), and Alicia Fox. Now, the winner would get to face the champ of her choosing — it being a Supershow gives both brands equal footing and thus gives Divas a chance to reach across the brand lines.

So, if say Gail were to win, she could choose to take on Michelle McCool and Layla. Gail wrestling co-champions would in itself be interesting, but it would be a unique opportunity to see Divas who don’t often get to interact face off in a high-stakes situation. By the end of the night, the brand lines could be shaken, and that is something many people feel needs to happen with the Divas. It would be a creative and exciting way to pull off some switcheroos without going through the process of an impromptu Diva Draft.

Lay-Cool At Odds — Fans aren’t fond of Lay-Cool’s catty ways, that’s for sure. One thing I think the general audience would make happen if they could would be to force these two to face each other and determine a true Women’s Champion. The audience, having seen them terrorize Mickie, Beth, and now Kelly would love to see them take their own Mean Girls tendencies out on each other. Michelle might think, in her arrogance, that Layla would lay down for her but Layla, in her own arrogance, could refuse to do so. Hidden tension is then manifested, and a real match commences.

I think it’s still a little too early to bring an end to Lay-Cool or this co-champ storyline, but it would be interesting to see them forced into a situation where they have no choice but to put aside the sisterly bond and show who really is the alpha dog. Things could resume as normal afterwards, and I’m sure they’d find some loophole that would maintain their co-champion bond, but for the night, that would make for quite an interesting bout.

Champion vs. Champions — WWE loves to pit champ vs. champ, and in a situation as unique as this, it might be too tempting for the fans to resist. Eve is the lone Divas Champion while Lay-Cool co-hold the Women’s Championship. The fans would probably not vote for the babyface to take on two heels, but it really does utilize both brands in a way that could advance two potential feuds, so I’d be all for it. Maryse could be present to take advantage of Eve’s disadvantage and thus reignite a little fire in their fizzling feud, and Michelle and Layla might find themselves at odds when one or the other wants to claim the win.

It also gives Eve a little more babyface sympathy from the fans in being double-teamed by the nefarious Lay-Cool while giving the Womens Champions heat in relishing the chance to double-team the “goody-two-shoes” fan favorite.

So, which idea do you prefer? Vote for your favorite below!

Raw — by Erin
We start off the show with some Raw action, pitting Gail Kim against the woman she defeated on this show back in April, Jillian:

The match starts with a tie-up, Jillian backing Gail into a corner. she kicks her in the midsection and takes a moment to flaunt before turning back, but Gail slips out of her reach and flips over her, rolling her into a quick pin attempt, which earns her only a 1-count. Jillian, frustrated, gets to her feet quickly and slams Gail to the mat by the back of her head. She goes for a pin of her own, and Gail kicks out at 1.

Jillian whips Gail into the ropes, but on the return Gail turns the tables, latching onto Jillian’s midsection with her legs and rolling her forward into another pin attempt. Jillian kicks out. Gail goes on a rush of offense, nailing Jillian in the corner and then hitting a free-standing monkey flip. She dropkicks Jillian one last time, with sends her out of the ring. Jillian stumbles about outside, catching a breather. Unfortunately for her, Gail latches onto her neck with her legs, slipping through the ropes and hitting a hurricanrana outside the ring. Wow! I don’t think I’ve seen that done before. It’s creative, but doesn’t look as deliberate as it could have. To take full advantage of Gail’s moves, I think it’s vital to keep that unpredictable feeling in her matches and so far, this match has delivered that very nicely.

Jillian gets her revenge pretty quickly, though, pushing Gail so that she nails the ring apron face-first. She slips back into the ring and lounges a bit while Gail tries to shake away the cartoon birds flying around her head. She manages to get back inside the ring before the referee counts her out, but Jillian doesn’t give her a moment to recover, as she’s on her instantly, kicking her and slamming her face into the mat. She tries for a pin, but Gail kicks out at 2. Focusing on Gail’s loopy head, Jillian props her up against her knee, pulling her by her hair and knocking the back of her head against it. She lets go eventually but stays on Gail’s case, whipping her into the corner. Gail can barely stay vertical, though, and slams into the turnbuckle and falls back to the mat. Jillian senses Gail’s weariness and goes for yet another pin, getting only 2 again.

She brings Gail back against her knee and latches her into a headlock. The crowd starts to really get behind Gail, and she slowly gets to her feet and battles out of the hold. she elbows her way out and shoves Jillian away, going for another bodyscissors, but Jillian telegraphs it and lets Gail set herself up for a face plant. Jillian covers her, but Gail again kicks out at 2. Jillian is flabbergasted. She slaps her and tries again, but Gail kicks out even more vigorously this time, showing increased life. Jillian pulls her back into a hold punishing Gail’s head, jabbing her elbow into one of her temples and her knee in the other.

She lets go of Gail, hoisting her up and whipping her into the corner, setting up for a handspring elbow, belting out a flat note Tarzan-style before going for it. Gail jumps up, hooking her legs around Jillian’s neck and hitting a hurricanrana. Gail tries to get in a few blows on Jillian, but Jillian strong-arms her and slams her to the mat, her head again being jostled around. With Gail prone, Jillian goes for a cartwheel elbow, but is met with Gail’s knees instead. Gail keeps her momentum, nailing Jillian on her way through the ropes before scaling the turnbuckle. Jillian stops her in her tracks, taking control and hitting her with a top-rope suplex.

The move looks to have knocked the wind out of both Divas, as Jillian is slow to capitalize on the move. She eventually does get a cover on Gail, but Gail resiliently kicks out at 2. Jillian can’t believe it, but manages to thwart an attack from Gail and get her in a backslide pin, but Gail slips out of it rather quickly, pulling her to her feet and hitting the Eat Defeat. Gail gets the pin and the win.

What a fantastic match! The really played on the strengths of both Divas, with Jillian looking more vicious and malicious than usual, relentless in her attacks on Gail and calculating in focusing on her ailing head. She’ll likely always have that silly personality, but it’s nice to see her have some seriousness in the ring and really pull it off. You wouldn’t think that the girl who warbles pop songs for laughs could come off so intimidating in the ring, but she does.

Gail’s no slouch either, and her exciting, athletic maneuvers made the made unpredictable, exciting, and visually stunning. She utilizes them in a way that doesn’t make her look like a spot monkey, peppering in more basic, match-building moves that other Divas don’t and, as a result, lack real in-ring integrity. Her matches, as exciting and flashy as they are, are not *only* that. Gail mixes flash and substance in a way that makes her one of the top “must-watch” Divas in the company. Hell, both her and Jillian proved in this match that, given the right amount of time, they’re both “must-watch”. All it takes is a little effort from the boys backstage to give them the stage to perform, and these girls will put on a match that restores your faith in the division. I won’t say that one match can erase all the cynicism from my black little heart, but it does give me hope that, if the bookers are more generous and thoughtful in booking Diva matches and storylines, the Divas are more than capable of doing their part in giving us something fun to watch.

SmackDown — by Melanie
Following perhaps one of the best Divas matches of the year thus far, Michelle McCool and Tiffany had a tough act to follow. Let’s see how they fared…

The match starts with the co-Women’s Champ wrapping her arms around Tiffany’s waist, the fledgling Diva then counters on the McCool and wisely takes her down by the legs. Tiffany then follows through with a headlock as McCool gets to her feet and manages to get out of the hold and wrenches Tiffany’s arm behind her. The Divas again hit the mat and Tiffany manages to roll over and apply the same move on Michelle. Michelle applies a headlock as Tiffany counters by using her athletic prowess to do a headstand and then float over out of the lock. Very nice mat exchange here between the two Divas. Tiffany then jumps back over Michelle and goes for a cover but no dice. Very technical way to kick things off.

The two Divas exchange arm wrenches but Michelle gets the better of the exchange, grabbing Tiffany by the hair and throwing her out of the ring. With Tiffany propped up against the announce table, the vicious McCool hits her patented knee strike on Tiffany. Another great, intense spot. Tiffany winces on the outside while Michelle gets back into the ring as the referee begins a 10 count.

As Tiffany gets back into the ring but is struck across the back by an opportunistic Michelle, who then begins hitting knee strikes across her back. Michelle tries to drag Tiffany across the ring but Tiffany holds onto the ropes and Michelle, again rather viciously, stamps on her hand. Meanwhile on the outside, Layla is clapping away and exclaims: “I feel sorry for her.” Me too!

Michelle is ready to put Tiffany away and signals the Faith Breaker and whips herself against the ropes in Tiffany’s direction, but the young Diva — still hurting — tosses her overhead in a desperation move. She follows through with an atomic drop and a back elbow. Meanwhile, rather unfortunately, Miss Tiffany’s skirt has hiked up giving the fans a load of her pink panties. Ruh roh! From the corner, Tiffany now hits a monkey flip and then smashes Michelle by the head against the mat.

Tiffany kicks Michelle in the stomach and Michelle falls on her hands and knees, Tiffany whips herself off the ropes and goes for a sunset flip but Michelle rolls out of it and beautifully counters into the Faith Breaker for the 1, 2, 3.

Comparing it to the Raw Divas match, these two blondes really did have a tough act to follow and while I don’t think it could’ve topped Jillian vs Gail, this was a solid offering from SmackDown. I was particularly impressed with Michelle who I felt was on top form in terms of viciousness in the ring which really sells her heel character. The way she stamped on Tiffany’s hand to stop her from holding the ropes, the knee smash against the announce table — really intense and vicious heel-like moves from Michelle. I also really loved Michelle’s counter of Tiffany’s sunset flip into the Faith Breaker. This girl is really good at coming up with unique and interesting ways of seguing into her finisher. Usually, it’s kind of predictable when a girl is gonna hit her finisher — to use Kelly Kelly as an example, her opponent is usually on all fours and you know that the move is going to happen. Meanwhile with Michelle, she manages to come up with unique ways to fluidly go from a move into her finisher and it looks surprising and feels ‘real’, like it’s been hit out of nowhere.

As always, Tiffany was impressive, really stepping up against Michelle and not acting intimidated. You’d never tell that she is as new to the ring as she is, because she sells that ring presence so well. I know WWE considers Kelly the star power but hopefully they’ll give Tiffany the opportunity to take the lead in this brewing tag team feud.

What did you think? What match did you prefer? Comment below!

Last week’s Raw gave me a sense that the Divas Championship feud was on the decline, quality-wise, but I was hopeful that it was a one-week thing and the WWE would again devote the same attention to the feud that they had for the past few weeks. Unfortunately, it looks like they’re headed in that same southward direction, as this week we were given the type of match that completely exposes the lack of creavity on the part of the WWE booking staff: the mixed tag team match. And not only that, it was a mixed tag team match in which the parings made little sense: Eve teamed with Santino to take on the dynamic duo of… Maryse and William Regal? Did I miss a week of buildup that would connect these four people together? No? Okay, I’ll just go with it:

Before the match can begin, Santino tries to butter up Vladamir Kozlov, even putting up Eve for barter. She’s not into the idea. Anyways, with the bargaining over, Maryse and Eve start out the match, Maryse getting the first blow when she knees Eve in the stomach. She whip Eve into the ropes, but Eve turns the tables, rolling over Maryse’s back and hitting a dropkick. This is enough for Maryse, apparently, and she tags in William Regal. This brings Eve out and Santino in.

The men wrestle for a bit until Regal locks Santino into a crossface maneuver. Eve come in and breaks the hold in a move that’s uncharacteristic, but interesting. Babyfaces are often so one-dimensional, so it’s nice to see her break the rules a bit. Maryse, playing the vengeful babyface in this scenario, comes in and attacks Eve, and the two tussle. The referee is distracted by this, allowing Kozlov to come in, swerve Regal, and chokeslam him. Maryse, for some reason, leaves with him, and Eve and Santino get the win.

The whole match seems tossed together at the last minute, from the booking to the pairing of two seemingly unrelated feuds. It shortchanges the Divas Championship feud when Maryse and Eve are used to merely put over Kozlov’s turn. Not only did this match combine two feuds in a haphazard way, but it demotes the Divas to the level of these lower-card wrestlers, and the importance of their feud diminishes. They barely even wrestled! It’s as if they hit a few requisite moves and were then promptly ushered out. It certainly exposes the fact that the bookers have no idea what to do with this feud. I think, if this is the type of creativity they have left for this feud, then they should just cut it short. There’s nothing for the fans to get behind, and any fire these two have between each other has fizzled out in the course of two weeks. Let’s move on to something else, because once the steam runs out of a feud this quickly and suddenly, there’s little hope to regain it. It will be tough to get the fans back into it, so they better start working up a contingency plan. Time for a new challenger for Eve, perhaps? Dare I suggest that Maryse be pushed to the background?

But, while one feud runs off the tracks, another is just leaving the station. Last week, Tamina made her debut as part of a 3-on-3 attack by her and the Uso brothers on the Hart Dynasty and Natalya. This week, they formally introduced themselves to the audience:

The men introduce themselves as Jay and Jimmy Uso and tell us that they’re “not your typical Samoans”. Whatever that insinuates is anybody’s guess, but the most interesting part of the promo was when Tamina took the mic. She says that they respect the Hart Dynasty, but are not happy that their family does not receive the same respect. Tamina laments that her father, Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, didn’t get the respect he deserved. She says that they were created to dominate.

The Harts run down to the ring, and the brawl begins. Tamina and Natalya eventually separate on the outside, but after Tamina helps the Usos turn the tide, Natalya tries to avenge this, and is met with a sick clothesline from Tamina. The three hit the Harts with frogsplashes like they did last week, with Tamina getting a ridiculous amount of height on hers. They get the last laugh, once again.

I think the promo could have been written a lot better, the Usos and Tamina showed a lot of potential. Tamina certainly has personality, but her jitters were visible. Maybe in the coming weeks, they can get more comfortable and carve out their character better, because even after that promo, I’m not really sure who they are. They’re upset that the Harts have a legacy that their family doesn’t, and I’m sure that’s a fien starting point, but this feud needs more substance to really run on all cylinders. Tamina and Natalya are already beating the crap out of each other, so I’m sure they’ll have some nice confrontations on the outside of the ring in the near future.

A match probably isn’t too far off either, but I hope they build up that heat before letting them wrestle each other. Tamina, if reports are to be believed, is a bit green in the ring, but if anyone can get a good match out of her, it’s Natalya. She’s in capable hands, and this could prove to be a feud that has everything the Maryse and Eve feud does not: intensity, excitement, and the sense of freshness. This has a lot of places and directions to go, and I’m excited to see it develop. Maryse and Eve’s feud has proved that the tide can turn, good or bad, in the blink of an eye, so here’s hoping Tamina and Natalya can keep the fire going for as long as possible. Building up to a big in-ring confrontation would help achieve that.

To round off the Divas action tonight, Alicia Fox proved to be more than a mere shadow to Zach Ryder tonight in his quest to discover who guest host Ashton Kutcher appointed to carry out a hit on him, much like in Ashton’s new movie “Killers” (IN THEATERS THIS FRIDAY~~~!!). This was in response to Ryder dissing Kutcher on Twitter, which I guess to Ashton is the equivalent of taking a dump in his front lawn. Throughout the night, Ryder worried himself sick, and he and Alicia ended up in the ring, pleading with Ashton to tell him who this mystery “assassin” is:

After Ashton pulls a few fake-outs, Alicia takes the mic, telling Ashton that she is sick of this joke. She drops the mic, and Ryder goes to pick it up. Once he’s bent over, Alicia whips out the scissors kick, taking him out and revealing herself to be Ashton’s hit-woman. She celebrates and dances a bit, leaving the ring triumphantly.

It was a cool little twist and a nice moment for Alicia, but I’m sure, like all things Alicia, that this will have much impact going forward. The WWE likes to tease pushes for her, but them yank them away. Next week, she’ll probably be back on the bench in the Divas division. Personally, I think she’s a fitting replacement for Maryse in the stalling Divas Championship feud. This would be a nice little device to propel her into that feud, but I know I’m thinking too far into it. Alicia deserves the push, but in all likelihood, it will be quite a while before she gets it, if she ever does.

So, tonight’s show kind of mirrors last week’s; the in-ring action disappointed, but the non-wrestling fare was highly entertaining. Natalya and Tamina have a interesting thing brewing, and Alicia got all “You got Punked!” on Zach Ryder while being in cahoots with Ashton Kutcher, but Maryse and Eve were relegated to lower-card fare, putting over a Kozlov swerve instead of building on their own feud. The motivations of the WWE’s bookers seem to be mixed. I like some of the things they’re putting out, but to let the Divas Championship feud fizzle out like they have, it’s clear that their heads aren’t on straight. Unless they can somehow reignite the fire (once again) in this feud, I think it’s time to put it to bed.

Tonight’s Raw will be hosted by actor and uncrowned Twitter King Ashton Kutcher. To watch the show, tune in at 9pm EST on the USA Network.

Discuss the show in the comments!

Also, be sure to join us for The Post-Raw Show live at 11pm ET.

UPDATE: Khloé Kardashian will not be hosting Raw, says her publicist Jill Fritzo. In a comment to Diva Dirt, Fritzo says: “This is not true, not sure where that rumor started.”

Reality star, Khloé Kardashian Odom is being lined up to guest host Monday Night Raw on June 28th, reports PWInsider. The stint will presumably be to plug the second season of her reality show, ‘Kourtney and Khloé Take Miami’ which begins on E! a few weeks prior.

Khloé is best known for starring in E!’s ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians’, which also stars more famous sister, Kim Kardashian who appeared as a ‘celebrity guest host’ at WrestleMania 24 in Orlando. Last year, Khloé and elder sister Kourtney launched the aforementioned spin-off series set in Miami which begins its second season this summer on June 13th.

Kardashian, who is married to LA Laker Lamar Odom, has previously taken part in ad campaigns for charities including NOH8 and PETA. Her infamous campaign for PETA saw her pose nude.

Anyone who has seen ‘Kardashians’ will know that Khloé is definitely the most outrageous and hilarious sister, so she seems perfect for the whacky world of WWE. Not to mention, she looks somewhat like a former Diva. *Cough*

After the underwhelming Divas Championship match at Over the Limit, I was hopeful that the following Raw would pick things back up and continue the Divas Championship feud down the more unique path we’ve been enjoying these past few weeks (exhibits , B, and C. Not so, folks, because it seems that we’re back in “piss break” territory. Of course, all could turn around next week, but a week’s stay in “piss break” territory still leaves you smelling of.. well, you know. Putting it in more eloquent terms, instead of continuing with the more unique ways of building this feud between Maryse and Eve Torres, the WWE decided to book them in a tag team match, effectively packing their feud together with the one between Alicia Fox and Gail Kim. That’s one 2-for-1 sale I’m not happy about. Watch the match below:

Gail and Alicia start things off. Gail goes for a tie-up but Alicia has a better idea, booting Gail in the stomach. She blasts her wit ha forearm before irish-whipping her into the corner. When she attacks, though, she gets a face full of elbow, setting Gail up to hit a top-rope hurricanrana (How long has it been since we’ve seen one of those??). Alicia flops around, sans equilibrium, finding a corner to lean against. Gail stays on the attack, hitting her hit-and-slip move. While on the apron, Maryse tries to sneak an attack, but Gail kicks her in the stomach. Gail stops another attack from Alicia, burying her shoulder into her midsection and vaulting over the ropes into a sunset flip pin attempt. However, she can’t even roll Alicia onto her shoulders, and Fox takes the momentum, holding onto the ropes. Maryse takes this opportunity to tag in, and as Gail rolls Alicia back into a pin, Maryse slips in and kicks Gail square in the back. This of course, breaks the non-pin.

Maryse lays another boot into Gail before going for a pin of her own. Gail kicks out at 2. She hoists her up into a backbreaker and toys around with her a bit before Gail kicks her away. Gail moves to tag in Eve, and Maryse tries to stop this, but Eve ducks out of the way of her haymaker, hitting a right hand of her own before finally getting tagged in. Eve goes on a string of offense (a clothesline here, and dropkick there, and a neckbreaker for good measure) before trying for the pin. Maryse kicks out at 2, but before she can pop up to her feet Eve kicks her back down, leaping over her and hitting a standing moonsault. She goes for the pin again, but Alicia break it up.

This brings in Gail, and with the referee distracted by her, Alicia boots Eve right in the face. This allows Maryse to set up the French Kiss, hit it, and get the pin.

Familiar ending, no? It seems like every Maryse win in the past few months has had taken place in a similar sequence of events. This only serves to remind us of the months of crappy, short matches we went through earlier this year when Maryse did just that–sneak out a win in a wholly unremarkable match. The match lasted 2 minutes on the button, and felt as rushed as if the booker told them that the mat would be set on fire at the 2:05 mark. The most exciting part of the match was easily the exchange between Gail and Alicia, that top-rope hurricanrana being the high point. They busted out a few exciting moments that were more entertaining than Eve and Maryse’s work because, unlike them, Gail and Alicia were doing things that were relatively new. At least, we hadn’t seen the exact same moves performed just the night before.

Pretty much every move Eve busted out she had done at Over the Limit, and it brought a sense of deja-vu that only reaffirms that belief that Eve is more style than substance in the ring–you’ve heard that claim many times before about several Divas. They bust out flashy moves but nothing to give the match some shape. It doesn’t help that she’s hitting them in rapid succession, so that it’s all packed into a few seconds: clothesline, dropkick, neckbreaker, standing moonsault. I’m sure the condensed match time had something to do with that, but when you’re short on time, maybe you don’t need to bust out every move in your repertoire. It only serves to make them seem overused and cause them to lose their luster. I’m sure Eve is capable of more, but right now she’s coming across as being low on ammo. Maryse isn’t any different, and even though she’s got her gimmick to hide behind–she’s a heel, so she cheats!–it doesn’t make it any more satisfying.

Unfortunately, it’s as if we reached the end of the plank, and it’s nowhere to go but down. Of course, that’s a big statement when one’s only judging from two nights worth of wrestling, but I can’t help but get a bad feeling about where we’re headed. For weeks, the WWE seemed to think outside the box with this feud, advancing it through brawls and backstage segments that really sold the hate between Maryse and Eve. Now, they’ve slipped back into familiar territory–tag team matches. And, to make matters worse, they’ve combined this with another blossoming feud. Gail and Alicia, I hope, are able to branch off onto their own again, but I suppose last week’s commercial-free status was a big reason that they got a match of their own at all. I say, if you’re going to have more than one Diva feud, keep them as separate as possible. Selling them together shortchanges both feuds. Its economical from a time-saving standpoint, but the quality suffers, and tonight’s match was proof of that.

Earlier in the night Maryse has an encounter with guest GM Jon Lovitz. It was pretty much pointless, with Lovitz hitting on Maryse, speaking French to her, and then blowing her off. It’s worth watching if only for Maryse’s facial expressions:

Later in the night, in a more literal example of blink-and-you-miss-it Diva appearances, Jillian took part in guest GM Jon Lovitz’s “Superstar Search”, which was more like a drunken “The Gong Show” than anything else. Brie and Nikki Bella were along for the ride, too, more ornamental than functional. Of course, you could see Jillian’s shtick coming from a mile away–any opportunity for her to warble out a few lousy notes and the WWE will take advantage of it like it’s a chance for Santino to speak broken English and get his ass kicked. Both of those happened, by the way, but Jillian didn’t even get to open her mouth before Lovitz hit the buzzer on her:

Face time is face time, I guess, and at this point in Jillian’s career this is as much as she can probably ask for. It’s sad to see her relegated to such meager comedy bits, but it’s a paycheck, I suppose, and I don’t expect Jillian to be complaining about it any time soon. Let’s hope the next time she gets the chance to get her “I Love Lucy” on it’s for longer than 2 seconds.

But that’s not all, folks! Even later in the night, the Hart Dynasty were victorious over William Regal and Vladimir Kozlov. As they celebrated with Natalya, three people busted in and attacked them. The woman and three men took them out and each performed frog splashes on their foe of choice:

The woman, who we revealed earlier to be Sarona Snuka, took out Natalya. Her name in FCW is Tamina, so there’s a good bet that she’ll be sticking with that in the WWE. It was an unexpected debut, completely catching me unaware, and proved that the WWE still has some surprises up their sleeve, as much as I hated the predictability of the booking earlier in the night. I’m excited to see Natalya actually have some sort of feud, even though some have said that Tamina is still rather green in the ring. Fights outside of the ring and Mixed Tag Team matches could help disguise that for a while, but I hope she eventually gets up to snuff for a real one-on-one match with Nattie. After all, Natalya is such a pro she could probably get a half-decent match out of anyone. Above all, it’s great to see a new face, especially one that doesn’t look like all the rest. Here’s hoping the WWE will use her wisely. Welcome, Tamina!

Tonight’s Post-Raw Show is not live, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less fun! Due to technical difficulties, this week’s show is on tape delay, but we still discussed Raw’s happenings as usual. Among them were the tag team match pitting Maryse & Alicia against Eve & Gail and whether or not it signals the decline in the Maryse/Eve feud, Jillian’s barely-there appearance, and Sarona Snuka’s debut and what it means for Natalya.

To listen to the show directly on the website, just click on the play button below. You can also download The Post Raw & Impact Show in MP3 format straight to your computer by right clicking here and selecting ‘Save Target As’.

Please Note: ‘The Post Raw & Impact Show’ is the exclusive content of Diva Dirt (diva-dirt.com), for which we hold copyright. By downloading our audio you agree not to repost the content elsewhere including but not limited to other websites, blogs or message boards. Failure to respect copyright will result in legal action.

Tonight on Raw Sarona Snuka, known as Tamina in FCW, made her WWE debut. She and her tag team, Jimmy and Jules Uso, attacked Natalya and the Hart Dynasty. We don’t know what moniker she’ll go by in the WWE, but a good bet is that they’ll stick with Tamina.

What do you think? Are you looking forward to a 6-person feud with Tamina and her men against the Hart Dynasty? Are you excited to see Natalya take on a bigger role?

Tonight’s Raw will be hosted by comedian Jon Lovitz. Plus, who will be the new Raw General Manager? To watch the show, tune in at 9/8 CST on the USA Network.

Discuss the show in the comments!

I think, if tonight’s Raw taught us one thing, it was this: less commercials means more Divas. Of course, that’s a bit of a leap in logic, but that fact is that tonight’s show, whilst being commercial free, featured more Diva face time than we’ve seen in a long time: 2 (count ‘em, 2) matches, a backstage segment, and 2 faux-commercials. That adds up to a load of Divas being utilized, including 2 Divas that aren’t even technically apart of the brand. That’s a kind of efficiency I was beginning to think that the WWE didn’t know existed (that string of 1-minute-and-less matches didn’t help). Let us observe:

The beginning of our Diva-filled night was signaled by the appearance of a familiar face, home-country girl Trish Stratus. Unfortunately, that face was printed on a magazine cover rather than being flesh and bone, and we soon saw that Maryse was the face behind it. It was a slick move to get fans excited while risking disappointment, but it was smart to make Maryse be the one to “break the news”, so to speak. Let her be the one to put out the Trish Stratus bait and yank it back. It is a neat heat-generating maneuver that worked. Talking to the makeup woman, she details how Canadians suck and that fact that she’s French Canadian is a completely different thing. She starts trash talking Eve, and if summoned by the gods, Eve appears behind her, grabbing some baby powder and pouring it over Maryse’s head.

A makeup table fight ensues, with Eve smashing Maryse’s face against it a few times before the girls are separated. The fire in this feud continues to burn, and in this segment they showed real intensity. I mentioned this in the Post-Raw show, but I feel like whenever the WWE needs to inject some intensity in to a diva feud, they have the girls fight at the makeup station. But hell, it works! It allows the Divas to have a real, scrappy fight and makes the heat feel that much more real. It’s worked for countless Divas feuds before, and this one was no exception.

Later on, these foes faced off in a 6-Diva Tag Team match. Such words usually send visions of a clusterfuck flying through a Diva fan’s head, but luckily, the WWE’s head seem to be screwed on straight, time management-wise. I guess cutting out commercials really gave them room to stretch their legs, and this match benefited greatly from that. See for yourself:

Layla and Michelle McCool come to the ring, both wearing a Women’s Championship belt. So… is the title split? If so, I can see why they did it, but I’m disappointed that they aren’t really giving Layla the chance to be champ. It’ll come one day, I guess.. Laycool are followed by Maryse, as well as the team of Eve Torres, Brie, and Nikki Bella. Before the match can begin Maryse makes a move for Eve, and the two start fighting frantically. Their teammates manage to pull them apart, and once things settle down and the screaming stops, the match officially begins.

Layla and Eve start off with a tie-up, Layla catching Eve in a side headlock. Eve fights Layla off and shoves her to the ropes, and one the return Layla tries to bowl her over by the shoulder, but neither Diva budges. Layla tries again, but Eve keeps maneuvering out of her way until Layla gets fed up and simply sweeps Eve’s feet out from under her, going for an early pin. Eve kicks out at two, and Layla stays on the attack, kicking her a few times until Eve catches one of her high kicks, lifting Layla onto her shoulders and hitting a Samoan Drop. She tries for a pin, but only gets a 2-count.

Eve latches Layla into a sleeper hold, but Layla battles out pretty quickly. Eve, however, stops Layla’s offensive streak short with a neckbreaker. Another pin attempt, another 2-count. Eve brings Layla to her corner and tags in Brie Bella. Brie hits a leaping snapmare, then irish-whipping her into the ropes. On the return Layla pulls out an impressive tuck and roll into a pin out of nowhere. Brie kicks out. Layla keeps on Brie, stopping a hurricanrana attempt and battling her between the ropes. They trade blows for a bit before Michelle puts a stop to this with one boot applied directly to Brie’s face.

Layla tags in Michelle and she continues her assault on Brie on the outside of the ring before tossing her back in. Once inside the ring Michelle lays numerous knees into Brie’s midsection before tagging Layla back in. Layla hits s snapmare and goes for a legdrop, but no one’s home. Layla’s selling of that was pretty funny, but realistic too. Your tail bone’s gotta sting after that. Both Divas crawl to their respective corners. Layla tags in Michelle first, who runs in and knocks Eve off the apron. Before she can get to Nikki, though, Brie tags her in. Michelle doesn’t seem phased, and simply drags Nikki in over the top rope. Nikki quickly turns the tables, though, and hits a series of clotheslines and dropkicks. Michelle yells “get her off me!”. Both her and Layla love to cry for help during a match, and it works in a “silly heel” kind of way.

The hits keep coming for Michelle and Nikki continues her streak, hitting serveral snappy moves before going for the pin. Michelle kicks out at 2. Brie takes a page out of Michelle’s book, going over to the enemy corner and knocking Maryse and Layla off the apron. She climbs the turnbuckle (after kind of no-selling an attack from Michelle) and goes for a flying body press, but Michelle dives out of the way, and Nikki eats mat. Maryse takes the opportunity to tag herself in, much to Michelle’s chagrin. She hits the French Kiss on Nikki and gets the pin and the win for her team, though I’m not sure sure Michelle and Layla are doing cartwheels about how it ended.

Post-match Eve and Maryse reignite their fight once again, and the referee and Brie Bella manage to keep them apart. This goes on for a while, with Maryse charging at her a few times and making it feel like a real scraper. Eventually, cooler head prevail, and they separate.

The match was surprisingly good and inclusive for a 6-Diva Tag Team match. Usually, they shortchange a few Divas in those matches, but they utilized everyone pretty well and achieved a lot. Layla and Michelle played great heels/comedy relief, the Bellas got in some great offensive and sold Laycool’s attack well. Eve and Maryse managed to simmer their hate for one another on the outside, only letting it spill out before and after the bell, which saves the real confrontation for the PPV match, which is smart in a business sense. Layla is really coming into her own as a heel and as a performer, and I’m glad they let her get the majority of the ring time. Michelle, as, always, played the bullying her to perfection, and took the beating from Nikki well (the “get her off me!” sealed the deal). Michelle ad Layla manage to mix serious wrestling with comedy pretty well, with neither coming off too goofy. It was ap leasant surprise to see them on Raw tonight, and kind of makes me wish they were around every week to add that extra spark to Raw’s matches. Still, SmackDown’s their home, and the focus should be on Eve e and Maryse’s feud, which it was, for all intents and purposes. The match ended with Maryse sneaking out a win once again, which is irksome, but completely follows the pattern. It only makes the fans want to see Maryse get hers, and that builds anticipation for her match with Eve this Sunday.

Their match at Over the Limit has been built up pretty well, much better than their previous encounters. Their sudden cold blooded hate for one another may seem forced, but I can certainly feel the intensity, and I applaud the WWE for using tactics other than 1-minute matches to propel the story forward. Them having to be pulled apart not once, not twice, but three times in one night shows that these characters really hate each other, and builds excitement for their match on Sunday. Presumably, all that venom will finally be unleashed in the middle of the ring, given that Maryse doesn’t find a way to not wrestle. I wouldn’t put it past her, but it’s kind of hard to hide in a one-on-one match. We’ll see, but either way I’m looking forward to seeing these Divas let the hate flow free.

But wait, there’s more! Continuing to plant the seeds in their feud, Alicia Fox and Gail Kim faced off in a Mixed Tag Team match, teaming with their respective fellows (Alicia with Zack Ryder, Gail with Evan Bourne). This match was predicted by several of us last week, but the execution made it entertaining, so I don’t even care. Watch the match below:

It starts when Alicia and Zack Ryder interrupt guest GM Buzz Aldrin. He intimidates them, and brings out Gail and Evan. Zack and Evan start things off and wrestle until Evan goes for a pin attempt, and Alicia tries to break it up. Gail comes flying in (quite literally) and takes her out. For some reason, thing makes them legal in the match even though no tags were made. Anywho, Gail continues her assault on Alicia, irish-whipping her into a corner and straight into Zack. Gail nails them, and allows Evan to take of Zack. Gail climbs the turnbuckle and hits Alicia with a flying dropkick Gail goes for the pin, but Alicia kicks out at 2. Gail whips Alicia into the ropes, but Zack holds on to her, as a form of protection I suppose. Gail simply kicks him off the apron and continues with her business. She ducks a clothesline from Alicia and run the ropes, but Zack pulls the second rope down, causing Gail to spill out onto the outside.

Alicia brings Gail back into the ring and goes for a pin. Gail kicks out at 2. Alicia hits a suplex and bridges it into a pin, but still only gets a 2-count. Frustrated, shoe goes for yet another pin, with exactly the same outcome. She claws at Gail’s face, but gets hot-shotted by Gail and stumbles over to tag in Zack. This brings in Evan, and the guys wrestle on.

Eventually, Evan has Zack set up for a Shooting Star Press, but Alicia shoves him out of the ring and (presumably) out of harm’s way. Not missing a beat, Evan then simply nails him on the outside of the ring. Alicia drags Gail into the ring, but Gail hits the Eat Defeat out of nowhere, getting the pin and the win. Evan and Gail celebrate with Buzz Aldrin.

For a Mixed-Tag match, that was pretty entertaining. Usually the Divas get shortchanged a bit or the flow of the match seems sloppy through the “girls must fight girls and guys must fight guys” rule, but they worked pretty seamlessly, switching from superstar to Diva action fluidly. Gail and Evan’s highspots were as exciting as always, and Alicia got the chance to show off that attitude of her in her interaction with Buzz Aldrin and her fiesty-ness in the ring with Gail. Both teams were showcased well, and it leaves me the hope that this feud can continue and give Gail and Alicia real room to stretch their legs. They work great together, in my opinion, and having male counterparts only makes the feud that much more interesting. I just hope we don’t get stuck in an endless cycle on Mixed Tag matches, because they can all be a good as this one. But as long as the dynamic sticks, I’m all for the team interaction.

And, to cap off my coverage, I figured I’d include some of the faux commercials the WWE put together to celebrate their commercial-free status for the night. Because nothing says “more wrestling, less pointless breaks” like (WWE produced) pointless breaks. Okay, so they were funny (for the most part, anyways), and allowed several of the Superstars and Divas to work their comedy muscles. Two in particular stood out to me due to their inclusion of certain Divas. One with Goldust, for instance, featured indy wrestler and WWE hopeful Cherry Bomb being “seduced” by Mr. Creepy in one of many spoofs of those Geico commercials where the guy responds to questions about Geico’s ability ot save customers’ money by asking a rhetorical (and zany~~~) question:

The next (and in my opinion funniest) commercial featured Santino in a spoof of those Dos Equis “The Most Interesting Man in the World” commercials. Santino plays his role to perfection, and Jillian turned from seductive arm candy to spit-take target in one fell swoop, and didn’t miss a beat. While it definitely sucks to get spit on, Jillian can take solace in the fact that her reaction made me laugh harder than anything else in the entire night did:

Two entertaining matches that furthered two separate Diva storylines, a backstage segment that hit its mark, and two comedy skits that worked well and showcased Divas that otherwise would have been absent from the show. Not to mention, a little birdy told me that Natalya got to slap the taste out of Chris Jericho’s mouth. That’s a success in my book. I don’t know who booked tonight’s Raw, or if its commercial-free status really had anything to do with it, but it’s like night and day, comparing to the miserable tripe that was cooked up on Raw just months ago. I love the effort that’s being put into the Divas, and it almost like the writers discovered what the word “foresight” meant and have begun to actually apply it to their booking. Kudos to everyone involved, even the two invaders from SmackDown.

All in all, it was a whole lotta Diva goodness packed into one 2 hour show. And you know what? It worked. Nothing, in my opinion, seemed rushed or shoe-horned in. It was refreshing and exciting, and I hope to see more of it when the advertisers return next week. I don’t expect the same Diva surplus, but the sentiment should remain the same, it being that every Divas has a purpose; you just need to find it and take full advantage of it.

Tonight’s Raw will be hosted by legendary American astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to step foot on the moon (following that Neil Armstrong fellow). To watch the show, tune in at 9/8 CST on the USA Network.

Discuss the show in the comments!

Canadian wrestler, Cherry Bomb is to get a tryout before WWE’s Monday Night Raw taping tonight.

Cherry Bomb, real name Laura Dennis, is 23 years old and has previously wrestled at SHIMMER events on the pre-show, SPARKLE.

Tonight’s Raw emanates from the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, home of Gail Kim and the legendary Trish Stratus.

This past Monday’s Raw was lacking in actual Divas action, but this week’s episode of WWE Superstars is looking to make up for that. It doesn’t hurt that these matches are consistently longer than their Monday night counterparts, so I’m all for the Thursday night matches. This week, we see Maryse and Jillian taking on Brie and Nikki Bella, I guess in some small way following up Maryse’s defeat of Brie over a week ago. Let’s see if the Bellas manage to get some measure of revenge:

Nikki and Maryse start things off, with Nikki getting in Maryse’s face, Maryse-style, and hitting a leaping snapmare. Nikki immediately goes and tags in Brie, and the two hit a leg split maneuver than sends Maryse flipping backwards. Brie goes for the pin and gets a 2-count. Right out of the pin, Maryse takes control, nailing Brie in the stomach and bringing her to her team’s corner and tagging in Jillian.

Jillian gets some licks in before backing Brie into the ropes, grabbing fistfuls her of hair and talking some trash. She Irish-whips Brie into the ropes, and Nikki makes a sly tag when Brie hits her side of the ring. Brie hits a cross-body off those ropes, allowing Nikki to come in and grab a bridged pin attempt. Jillian kicks out at 2. Nikki maintains control and whips Jillian into the corner, hitting a monkey flip after yelling “Bellas baby!” on the top rope. Not sure if that’s t-shirt worthy, but I appreciate her gusto.

Nikki climbs the turnbuckle but is distracted by Maryse. Jillian takes advantage of this distraction, getting a quick shot on Nikki, hoisting her across her shoulders, and hitting a Samoan drop. Jillian goes for the pin, but only gets 2. She keeps Nikki on the mat, planting a knee into her back and pulling her backwards by her hair. She relents when the referee gets close to the requisite 5-count, and brings Nikki over to her corner, bodyslamming her and tagging in Maryse.

They both hoist up Nikki–Jillian with the hands, Maryse with the feet–and slam her back onto the mat. Maryse tries for the pin, but Nikki kicks out at 2. Maryse goes for a suplex (dangerously close to the ropes.. watch your position, girl!), but Nikki blocks it, pounding Maryse on the back and shoving her into the ropes, sending Nikki to the mat and Maryse all the way to the floor. Wait.. what just happened here? Did both girls get knocked loopy? Anywho, Maryse gets back in the ring, but not quick enough to stop Nikki from tagging in Brie.

Brie comes in on the hot tag, hitting Maryse with a series of dropkicks and a clothesline. She whips Maryse into the corner, and off the rebound she hits her with a bulldog. She goes for the pin, but right after the 1-count Jillian pull her off of Maryse. Nikki comes in, but is met with a boot from Jillian. She disposes of Nikki, but turns right into a blow from Brie. This knocks Jillian out of the equation, but Brie turns around right into a kick from Maryse, which results in the planting of the French Kiss. She gets the pin and the win for her team.

Post-match, Maryse and Jillian look to continue the beatdown on Nikki, but before she can be hit with the French Kiss, Eve comes to her rescue. Maryse throws Jillian to the wolves, so to speak, and lets her get hit with a neckbreaker by Eve while she heads for the hills. The staredown between heel and face commences, and Maryse shows a bit of intimidation. Eve, of course, is ready to rumble, but that won’t be happening tonight.

This was a fun little match, and one that I’m sure would have been much shorter had it taken place on Raw. I appreciate its placement on this show, then, because it gives time for Divas like the Bellas and Jillian to get some decent ring time while helping to push forward the Eve/Maryse feud. The video packages from last Monday may have not been A+, but them, paired with this match, show a slightly different build to this feud, even if the babyface-makes-the-save shtick has been done numerous times. Maryse, for once, showed a bit of intimidation towards Eve rather than just arrogance. Her character seems to be developing a bit more, progressing past the 1-dimensional sexy arrogant woman she’s been for so long. I could be wrong, but that’s what seems to be happening here, and if so I hope it continues to develop. I, for one, would like to see more of Maryse than just the woman who lucks out in most of her matches and flips her hair. Still, her true colors shined through when she shoved Jillian in front of Eve, and shows that she, as always, is only looking out for #1. That, if anything, is Maryse in a nutshell.

You could say that last week’s confrontation between Maryse and Eve Torres could be described as wham, bam, thank you ma’am, but in a good way. It brought a sense of unpredictability to the feud, and packed more excitement into a few seconds than we’ve seen in this entire feud (save their intense fight at ringside two weeks ago). The feud seems to be building into something more than quick little matches and petty insults, and I’m glad for that. This week’s action, while not nearly as compelling, seems to be continuing in that same direction.

We see a video package reviewing Eve’s Divas Title win from three weeks ago. We don’t often see video packages for the Divas, so that’s cool, and it probably helped to refresh the memories of fans who don’t pay as strict attention to the Diva goings-on as we do. The package continues on to tell us more about Eve. Or, rather, illustrate what they’ve been repeating in every match of hers in recent memory. You see, Eve is Smart, Sexy, and Powerful™, has brains to back up her beauty, and has a background in Jiu-Jitsu. It’s a bit ham fisted and obvious in its attempt to get fans to embrace Eve, but at least they’re making the effort. I only wish they tried to do something about it a few weeks ago when they initially decided to push her. That way, they wouldn’t have to pack it all into a video package like it’s some Miss America profile. But hey, at least they didn’t run down her turn-ons and turn-offs.

We then cut to footage from Maryse earlier in the day. She appears to be training in Jiu-Jitsu herself, but also appears to be dressed like she’s in a Britney Spears music video, so who knows what’s going on. She does pretty well at first, hitting a few take downs. Her trainer then instructs her to sweep his feet, but she can’t, and he tells her he doesn’t think she’s trying hard enough. Maryse takes the news as you would expect–she slaps him, kicks him in the knee cap, and departs, tossing out her trademark hand gesture for good measure.

The segment seemed a bit odd to me, given how rarely we see these types of segments for the Divas. Still, I like that they’re thinking outside the box. This feud seems to be developing into something more than just “Maryse thinks she is sexy and thinks [insert Diva here] is not”, and I’m so glad. It seems to be hinting at something of a “anything you can do I can do better” competition, which is definitely new territory for Maryse–she’s actually trying to be like someone else rather than being wrapped up in her own greatness. The segment could have been put together better and felt a little less awkward and forced, but I’m all for a new approach to a Divas feud. Let’s see if next week continues the trend, and if so, what part of Eve’s bio will she attempt to adopt? Rubik’s cube solving, anyone?

Earlier in the night we saw a bit of a different Diva feud developing. Alicia Fox and Gail Kim seem to have some sort of peculiar tease going on with Zach Ryder. Last week, they watched his match with Mark Henry, and when he lost, they left with the victorious Henry. This week brings up a similar set up, with Zach trying to impress Gail and Alicia by defeating Evan Bourne:

At one point, Alicia tries to interfere by knocking Evan Bourne off the top rope, but Gail stops her. Bourne wins the match, and Gail (a bit reluctantly, selling the unpredictability pretty well) hooks arms with him and leaves. Meanwhile, Ryder argues with Alicia. I think you and I can both smell a mixed tag match from a mile a way ,but will this develop into an actual feud, or just a one-off match? We’ll see, but I hope this becomes more about the physical feud between Gail and Alicia than them simply being arm candy for their respective men. The feud’s set up seemed weird, though, with Gail and Alicia being all hunky dory until Alicia tried to interfere. Its messy and sends a bit of a mixed message, but I guess I shouldn’t be complaining when there’s the possibility of a second Diva feud on Raw. Alicia and Gail work pretty well together, I think, so I’m looking forward to a match between the two. Let’s just hope this doesn’t mean that Alicia’s the “new Rosa”. That’s a legacy that doesn’t need to be followed, that’s for sure.

In a night of feuds being developed outside the ring, I think it shows that the WWE is starting to think outside the box with the Divas. Of course, they could always regress back to the 1-minute matches, but for now I’m glad to see a be of a variety in how they’re used on Monday nights. Let’s keep the streak going, shall we?

Tonight’s Raw will be hosted by reality TV star and former member of Public Enemy, Flavor Flav. Cross your fingers that this doesn’t result in some knockoff “Flavor of Love” segment. As always, tune in at 9/8 CST on the USA Network.

Discuss the show in the comments!

Post-WWE Draft Raw shaped up nicely last night as for the first time in several years, we actually got some storyline for the Divas! Following the recent SmackDown route of a backstage promo followed by a match, last night’s edition of Raw managed to pack every single Raw Diva onto the show — hopefully a sign of what is to come. Did last night’s Raw start as it means to go on? Only time will tell but from last night’s episode alone, it looks like SmackDown — and TNA for that matter — could have some competition on its hands.

The night started off with Divas Champion, Eve Torres backstage doing a photoshoot with her belt, with her entrance music playing in the background. You know… as you do. I’m sure Lady Gaga has her songs playing when she does her photoshoots too, Eve! Watch below:

In comes tonight’s Raw Guest Host, Wayne Brady of err… some sort of fame unbeknownst to this Brit writer. Anyway, he is paid to tell tells Eve that she’s his favourite Diva. Just as they begin conversing, they are interrupted by Jillian who gives us another fabulous cover of ‘Fame’ from the movie of the same name… hey, it can’t be any worse than that awful remake last year! I think I’ll take Jillian over that movie, two hours wasted. Brady gets rid of Jillian in a rather funny moment ["Go, go go go... gone!"] before saying his goodbyes to Eve. And for a second there, it seems like the segment is just going to end there — another silly Jillian singing skit. But wait! As Eve returns to her photoshoot, she sees that her title is not where she left it. All of a sudden, in comes Maryse and clocks Eve with the belt before putting it over her own shoulder and posing with it.

As everyone has been mentioning, this really was an epic little segment with the belt shot being executed perfectly by both Eve and Maryse. Eve really sold it well. These days, it’s becoming rare to see physicality like that among the Divas — especially on Raw so this was a great spot that totally caught me off guard. What a creative and fun spot!

Next up is the match between Maryse and Nikki Bella:

We knew Maryse would be in a match tonight due to the fact that she was in her ring gear earlier but I don’t know about you, but I was hoping for a match with Raw newcomer Natalya. Boo! I thought it was interesting that Nikki got the match over Brie, which in my opinion is a good thing. As mentioned by Maria Kanellis in our interview and even by Kristin Astara in the Live Chat on Sunday, Nikki is definitely the more athletic Bella and she loves to wrestle moreso than Brie. Why not give her the opportunity? Being in the Bella Twins limits what she can do singles-wise because she’s always gotta do the twin thing but I like that they gave Nikki an opportunity tonight because by all accounts, she is the Bella that really wants it. It’s great that they gave her this chance to do her own thing for once.

The match starts with a tie-up as Maryse backs Nikki into the ropes and slaps her. However, Nikki gives as good as she gets — hitting the former Divas Champ with some forearms followed by a snapmare. Nikki now takes Maryse into the corner, hitting her head off the turnbuckle several times before Maryse rolls to the outside to catch a break.

However on the outside, she’s met by Nikki’s sister, Brie and as she turns around, she’s kicked in the gut by Nikki. Nikki rolls Maryse back into the ring, gets up the apron and as Maryse takes a shot at her, she ducks and shoulder blocks Maryse. She then goes up to the top turnbuckle but is thrown off by the hair by Maryse. Really nice spot and great selling by Nikki.

Maryse then picks up Nikki for a sick French Kiss DDT to take the victory. Ouch, that really looks like it fried some brain cells!

And just when you think it’s over… nope, we get even more! Maryse takes the microphone and presents her brand new photoshoot. On the titantron we see some hilarious shots of Maryse posing with the Divas Title over an unconscious Eve. Just as she hits another hair flip, out runs Eve — having trouble getting into the ring — and tries to go after her attacker however, she’s stopped by the referee allowing Maryse to make her getaway.

Let’s start with the match: For all intents and purposes, it did what it was supposed to do. It was a 2-3 minute short match that we usually see but I thought it was a nice platform to showcase new talent. It really feels fresh post-Draft to see girls like Nikki get a shot at wrestling, maybe see some more Alicia Fox soon etc. Raw has been about the same girls for the past several years so it’s exciting to see some new blood get that stage. Nikki was good in the ring and hit her moves well, as did Maryse.

The post-match segment was extremely creative and again, I never saw that coming. Maryse’s ‘photoshoot’ was hilarious and it just goes to show what an outlandish character that Maryse is — she doesn’t take things too seriously. It was really funny and really creative. It baffles me that in one night, the Raw writers managed to come up with all of this for the Divas yet they couldn’t do anything like this for the past few years?

What they pulled off tonight was fun, it was imaginative and it felt fresh and new. I really hope this is the beginning of a new era for Raw that seems that actually put time and effort into the Divas storylines. Hopefully with the right time and attention, WWE can put Eve over with the audience. This was a great night for the Divas!

Tonight’s episode of Raw is hosted by comedian Wayne Brady, host of ‘Let’s Make a Deal’. What will he have in store for the Divas?

Tune in at 9pm ET on USA Network.

Discuss the show in the comments!

Veteran Divas, Gail Kim and Jillian faced off on WWE Superstars this week. It’s almost as if they were given this rare singles match during Draft week to appease the fact that neither of them was moved over to the brand where, you know, they could actually wrestle and develop their characters. Damn shame. Anyhow, check out the bout below:

We start with a lock-up before Gail applies an armbar but is soon slammed down to the mat by her hair. Jillian then goes for a somersault into a leg drop but misses as Gail moves out of the way. Gail now returns the favour, slamming Jillian down to the mat by her hair. She follows through with an arm drag and forearm before irish whipping Jillian into the corner and going for her crossbody dive through the ropes, however Jillian counters by putting up her knees. Jillian goes up top but is met by Gail Kim who fights her way up also and hits a beautiful hurricanrana on Jillian.

Kim begins gaining some momentum and jumps onto Jillian’s shoulders but is planted onto the canvas with an electric chair drop. Jillian goes for a cover but no three count. Jillian begins working over Gail with some kicks and a powerslam before taking time to pose for the crowd — she gets a pretty great crowd reaction for that. Jillian now mounts Gail with some punches, goes for a cover but again, Gail kicks out. Jillian then applies a submission move from behind, digging her knee into Gail’s back but Kim begins fighting back and is soon on her feet — she hits Jillian with a kick and forearm, then goes to pick up Jillian but her back begins bother her allowing Jillian to take control. Jillian plants Gail with a Samoan drop now. Another pin attempt but no win for Jillian.

Jillian again applies a submission move, driving her knee into Gail’s back. The referee breaks up the hold and Gail tries to fight back but isn’t strong enough. Jillian whips her into the corner and Gail takes a pretty nice bump, falling to the canvas.

After a couple of pin attempts, Jillian applies a headlock as Gail tries to regain momentum with the crowd firmly behind her. She hits Jillian with a few elbows in the stomach but is slammed down to the mat again. Jillian whips Kim into the ropes, Gail however manages to hold onto the top rope and Jillian runs at her only to get a kick from Gail. Jillian then picks up Gail again, possible for another Samoan drop but Gail holds onto the ropes tightly, not allowing herself to be hit with another move. Gail manages to wrap her legs around Jillian’s head for a beautiful headscissors. The two Divas now exchange some nice forearms before Gail hits a couple of clotheslines on Jillian and whips her into the corner for a splash. Gail then runs at Jillian in the corner, who moves out of the way, instead Gail manages to jump onto the middle turnbuckle and hits a nice crossbody on her opponent. However, Jillian then rolls through and attempts to pin Gail who kicks out.

Jillian drives Gail into the turnbuckles, front first and kicks her across the back now. Jillian now hits a great handspring elbow to Gail in the corner. Jillian now goes for a shoulder block but Gail moves out of the way as Jillian eats the ring post. As a dazed Jillian turns around she is hit by Gail’s Eat Defeat for the win.

This was a good match with plenty of time that allowed Gail and Jillian to have some much needed TV exposure. It’s such a shame that neither of these Divas were moved to SmackDown to compete for the Women’s Championship. I don’t see either of them, unfortunately, doing much on Raw. It’s a shame to think that all this potential of Gail’s to be a top Diva has been wasted but right now, I don’t see her getting that push we want to see anytime soon.

However, I really wish the Raw Divas would get a permanent spot on WWE Superstars to have matches like this because there just isn’t enough time on Raw for these girls. Superstars isn’t really a ‘storyline’ show and I don’t see them doing the Eve vs Maryse feud on Superstars but really, it would give them so much more screen time to develop that program. If not the top Divas, at least give girls like Gail, Jillian and Alicia the time they deserve on this show.

With last week being a bust, Diva-wise, there was considerable hope (at least on my part) that the Divas would have a significant part on the big, 3-hour Draft episode of Raw. While the actual Draft picks didn’t go the way we expected or hoped, it was the action inside (and immediately outside) the ring that surpassed expectations.

This go-round, the WWE went with a new route on Diva Draft picks. Instead of any match during the night putting a Diva up for a switch, it was only Diva matches that made them eligible for the Draft. Unfortunately, since we (like most weeks) were only treated to one Divas match, that meant we only had one girl get drafted tonight. And, for being the solitary Diva drafted during the show, it was a pretty underwhelming choice, in my opinion.

But before we get into the Draft pick, let’s see how it came to be. Michelle McCool and Layla (as always, with Vickie Guerrero) teamed up to represent SmackDown, and rivals Eve Torres and Maryse repped Raw. The winning team, of course, would win a Diva Draft pick for their brand. Watch the match to see which brand is down a Diva:

Most people’s reactions to finding out that Eve and Maryse were teaming centered on shock. Of course, these types of “strange bedfellows” matches have happened before, but not usually with such a tight-knit team as their opponents and with so much at stake. Still, they played it off to perfection, with Maryse breezing right past happy-go-lucky Eve as they made their entrance, even giving her one of the “talk to the hand” gestures as she led the way. Funny though, that they’re still pretty color coordinated.

Layla and Eve start out the match, with Layla doing some calisthenics to get.. warmed up, I guess? Eve kicks her in the stomach and gets us down to business. She grabs Layla in a side headlock, but she powers out and shoves Eve into the ropes. On the return, Eve blasts Layla shoulder-first and goes for an early pin, getting barely a 1-count. Again, Eve latches her into a side headlock, and again Layla jabs her in the side to get free. Eve maintains control, however, whipping Layla into the corner and eating boot when she charges towards her. Layla does some charging of her own and Eve leaps up and over her in a move that could’ve ended with pelvic bone to the forehead sans a few inches in Eve’s leap.

Eve whips Layla into the same corner, hitting her with a flying clothesline. Layla crumples to the mat, setting her up for… the Bronco Buster!! Only kidding.. Just trying to see if you’re paying attention. In actuality, Eve pulls Layla to her feet, wrenching her arm and bringing her over to her corner. Maryse, however, has no intention of tagging in, and instead tags Eve’s stomach with her boot. But technically, that counts at a tag. It’s physical contact! But you know me, I’m a purist..

Eve does’t take this lying down and exits the ring, getting into a knock down, drag out fight with Maryse at ringside. It’s a great fight and feels real, realer than anything they’ve done together previously. This makes me hope that they really do continue their feud, because this proves that they have so much they can do together that they haven’t gotten to show yet. This the perfect way to utilize Maryse’s arrogance while keeping it somewhat fresh.. I mean, you’ve see one hair flip, you’ve seen them all, right? But this is a new way to go about putting heat in your feud, and the girls pulled it off beautifully.

Eve eventually gets control of the scrape and tosses Maryse into the barricade. Hey, if she’s dead set on being motionless at ringside, at least she’s not taking up space on the ring apron. Eve gets back into the ring, but before she can get to her feet Layla pounces on her, hitting a low dropkick. She hits Eve with another kick and goes for the pin, getting a 2-count.

Layla pounds Eve’s face into the mat, taking advantage of her vulnerable state to tag in Michelle. They double-team Eve, with Layla whipping her right into a clothesline from Michelle. Michelle goes for the pin, but only gets 2. With a fistful of hair, Michelle slams Eve to the mat and bashes her head against it. The ref complains, and she distracts him by playing innocent, all the while choking Eve with her shin pressed against her throat. She lays a boot into Eve’s midsection, letting her gain her bearings against the bottom rope while she taunts the fans. Eve gets eye level with the second rope when Michelle resumes her attacks, perching on the second rope and choking Eve against it. While Michelle distracts the ref, Layla gets a few licks in, standing on the back of Eve’s neck and choking her against the bottom rope.

Michelle gets Eve locked into a reverse choke, holding on with tenacity while Eve tries to battle out, repeatedly kneeing Michelle in the head. Michelle holds on, though, and switches the hold into the standing position. Michelle tries to power it into an attack, but Eve takes the momentum, flipping backwards and reversing the move into a reverse neckbreaker. Eve goes for the pin, but gets a close 2-count. Both girls try to regain their wits, and Eve considers tagging in Maryse, but thinks better of it, instead going on an offensive streak, eventually hitting Michelle with a neckbreaker. She goes for another pin attempt, and again only reaches the count of 2.

Eve runs the ropes, and Maryse smacks the back of her head for a unique tag. See? I told you! Physical contact counts! Eve protests but evnetually leaves the ring, Maryse taunting her, thinking she’s going to pull out the win for her team. Once she’s done posing, she turns around, right into a big boot from Michelle. She’s out for the count, and Michelle pins her for the win and the Draft pick.

Laycool celebrate as the pick is announced. And…. Kelly Kelly is moving to SmackDown! Well, it’s certainly underwhelming for us who were expecting something along these lines. Still, Laycool plays it off well, taunting Kelly a bit from afar and celebrating, almost like they have a new plaything to taunt and toss around. Fresh meat!

Kelly either ignores this or simply doesn’t play it off well, and she simply smiles to the crowd and departs. It’s not something that instills excitement in fans for her move to SmackDown, with her simply ignoring the Mean Girls that are practically licking their chops with the hazing possibilities. I know that that wasn’t the priority with this moment, as it was Kelly’s moment to shine and soak in the fan adoration, but I can’t help but picture a similar scenario occuring if a Laycool/Kelly feud were to happen. Sure, she’s good at playing the ragdoll underdog, but can she take the insults and fire back with some of her own? Surely, smiling politely isn’t going to do the trick.

Still, this move will probably do wonders for Kelly’s career. Lately, she’s been stangnant on Raw, and a move to SmackDown could really rejuvenate her babyface potential. SmackDown gets their fan-favorite replacement for Mickie James (whether you think that’s a fair trade or not) and Kelly gets more opportunity to wrestle and expand her character. We all know SmackDown’s more friendly in that department, after all. It certainly is better for building character than Raw’s blink-and-you-miss-it segments.

But as I say that, this Raw gave us so much more than that. The match was of a decent length, had good wrestling, and told an interesting story. Eve and Maryse, as I mentioned earlier, played off each other better than they ever have, and Eve transcended that “bland babyface” role we’ve been wanting her to shake for a while. Maybe it’s the “SmackDown touch” or the fact that the show was 3 hours long, but the fact is that we saw the most entertaining Divas segment on Raw in some time. It goes to show the writers than, given enough time and a decent setup, the Raw girls can really entertain you.

While Michelle and Layla did the heavy lifting wrestling-wise, Maryse and Eve were easily the stars of that match, with their fight outside the ring and squabbles over tagging in bringing an engaging dynamic to the match. This is what we need more of on Raw, and I honestly believe that they can pull it off without the SmackDown presence. It was entertaining, was forward-thinking, and served a purpose. That’s like an A+ on my Raw grading scale, given the crappy state the show has been in for the past few months, so you could say that Raw definitely got it right this week. Whether it sticks or not is the question.

For those unable to join the chat, feel free to use the comments as a regular Raw Response post.

PWInsider is reporting that tonight, former WWE ring announcer Lilian Garcia will be returning to her Raw announcing post for one night only. Regular ring announcer Justin Roberts is stuck overseas with the rest of the Raw brand, and Lilian was available to replace him since Raw is taking place within an hour of her home town of New York City.

Click here to listen to our interview with Lilian from last month.

Tonight’s Raw will… not really be Raw. As you’ve probably read, volcanic ash has grounded European flights, and thus the majority of the Raw brand is stuck overseas. SmackDown will be pinch hitting for them, so expect things to look a little different tonight. Ryan Phillippe, Will Forte and Kristen Wiig from the film “MacGruber” will still be hosting, so at least part of the show will go on as planned. As always, tune in at 9/8 CST on the USA Network.

Discuss the show in the comments!

So Eve Torres won a Divas Championship shot last week in what was probably the least prestigious win of its kind. That’s not a slight to Eve, though, because the evening gown stipulation dragged the match down like a rusty anchor. Still, it was promising to see an actual championship match made, and we moved on to this week with Eve vs. Maryse in the cards. So, did this match surpass its dress-wrestling origins? Let’s see:

David Hasselhoff introduces the match. Eve makes her way to the ring, and she dances a bit with Hoff. Michael Cole calls this an “interesting” and “unique” way to kick off Raw. I have no idea what that means, because while Divas Championship matches may be rare, they’re not exactly “unique” fare. Maryse is next, and the match starts. Maryse gets things rolling with a vicious slap, prompting a hair-pulling exchange that the referee eventually has to break up. Maryse slips out of the ring and Eve gives chase, meeting a blow from Maryse as soon as she reaches her.

Maryse is showing more aggression than she has in a long, long time. I guess a championship defense will light a fire under anyone’s ass, but it’s nice to see her do more than run away–though she’s still doing that too. She slams Eve’s face onto the apron several times before tossing her back into the ring. Before Maryse can do anything more Eve goes on an offensive streak of her own, whipping Maryse into the corner, charging and getting an elbow to the face. Maryse tries to get in another lick but Eve again turns the tables, hitting a neckbreaker. She positions Maryse on the mat and climbs the turnbuckle, performing a beautiful moonsault.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t meet its mark, as Maryse rolls out of the way. Both Divas lay stagnant on the mat, and I’m pretty sure Eve knocked all the wind out of herself. God, that’s gotta hurt. Maryse laughs at her misfire, slapping her on the back of the head and standing her up for the French Kiss DDT. Even blocks it, though and, with that momentum, rolls Maryse up into an interesting bridge pin. She gets the 3-count and is the new Divas Champion. Eve celebrates while Maryse screams (in agony?).

The match, obviously, barely got a chance to get rolling. There was no fire because they didn’t even get a chance to build up steam. We’ve been “treated” to blink-and-you-miss-it matches for weeks now (it’s hard to even imagine a time when matches lasted upwards of 5 minutes), but one would hope that the WWE would see fit to give a championship match a little more room to breathe. Not so, as we can see, and this match was treated with the same care this entire storyline has been. Well, I’m not really sure you could call it a storyline. It’s more like a succession of wins for Eve. They invested so little into this that no one likely cares that Maryse finally got her due, much less that Eve just won the Divas Championship.

That’s not meant as an insult to Eve–this lie squarely on the feeble shoulders of the WWE bookers. They could have made this into a feud of decent length, building towards this moment so when it came we would feel something, anything. As is, it’s just another Diva match that went too quickly, except this time, a belt was exchanged at the end of it. Eve deserves a much better buildup to her first championship win because as it stands, this will be forgotten in a matter of months. It’s just that unmemorable.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for surprise wins and surprise endings (like the roll up), but the effectiveness of all of that depends highly on what preceded it. With no suspense in the feud or the match, a surprise win is meaningless. A quick roll-up is just on of the 5 moves in a 2 minute match. The WWE bookers need to realize that you can’t just provide a beginning and end of a feud and hope the fans give a shit by the end of its 2 week run. Every good writer knows that you need something in the middle to build tension and excitement. Otherwise, you’ve got the wrestling feud equivalent of the “Transformers” movies–one flashy moment after the next with nothing of substance to hold it up and give it meaning. Now that I think of it, maybe that’s the Raw writers’ side gig–penning Michael Bay movies. It’d explain a lot, actually.

Congrats on your win Eve, and here hoping that the booking from this point forward can serve to give this reign some meaning. I’m not holding my breath, though.

Later in the night we get the inevitable guest GM-themed gimmick match. We predicted this in the Post-Show last week, but to be fair, a blind person could have seen this coming. I just take solace in the fact that we already had an actual wrestling match at the beginning of the show, even if it meant fuck all to the writers, the audience in London, you, and me. This match, of course, features the Divas wrestling in red one-piece bathing suits, a la the suits Pamela Anderson and crew wore on “Baywatch”, the show on which GM David Hasselhoff gained his notoriety. Let’s see if this car crash is a fender-bender or a full on 10-car pile up:

The match is announced as a Baywatch Babe Triple Threat Tag Team match. A lifeguard stand is propped just outside the ring. Wow, off to a dreadful promising start. David Hasselhoff comes out and sits in the lifeguard position, probably watching intently on the off-chance a body of water appears in the ring and someone starts to drown in it. I think we’ve found a way to make a Divas gimmick match even more ridiculous–add a non-functioning third-party to sit in a ridiculous looking prop and watch all pervy-like. Oh right, it’s already been done.

The Diva teams (Gail Kim & Kelly Kelly, Jillian & Rosa Mendes, and The Bella Twins) make their way to the ring to the Baywatch theme, running in slow motion, thanks to some production truck trickery. It is easily the most cringe-worthy the Divas have looked in a while. Yikes. It’s not even silly enough to bring out a laugh–it just makes me want to change the channel. At this rate, their entrances will be longer than the Divas Championship match from earlier in the night.

It turns out that we have a special guest referee, Santino. Or, as I like to call him, Italian Hornswoggle. Can’t wait for the tomfoolery that will result from this! The only reason I can see why they made this a triple threat tag team match instead of a plain old gigantic tag team match is that they’ve only got two heels at their disposal, with Maryse having already wrestled and Katie Lea off playing invisible. That seems to be another problem they created for themselves, creating a surplus of babyfaces to the point where their main function is to prance around happily brain dead in whatever ridiculous outfit the GM of the week calls for. Yep, this is the WWE, folks, the pinnacle of professional wrestling.

Kelly and Jillian start things off, getting into a shoving match, Jillian blocking a kick and sending Kelly flipping backwards, landing on her feet. Kelly ducks a clothesline and runs the ropes, hitting her preset move, the tilt-a-whirl headscissors (just hit “channel up” and “volume down” on your remote control simultaneously to trigger it. Hitting “volume up” will lengthen her Tarzan scream, and hitting “channel down” will.. change the channel).

Kelly goes to run the ropes again, but a tag from Nikki Bella sends her flying like Nikki did it with a pair of brass knuckles. She comes in and gets in a bit of offense on Jillian before getting her hair pulled by Rosa on the apron. This distracts her and allows Jillian to scoop her up in a fireman’s carry and hit her with a Samoan drop. She goes for the pin and gets 2. Jillian tags in Rosa and she hits a suplex on Nikki, getting 2-count for it. Rosa goes for a scoop slam, but Nikki reserves it into a roll-up, but Jillian breaks it up. This prompts Gail to come flying in, as if she really wanted the Bellas to win. Go figure..

This breaks the match open and allows Brie to switch places with Nikki. She plays opossum, grabbing Rosa when she returns and pulls her into a small package pin, getting the win for her team. Jillian protests to Santino and the rest stand around, picking their bathing suit wedgies while Santino goes to blow the whistle on Jillian. Jillian shoves the whistle down his throat, causing him to choke. Oh dear, it looks like we really do need a lifeguard. Actually, wait, we actually need a paramedic, but that wouldn’t fit with our theme, so bring out the lifeguard.

That lifeguard, of course, is Hornswoggle, dressed identically to his comedic relief kin. He runs (in slow mo) to the ring and hit a frog splash to force the whistle out. Everyone stands around and giggles and we’re done. Boy, it’s a shame that this guest GM thing is going to end some time this decade, because stuff like this is so worth the time devoted to the unconventional wrestling attire, Santino cameos, and midget jokes. I’ll miss it. I just think that if they cut this segment out of the show (and it wouldn’t be worse for the wear having done so), the Divas Championship match could have gotten a bit more time. Of course, that’s probably not true. They likely would’ve allocated that time to something more worthwhile, like a slow-mo Batista entrance. All the better to admire his bellybutton tattoo!

So, to recap, we had something that happened way too quick (Eve winning the Divas Championship without any buildup in a match that was as short as ever) and something the happened far too slow (slow-mo entrances and drawn-out Santino/Hornswoggle comedy sketches). I think a little time management counseling is due for the WWE writers, don’t you?

Tonight’s Raw will be hosted by “Baywatch” alum and all-around pop culture phenom David Hasselhoff. The show was pre-taped, so if you’re curious about its goings-on you can view the show’s spoilers here. As always, tune in at 9/8 CST on the USA Network.

Discuss the show in the comments!

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Raw tonight Diva triple Match !!!

It’s possible that Hasselhoff may just be confused or it could be that there is a triple threat match on Raw tonight in addition to the Divas Championship bout between Eve and Maryse. If so, I’m assuming it’ll be some sort of gimmick match — Kelly Kelly is probably ironing her red bikini as we speak.

Either way, we’ll know soon as Raw is due to be taped in London in a couple of hours.