Monday, December 15, 2025
Submit News

Raw Redux Does WWE Superstars (Jan. 14th, 2010): Half of a Rematch

In what you could consider a partial rematch of last week’s Superstars match, Gail Kim is again taking on Jillian, this time in a Mixed Tag Team match–Gail pairing with Primo and Jillian with Chavo Guerrero. Watch the match below:

Primo and Chavo start out the match. Primo dominates Chavo until some dirty tricks put Guerrero in control. Jillian even gets a few boots on Primo while the referee’s back is turned. Primo eventually regains control, prompting Chavo to go running to his momma Jillian, grabbing a hold of her midsection. As unorthodox as it is, this counts as a tag, and Jillian enters the ring. Before Primo tags her in (and he really doesn’t need to, I guess), Jillian charges, and he dodges, and she eats Gail’s fist.

Gail blasts into the ring, going on a roll of offense, irish-whipping Jillian into the corner, hitting a flying clothesline. She backs up and goes for a two-fer, but Jillian moves, and she ends up between the ropes and wrapped around the turnbuckle. Gail gathers herself, though, and ducks a blow by Jillian, hitting one of her own and climbing the turnbuckle. Chavo distracts her, however, and Jillian causes her to lose her footing. Gail crotches herself on the top rope, and Jillian tosses her from there to the mat. She goes for the pin, earning a 2-count.

Frustrated, Jillian goes a bit unhinged, grabbing Gail by the head and slamming the back of hit repeatedly against her knee. The hold quickly is reduced into a blatant hair pull. She eventually lets go and goes for the pin again, still getting only 2. She picks Gail up and tosses her by the hair like she’s a ragdoll, which probably isn’t far off from her actual weight–no insult intended, she’s just so tiny! Jillian then just stands on Gail’s face–hey, if it gets the job done, why not? The referee scolds her, and she relents. I like how Jillian is showing a blatant disregard for the rules. There’s not even a hint of integrity to her wrestling, and I like that kind of honesty in a heel.

Jillian slams Gail into the corner and drives a few well-placed knees into her midsection. She brings Gail to the ropes, whipping her to the other side, but Gail hangs on, attempting a kick when Jillian advances on her. Jillian catches her foot, however, and drags her hopping to the center of the ring, taking her down with a clothesline. She taunts the crowd before going for her cartwheel splash, which Gail blocks with her knees. Both Divas try to regroup, crawling to their respective corners and tagging in their teammates.

Read more

Detailed SmackDown Spoilers for 1/15

Diva Dirt reader Kristy sent in her own account of the action from last night’s SmackDown taping. The show airs on Friday. Click the ‘+’ to read:

SmackDown - January 15, 2010
Divas match was a short bout. Mickie James vs. Beth in a singles match with an interference by Michelle & Layla. Beth was pretty dominant throughout the match. The match never ended as Beth left up the ramp & then let LayCool come in to do their “business.” Michelle was lifting up her nose taunting Mickie (calling her a pig) and finished off with the Faith Breaker. All ladies looked great though. :)

Side note: Someone in the crowd yelled out “Let’s go fat-so!” (Something along these lines). It was pretty clearly heard but I’m not sure if it will be on the taping. Poor Mickie :(

Thoughts after the cut:

Read more

Raw Redux (January 11th, 2010) – Split in Two

With two spots left in the semi-finals, the Raw Divas soldiered on with the Divas Championship tournament, competing in two matches. After last week’s two tournament openers (one on Raw, the other on Superstars), would the underwhelming feeling improve with this weeks bouts? Let’s see.. The first bout of the night featured Kelly Kelly and Alicia Fox battling to go on to the next round:

Kelly makes her entrance, dressed in Maria’s leftover fabric scraps and shoes that are definitely not meant for athletic competition. You’re just asking for a sprained ankle with those skater shoes, girl.. Alicia follows, and the match starts with a rough tie-up. Kelly backs Alicia into the ropes, and the referee gets between them (literally) to break it up. Alicia takes this pause in the match to blast Kelly with a forearm, kneeing her and tossing her into the corner. She smashes her face into the turnbuckle a few times before hitting a snapmare.

Alicia keeps her grasp on Kelly’s hair, latching her into a sleeper hold. She makes a grab for her nose, wrenching Kelly’s face and switching the hold to the mat, keeping her locked in. Alicia shows some great aggression with this, the hold punctuated by Kelly’s screams. Kelly might overdo the screaming most of the time, but it’s moments like these that they’re effective. Kelly fights to get free, and Alicia moves back onto her knees, not letting go. Kelly eventually gets to her feet, punching Alicia in the stomach and freeing herself from the hold.

Still, Alicia reclaims control, irish-whipping Kelly into the corner. Kelly stops herself with the top turnbuckle, attempting a hurricanrana on Alicia, but she catches Kelly’s legs and tosses her over the ropes onto the ring apron. Alicia goes for the attack, but Kelly lands a forearm, grabbing her and pulling her over the ropes. Alicia lands on the outside, and Kelly hits a crossbody from the ring apron, then quickly tossing Alicia back into the ring. Kelly goes on her textbook offense (press the up arrow and triangle on PS3 to trigger it), punctuated by a long, twirly hurricanrana. She attempts a frankensteiner, but Alicia stops her momentum, turning it into a sick powerbomb, folding up Kelly into a pin. She gets the 3-count and advances in the tournament! She will face Maryse next week in the semi-finals.

Needless to say, I was extremely surprised to see Alicia win. I was pretty confident in the fact that the WWE wanted to push Kelly as the top babyface, given the great crowd reactions she gets and the fact that they use her in their marketing more than any other Diva. That’s not to say that I’m not happy with Alicia winning–I was rooting for her, in fact. I’m glad that she won, and I feel that she’s much more deserving of the Divas Championship than Kelly. It’s a little strange to think that, given how much longer Kelly’s been in the WWE. Most are aware that the girls were hired at the same time, though, and Alicia just spent her time training in the developmental system while Kelly did stripteases on ECW.

Read more

Former Diva Backstage at Raw

A former WWE Diva and Women’s Champion was present backstage at last night’s Raw in Minneapolis. Molly Holly, a Minnesota native, was visiting friends while the troupe were in town reports PWTorch. Molly has been on good terms with WWE since semi-retiring in 2005. She returned last year for the Miss WrestleMania battle royal at … Read more

Raw Response: January 11th, 2010

Tonight boxing legend Mike Tyson makes his return to the wrestling ring, serving as this week’s guest GM. Also, expect to see the Divas Championship tournament continue with another first round match. Discuss the show in the comments!

FCW Watch: AJ Lee and Courtney Taylor vs Rosa Mendes and Naomi Night

The first FCW Diva match of  2010 has found it’s way onto Youtube.  This match features rookie sensation AJ Lee teaming up with Courtney Taylor to take on the team of ECW Diva Rosa Mendes and the debuting Naomi Night. Check out  the action below: skip to 3:30 I have to admit when I saw … Read more

Playing the Odds: The Divas Championship Tournament

Feeling lucky? In this new feature we’ve dubbed Playing the Odds, we will weigh the odds of certain Diva or Knockout events occurring, be it a championship win or heel turn.

We classify each like so: if the event’s occurrence is highly unlikely, it gets the Long Shot stamp; if it’s within the realm of possibility, it’s a Safe Bet; if it is extremely likely, it is a Sure Thing. Now, this does not mean everything we brand a Sure Thing is destined to happen–it just lines up with what we feel to be feasible from precedent or a person’s current position. Also, this is from our point of view, so don’t take this as fact or anything of the sort.

In this first edition, we will take a look at the ongoing Divas Championship Tournament, seeing which Raw Divas have the best shot at coming out on top. We may not be in Vegas, but we’re placing our bets anyways–take a look at ours and make a few of your own in the comments.

Alicia Fox
Odds: Safe Bet. Even though the WWE has been noticeably fickle about giving Alicia big pushes (they’re more of a “now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t” type thing), she is certainly a rising star in the company. They have felt comfortable giving her title shots before (twice, actually), and though her pushes were always short lived, they showed that she’s not destined to be merely a background player. Comparatively, a Diva such as Layla, who is still pretty much a background player, has never seen the kinds of pushes Alicia has been given. This makes us believe that Alicia might have better luck than her “replacement” (remember, Alicia was Michelle’s tag along first). This year could hold Alicia’s big breakout, and winning this tournament or even giving a good showing in it could effectively kick-start that. Though, as promising as her future looks, the WWE’s fickleness when it comes to her makes us hesitate to give her our full confidence in this tournament. It’s certainly possible that she could go all the way, but we’re not going to be betting the farm on it either.

Brie Bella
Odds: Long Shot. Yes, she’s already out of the tournament, which makes this sort of irrelevant, but when looking at it from an objective standpoint, pretending that the match had not taken place yet, it’s quite the long shot to picture Brie getting pushed all the way to the title. It’s not that we lack the faith in Brie having success on her own, but with the way the WWE books Brie and her sister–that is, extremely inconsistently–it’s tough to imagine the WWE giving either of them a title run. They seem to only use them in the ring when they need extra bodies. Otherwise, it’s escort duty fro the GM of the week. Bottom line, there’s just been no real investment made in the Bellas by the WWE. Until the WWE starts taking them seriously as competitors, they pose no real threat.

Read more to see how the other Raw Divas’ odds stack up.

Read more

SmackDown Redux (January 8th, 2010) – Layla’s Time to Shine

She may not be the priority in the three-way feud between Beth Phoenix, Michelle McCool and Mickie James but this week on SmackDown, Layla proved to be the dark horse in this storyline — the glue, if you will, that has held this feud together and that was never more apparent than it was on tonight’s show. Her fantastic acting, comedy chops and hard work in the ring have made her the perfect go-to girl for much of this feud. It’s not Michelle McCool that’s getting in the ring on a weekly basis and wrestling Mickie James and Beth Phoenix — it’s Layla. And if you ask me, it’s the teaming of Michelle and Layla that has helped the Women’s Champion break out of her box and show more charisma and personality than she has in the past several years. She may be treated like a jobber in WWE but watching her work this week, it became obvious to me that without her, this feud wouldn’t have worked half as well as it has and she deserves credit for it.

A few weeks ago, I likened the ongoing SmackDown storyline as a little bit like Lost — each week, the story seems to center around a certain character with the events unfolding from their point of view. We have had Mickie James and Beth Phoenix take starring roles in previous weeks and it seems this week was Layla’s turn.

It all begins backstage…

Once again we have a backstage segment with ‘Piggie James’ jokes, this time Team Lay-Cool unveil a pig trough for Mickie. Lame. Layla cutely gets some lettuce in her mouth with Michelle flicking it away. I’m particularly liking the underlying situation with Michelle and Layla with the latter playing the Gretchen Wieners to Michelle’s Regina George; Michelle, the leader of the group, kind of deflects everything onto Layla [“I think you annoyed her”]. It could play into an interesting feud should Michelle and Layla ever split up.

Next we have Beth vs Layla:

Beth makes her entrance first followed by a somewhat hesitant Layla, who by the way looks a lot like Halle Berry in Catwoman in that attire. Somewhat new fact about Layla — she’s Moroccan and fluent in Arabic, thanks Matt Striker! I love Layla selling her being afraid from the outset, wary of Beth Phoenix as she makes her entrance and does her signature pose on the ring ropes. All too often these girls have little psychology when it comes to stuff like that, they’ll come down to the ring all smiley-faced and happy as usual even though they have a big match ahead of them. Granted, this isn’t exactly a huge Michelle-Mickie type grudge match, but it’s nice to give that vibe of Layla being afraid of Beth and it paints Beth in a great light as well.

Even as the match is about to start, Layla tries to call out to Michelle on the outside of the ring to help her and begs Beth not to go through with the match. Nice touch. Layla extends her hand for a handshake but Beth grabs it and uses it to shoulder-block Lay to the canvas. Beth then hoists Layla over her shoulder, again Layla is screaming for her life in great comedic fashion. Beth circles the spot dizzying Layla before dropping her front-first.

Read more

Raw Redux Does WWE Superstars (Jan. 7th, 2010): Getting Out of the Gate

This past Monday saw the start of an 8-Diva tournament for the Divas Championship, with Maryse advancing into the second round. The tourny continued tonight on WWE Superstars, pitting Gail Kim against Jillian. Who will get one step closer to holding that butterly belt? Watch and see:

Jillian comes down to the ring, headset on. She says how excited she is about this tournament and that she has a good feeling about her chances to go all the way. This reminds her of that Black Eyed Peas song that’s overplayed on the radio to the point that it has surpassed the category of music and and has transformed into an acute form of torture–that song being “I’ve Got a Feeling”. She, of course, butchers it, and Gail’s entrance music eventually puts a stop to it. Kim makes her way to the ring and the match is on.

They start with a tie-up, Gail taking advantage and wrenching Jillian’s arm. Jillian escapes this by rolling forward and sweeping Gail’s legs. She goes for a pin, but Kim doesn’t even let the referee get a 1-count down. Jillian picks her up and holds her in a side headlock. Gail forces Jillian back into the ropes and shoves herself free, making her run the ropes.

On the return, Jillian shoulder-blocks Gail, but Gail grabs her feet before she can go anywhere, making her fall flat on her face. Gail bridges into a pin, but barely gets 2. Kim delivers a few blows to her face and goes for an irish whip that Jillian reverses. Gail ends up in the corner, but skirts through the ropes when Jillian charges toward her. Jillian blocks a punch and lands one of her own, then going for a shoulder blow to Gail’s midsection, but Kim hoists herself up, landing in a seated position on Jillian’s back. She heads to the top rope, hitting a lateral press on Jillian and going for the pin, getting a 2-count.

Jillian gets to her feet, only to be taken down again with a frankensteiner. She tries to regroup in the corner, dodging an attack by Gail and sending her flying through the ropes. Gail manages to hang on, though, and Jillian grabs her by the hair, knocking her head against the steel post and allowing her to fall to the outside.

Jillian spears Gail against the ring apron and tosses her into the ring, attempting an unorthodox pin that Kim kicks out of. She picks Gail up and slams her back down with a sidewalk slam, going for another pin that results in another kick-out. An irish whip into the corner sends Gail into the turnbuckle and down to the mat, as she’s unable to stay on her feet.

Read more

SmackDown Spoilers: January 8th, 2010

Spoilers for Friday’s episode of SmackDown are below. Click the ‘+’ to read.

Full spoilers now posted.

SmackDown - January 8th, 2010
*In a backstage segment, Michelle McCool, Layla El and Beth Phoenix all make fun of “Piggy James.” Layla and Michelle apologize to Beth for last week. Phoenix tells Layla they have a match tonight and she better get serious.

*Backstage, Teddy Long and Maria are discussing her being part of the upcoming Celebrity Apprentice cast. Vickie Guerrero arrives and says she would have been part of the cast as well, but she’s been too busy. She shows Maria the new WWE action figure roles and asks her to do a sales pitch for them. The Great Khali and Runjin Singh arrive and Khali says that Guerrero’s figure reminds him of a cow.

*Beth Phoenix defeated Layla El. Michelle McCool attacked Beth after the match but Mickie James made the save, then kicked Phoenix as well. (Source: PWInsider)

Erin’s thoughts after the cut:

Read more

Raw Redux (January 4th, 2010) – Maryse Starts Her Victory Tour

If last night was any indication, the WWE better start watching their backs. No, I’m not talking about the competing returns of Bret Hart and Hulk Hogan–I’m talking about the Divas vs. the Knockouts. Both live shows saw action from them, and I believe (and, from what I can tell, this is the consensus) the Knockouts provided the more entertaining wrestling. No, this Raw Redux will not serve to bash the Divas. Rather, it will be an explanation of how they can amp up the excitement in order to avoid being upstaged by the competition again in the future, should such a “Monday Night War” occur again.

The show certainly started with some promise. With Melina‘s ACL tear (and the fact that she will be out at least until July), it was sort of a “take lemons and make lemonade” situation–with Melina forced to vacate the Divas Championship, it gave way to an 8-Diva Divas Championship Tournament. Tonight marked the start of the tournament, with the opening bout pitting the self-crowned #1 contender Maryse against Brie Bella. Watch below to see who advanced in the tourny:

I appreciate that the WWE actually acknowledged Melina’s injury on screen. I mean, they didn’t have much of a choice, but it’s leagues better than the “battling depression” excuse they used for Maryse’s 2009 absence.

Maryse makes her entrance, as does Brie (with sister Nikki in tow). As they are dressed exactly alike–Nikki in tights–it’s quite obvious that they’ll try to pull the old Bella switcheroo. I wish there were a less obvious way to pull it off, I guess it’s easier to assume that the officials are idiots. They start the match with a tie-up, Maryse taking advantage and forcing Brie against the ropes. Maryse gets a handful of hair and the referee makes her back off. She does, but not before pie-facing Brie. Brie doesn’t take this insult lying down, chasing Maryse and stopping her from escaping the the outside.

Brie backs off and Maryse exits to the ring apron, trotting on it and doing her hair flip. Brie has enough and drags her back into the ring, batting her in the face for a bit of payback for the facial delivered earlier. She tosses Maryse into the corner and works on her a bit before Maryse shoves her off. Brie delivers a kick to the midsection, tossing her around the ring a a few times by the hair before hitting a leaping snapmare. One dropkick later and Maryse heads for the outside again, looking for some separation via the ropes. Maryse obviously is lacking in peripheral vision, as she doesn’t notice Nikki right beside her, and Nikki grabs her by the hair, slamming her face-first into the announce table.

Brie returns Maryse to the ring, rolling her up for a pin attempt. Maryse kicks out at 2 and takes advantage of the match the moment she gets to her feet, delivering a few blows to Brie before irish-whipping her into the ropes. Brie kicks Maryse on the return, running the ropes and ducking a haymaker from Maryse. She attempts to leap on the ropes but can’t quit get the momentum to get there, but Maryse covers the botch well by attacking her immediately, hitting her on the back and sending her to the mat. Maryse attempts a pin, but gets a 2-count.

Read more

Divas Championship Tournament: Brackets So Far, Prediction Game

As the Divas Championship tournament is now in full swing, we’ll be keeping you updated with our very own Divas Championship tournament brackets. The brackets so far are below:

Brackets are subject to change if WWE changes up the semi-final matches.

We’ve also put together a play-along brackets sheet for you to print off and/or mess around with in Photoshop/Paint/whatever. Just fill out your predictions, upload it somewhere and reply here in the comments with the link or send it to us via Twitter [@divadirt]. Warning: contains spoilers.

Read more

Raw Response: January 4th, 2009

Hall of Famer, Bret Harts returns to host the first Raw of 2010, tonight. With Melina injured, how will WWE tackle the Divas Championship situation? Will she say a tearful goodbye and relinquish the belt? Will she compete and drop the title? Will there even be a new champion crowned? Discuss the show in the … Read more

Mickie James Earns Another Women’s Title Shot

Kind of a random place to make an announcement, but it seems as though Mickie James is once again the #1 Contender for the WWE Women’s Championship according to WWE.com’s POWER 25. For the week ending January 1st, Mickie came in at #18 with the description: The beautiful Diva was impressive on SmackDown, defeating the … Read more

Natalya Scheduled for Monday’s Raw

SmackDown Diva, Natalya and her fellow Hart Dynasty team mates will be appearing on Raw this coming Monday as the show will be hosted by Nattie’s uncle, Bret Hart. With Melina expected to relinquish the Divas Championship on Monday night, it would be momentous to see Natalya shockingly take the title, wouldn’t it? Especially on … Read more

SmackDown Redux (January 1st, 2009) – New Year’s Day Dominance

The first Divas match of 2010 ended in a fight for dominance for the SmackDown Divas, as three of the Divas tried to show the others who’s boss. But before that, we got to see another match between Beth Phoenix and Mickie James. It may be a new year but some things never change! Watch … Read more