Before this Sunday’s big Women’s Championship bout between Michelle McCool and Beth Phoenix, McCool and her Simply Flawless teammates literally ironed out the details for the match on SmackDown this week. Also, who knew that this would end up being Mickie James’ final appearance on WWE television? It’s a very interesting week for the blue brand. Watch below:
First comes the announcement of an ‘Extreme Makeover’ match between Michelle and Beth for this Sunday. What is an ‘Extreme Makeover’ match? Beats me. But I guess we’ll find out Sunday. Just as long as there’s no vanity mirror with light bulbs around it and the Divas aren’t forced to dress in feathered robes like this, I’m good.
So after months of waiting for this tag team match, it’s finally here — Beth and Mickie James versus Michelle and Layla with Vickie on the outside. It seems like this match itself has been months in the making, let alone the Women’s Championship bout. I was really looking forward to seeing a relationship develop between Phoenix and James so it’s weird to think this will be their one and only appearance together as a team.
The match begins with Layla and Phoenix, Layla smartly runs around Beth and applies a side headlock on the Glamazon but is then hoisted in the air and twirled around by the forceful #1 Contender. Layla begins to find her ground, reapplying the headlock but is picked up again and dropped by Beth Phoenix. Beth runs at Layla, who kicks her in the leg, followed by a kick. Layla then irish whips herself off the ropes, as McCool blind tags herself in, and runs at Beth who catches her by the legs. Layla is locked into a giant swing by Beth but in comes Michelle who for some reason, jumps over Layla and then gets hit with a back elbow by Beth. Not even sure what’s going on here. Beth then picks up Layla in a lateral press position, hoisting her above her head but is kicked in the back of the leg by Michelle and ends up falling to her knees. McCool then works over the leg and goes for a pin but to no avail.
The news of Mickie James being released by World Wrestling Entertainment has rocked a lot of people with good reason. She’s the kind of person that women wrestling fans looked up to as a role model because of the amazing work ethic that she has. She’s the kind of person that male wrestling fans wanted to watch because she’s a gorgeous woman that put on entertaining matches. The best thing about watching her is that you can see in her face that wrestling is all she ever wanted to do. Whether heel or face, whether in a good storyline or bad, she always did her best. Look at her eyes. Look at her smile. It was there for us to see. She grew up a fan of the business and it showed in her work. Week in, week out, she proved herself. Even though she’s one of the smaller girls standing at 5’2″ she showed she belonged more than any of them. Why? The combination of work ethic, passion, knowledge and desire. Not only that, but she was successful as both a heel and babyface. Her heel run in late 2005/early 2006 is still as good as any Diva in WWE history. For four years she’s been in the babyface role taking beatings, coming back and making everybody else look good. That was her job. She did it better than anybody. Now she doesn’t have that job anymore? Excuse my language here, but what the fuck?