7 Ups And 10 Downs From WWE Royal Rumble 2017
8. Pinning The Champ
WWE loves to make contenders look strong by having them pin a champion in nontitle matches. It’s their favorite tactic, and it’s aggravating how often they resort to it.
Sunday night, Naomi pinned SmackDown Women’s Champion Alexa Bliss with a split-legged moonsault, winning the six-woman tag match for her team. While it was good to see the returning Naomi get a pinfall – conventional wisdom said that the returning Mickie James would likely get the win – why did it have to be at the champ’s expense?
Bliss already is an undersized, somewhat unlikely champion, and she not only got pinned in a nothing match, she had to be carried out over Natalya’s shoulder. If they wanted to give Naomi a pin, Nattie could have taken it, maybe after a cheap shot from Nikki Bella to further that rivalry. Naomi could have said that that PPV victory justified a title shot.