11 Ups & 2 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (3 Sept)
8. Cross & Bliss Fall
WWE's trope of having champions lose non-title matches to set up a title fight gets tiresome and often makes the belt-holders look weak. This column criticizes it often but just like anything else in this sport, context is king.
Having Nikki Cross and Alexa Bliss lose to a thrown-together team of, say, Ember Moon and Lana wouldn't have worked here. Falling to Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose does work. While Bliss is the most tenured and decorated main roster wrestler of the four, her and Cross have only been a partnership for a few months, while Fire and Desire have been best friends for years. Thus, it's believable that their superior chemistry and understanding could lead them to victory over the champions.
The match itself was solid enough. It wasn't anything out of this world, but didn't need to be, and Sonya and Mandy wrapped it up when Deville got her knees up for Twisted Bliss before her and Rose went high and low with a jumping knee/sliding tackle for the win.