2 Ups & 3 Downs From AEW Deadly Draw: Women's Tag Team Tournament (Aug 17)

1. Lil' Bran Bran

Brandi Rhodes' televised character is all over the place.

One minute she's hogging the spotlight in her tag team with Allie, insisting Shaul Guerrero puts her over as "the only woman in AEW with an action figure" and generally playing up her obnoxiousness throughout. This was a clear, concerted effort to present her as the villain, following on from the recent interview in which her and her partner's roles were reversed with little explanation.

Then, in literally the next segment, Brandi is presented as a real-life babyface in the Heels commercial.

So which one is yet? If one is to be treated as kayfabe and the other "legitimate," they can't be on the show together. Such positioning tells us, explicitly, that the kayfabe stuff (Brandi's heel persona, in this case) is fake, and that the entire presentation of the storyline is so on the nose doesn't help either.

Whether or not the tournament is a vehicle to get her new character over, this isn't connecting. At all. The Nightmare Sisters need a rethink.