4 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE SmackDown (24 July - Results & Review)
2. Urgh! Why Are We Still Doing This?!
Fatal Influence’s Lainey Reid and Fallon Henley won the Women’s Tag-Team Titles at SNME to end Paige and Brie Bella’s rotten reign. That should’ve been the end of it, but Brie beat Lainey on Friday in a short match that never properly got going. It's worth saying that Bella’s “Brie Mode” stuff is painful at this point. Then, Nikki Bella made her return to set up a 6-woman tag for SummerSlam that definitely feels like one of the weakest offerings on the entire weekend.
It’s cool that Influence is on the PLE at all, but WWE should’ve closed the book on this feud last weekend. Honestly, not here for The Bellas and Paige getting to stand tall over the new champs either. Nikki said Fatal Influence managed to “sneak up from the minor leagues” as well. Yeah, way to put NXT over. It was bad enough that Bruce Prichard buried the brand on the latest season of Unreal, now we've got wrestlers scuffing it on mainline WWE TV.
Great.
It sure doesn't help that there won't be anything up for grabs in this 6-woman tag. The Women's Tag belts will be a secondary concern behind Nikki's return, and it's actually really worrying that management think The Bellas are some super-babyface act everyone loves. The bloom came off the rose a long, long time ago, guys. Paige lining up alongside them hasn't worked the way it was supposed to, sadly.
Fingers crossed this is simply a vehicle to put Influence over before they move on to better things.