4 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE Raw (3 July - Review)

2. Where Was This Weeks Ago?

It’s tempting to rate this negatively because it’s Natalya and because this match should have happened a month ago after Night of Champions, but it was too hard to pan it.

Nattie and Rhea Ripley has a pretty decent back-and-forth match in which Neidhart showed some serious fire and gave Ripley more of a run for her money than anyone really has since she won the Women’s World Championship (or SmackDown Women’s Championship). Natalya attacked Rhea in the aisle, paying Ripley back for her attack a few weeks ago.

Then the match itself started, and it kept looking like it would be over in seconds. Instead, it continued on, but the two traded strikes and bombs, with Nattie looking out of it a few times, but finding a way back in with a German suplex, crossbody and running powerslam. The outcome never was in doubt, but Natalya deserves credit for delivering a good match here.

The problem is that this came after weeks of Nattie doubting herself and being belittled on camera down to the point where you would have thought this would be a 30-second squash. The really good match doesn’t comport with the story being told for weeks, hence the barely passing marks. But Rhea looked like a beast here, so it’s impossible to hate on this.