4 Ups & 7 Downs From WWE Raw (30 March - Results & Review)

5. Women’s Tag Debacle

WWE Raw Bayley Nia Jax
WWE

If any crickets had snuck into Madison Square Garden, we would have known during the Women’s Tag Team Championship match between the Irresistible Forces and Bayley and Lyra Valkyria, because the fans sat in silence for about three-quarters of the bout.

The four women seemed to be a bit off at a couple of points, but Bayley and Valkyria nearly salvaged the match with a flurry in the waning moments, including Bayley powerbombing Nia Jax in an impressive spot, followed by a Lyra moonsault.

However, just as it started to ramp up, Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Flair and the Bella Twins made their way down the aisle, signaling to fans that they weren’t getting a finish, and everyone tuned out as we got the inevitable disqualification that ultimately set up a four-way tag title match for WrestleMania 42.

Had this been an energetic, frenzied sprint with the challengers fighting from underneath until it all fell apart, this might have worked as a match that was transparently destined for a DQ. But the silence that accompanied large segments of this match made it apparent that fans weren’t bothering to invest in this, the shmozz, or the usual predictable and bland booking we’ve seen dozens of times.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.