4 Ups & 8 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Dec 14)

3. Abandon Storyline!

shayna baszler
WWE.com

After months of building up to Lana possibly getting revenge on Nia Jax, WWE seemingly jettisoned the angle on Monday night in confusing fashion.

With a PPV match for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship set, Lana was attacked and taken out of the match via injury by Nia and Shayna Baszler, leaving Asuka – who has simply been cast as Lana’s cheerleader and backup in this ongoing feud against the bully champs – to find a new tag partner.

Later on, we saw Dana Brooke fall victim to the duo, only for her tag partner Mandy Rose to make the save (and Asuka to join them in attacking Jax & Baszler). So Asuka – who is still the Raw Women’s Champion, mind you – needs to pick a partner, and it looks like her top choices are one of the members of an already-established tag team.

Why? Why are we here? Unless the Empress is picking a returning Naomi, or Lana is making a miraculous return, or this is to sow dissension between Rose & Brooke, this is just a dumb development a week before the PPV after months of buildup.

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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.