4 Ups & 9 Downs From WWE Raw (Oct 18)

by Scott Carlson

1. A Barn-Burner Main Event

Bianca Belair Charlotte Flair
WWE.com

Maybe it’s a good thing Charlotte Flair and Bianca Belair are trading brands and being kept apart because the two had a stellar showing in a match for the Raw Women’s Championship.

The two women laid it all out there with suplexes, moonsaults, strikes, spinebusters and various power moves, with numerous near-falls dotting the match. Bianca blocked a Natural Selection and got a backslide, Charlotte avoided a KOD with a neck snap and spear. They had really good chemistry, and the interesting part is that you know both of them have an entire arsenal they never touched (Belair didn’t get into all of her power moves or 450 splash, Flair never targeted the knee or hinted at a Figure Four).

The bout ended in a DQ when Charlotte got frustrated and grabbed a steel chair, but that really showed the overconfident champ – who earlier derided the challenger as an underserving rookie – had run out of options and pulled the escape hatch.

But after yet another lacklustre show, WWE reminded us of what it’s capable of when they just let two talented wrestlers get in the ring and go. It’s just a shame this isn’t the norm, but a rarity on Raw these days.

Advertisement
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.