5 Ups & 2 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (June 13)

Downs…

2. Five Laborious Minutes

Tamina Naomi
WWE.com

SmackDown’s women stumbled towards their first Money In The Bank ladder match with a series of relatively uneventful offerings this week. The big positive here is that WWE finally ditched the obnoxious six-person segs they’ve forced the division to labour through lately, giving the group a couple of singles matches, and allowing them to showcase their individual skills for the first time in weeks.

Unfortunately, Naomi vs. Tamina wasn’t up to scratch. The duo had no energy or chemistry, and the problems were particularly apparent during Naomi’s late-match comeback, when Tamina looked lost. She has never been a compelling singles wrestlers, and in her first one-on-one bout since February 2016, Tamina struggled to make herself or the champion look good, resulting in a match that felt twice as long as its five-minute runtime.

Naomi picked up the victory, and Lana laid her out with a spinebuster afterwards. The duo will meet for the SmackDown Women’s Championship on Sunday, and while ‘The Ravishing Russian’ is the most inexperienced person in the division, it shouldn't take much to produce a better contest than this.

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Andy has been with WhatCulture for six years and is currently WhatCulture's Senior Wrestling Reporter. A writer, presenter, and editor with 10+ years of experience in online media, he has been a sponge for all wrestling knowledge since playing an old Royal Rumble 1992 VHS to ruin in his childhood. Having previously worked for Bleacher Report, Andy specialises in short and long-form writing, video presenting, voiceover acting, and editing, all characterised by expert wrestling knowledge and commentary. Andy is as much a fan of 1985 Jim Crockett Promotions as he is present-day AEW and WWE - just don't make him choose between the two.