5 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (Results & Review - 19 Oct)

3. Totally Unlikable

When Becky Lynch and Stephanie Vaquer returned on the same night, the immediate reaction from much of the wrestling fan and critic communities was that this would inject the Raw women’s division with some much-needed energy and excitement and could produce several interesting permutations of matchups.

Instead, what has happened has been an unqualified disappointment, outside of a shock title switch at a house show that no one saw.

Vaquer captured the Women’s World Championship at a live event in Santiago, Chile, only to lose it back to Liv Morgan at Money in the Bank in a bad triple threat that she demanded after attacking Liv and Becky during their underwhelming number one contender’s match.

Through it all, the three women have been mostly unlikable characters, with Vaquer looking like a fool for demanding a match and then immediately ceding the title back to Liv, and Lynch seemingly unable to portray a babyface – even a situational one.

Monday, Becky approached Vaquer and Raw GM Adam Pearce in the trainer’s room as they discussed Stephanie needing another week to heal. Lynch suggested that she get first crack at Morgan’s world championship since Vaquer is sidelined.

Pearce deemed that since Stephanie was out of action, no one would be fighting anytime soon. Lynch smugly pointed out that Adam’s one job is to make matches, and now he was refusing to do so. This led to another one-on-one match to determine the new number one contender, despite both women having just lost a PLE match for the title.

Vaquer gets less cool by the day, while Lynch continues to burn through any babyface goodwill. It’s a very odd dynamic, and it’s not even producing good matches in the ring, so what’s the point?

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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.