5 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Raw (June 8)

2. Tag Team Afterthoughts

It’s a good thing WWE books its champions strongly. Oh wait…

The new WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions showed up to open Raw Monday night, jawing with Raw Women’s Champion Asuka. Moments – and some entrance music – later, we had a triple threat tag match booked with Charlotte Flair teaming with Asuka and the IIconics joining the fray.

Asuka and Flair got the win when the Empress tapped Billie Kay out – and Sasha Banks & Bayley were nowhere to be found. Later on, the tag champs sat in on commentary during the main event, only to be jumped by the IIconics. The foursome disappeared during the commercial break, not to be seen again. Just like that, your new tag champs (one of whom is the longest-reigning SmackDown Women’s Champion in history) were beaten once, attacked later and run off the program.

It might feel different if they hadn’t just won the titles three days earlier, but it was a bit weak sauce to see them get a raw deal twice like that. Not a great crime – they needed to make the IIconics look like a threat – but it just rubbed the wrong way.