5 Ups And 8 Downs From WWE Stomping Grounds

6. Dumbing Down Cross

Nikki Cross Alexa Bliss Stomp[ing Grounds
WWE.com

The burgeoning relationship between Nikki Cross and Alexa Bliss was an intriguing one to start, with it being obvious to everyone (outside of Cross) that Bliss would use her at some point.

Alexa spent a fair amount of time manipulating Nikki into thinking that Bayley was really a villainess, and she was making some headway. Then on Sunday, Bliss pulled Cross into the path of a Bayley suicide dive, leveling Nikki. Moments later though, Alexa was closing in on victory and climbed up top for Twisted Bliss.

But Cross inexplicably jumped into the ring to try to get to Bayley, distracting Bliss and leading to Bayley hitting a Bayley-to-Belly for the win. It didn’t help that the match itself was fairly pedestrian, but seeing how Cross was used – failing at interfering and then costing her friend the match – it wasn’t executed well at all.

Bliss is pretty good on the character side, so it’ll be interesting to see how she handles this on Monday, but you’ve got to feel like it’s a step backward for Nikki, whose crazed character was way over with fans, and now she’s turning into Alexa’s bumbling sidekick, losing what made her unique and special in the process.

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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.