6 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (17 Mar - Results & Review)

1. The Worst Way To A Triple Threat

Just because it worked for Shawn Michaels for WrestleMania 20 doesn’t mean it’s something that should be emulated by Rhea Ripley.

The Eradicator interrupted a fairly benign Women’s World Championship contract signing Monday night to interject that she was looking for payback from last week’s kerfuffle. In short order, Rhea initiated chaos and laid out Bianca Belair and Iyo Sky, powerbombing the champ on top of the challenger.

But then Ripley grabbed the contract and signed her name under Belair and Sky’s signatures, declaring that it was a legally binding document and she was now added to the match. Rhea left with the contract and refused to give it back to Raw GM Adam Pearce later, triggering another brawl backstage between all three women that ended with Ripley standing tall.

There were several ways to back into this triple threat – which, incidentally, should be incredible on the night at WrestleMania 41 – and this was probably one of the dumbest. It makes Rhea look like a whiny, temperamental brat, unable to accept that she lost her title because she got distracted. Rather than working her way back into the title picture, she had thrown a tantrum and behaved like a child (which ironically enough was the insult heel Charlotte Flair used to describe Ripley).

This entire chapter of the story has done Ripley no favors as a badass. Unless she’s undergoing a character shift to an entitled brat, this episode was terrible and didn’t make her look like a strong, independent figure. Had she walked out and demanded to be added to the match by appealing to Iyo’s sense of fairness, that would have worked 10 times better.