6 Ups And 8 Downs From WWE Elimination Chamber 2017

4. Naomi Gets Her Moment

naomi women's
WWE.com

We can quibble over whether it was the right time to switch the title, or whether the right challenger won the strap, but all of that should take a backseat to Naomi winning her first championship in WWE.

The former Funkadactyl suffered through years of sidetracks since her NXT days, from being the aforementioned backup dancer to Brodus Clay, to getting injured just as she was on the cusp of a title chase. Naomi had been on the outskirts of the title picture for a long time, but Sunday night, she found her way in, defeating Alexa Bliss in a somewhat disjointed match.

And it looks like just in time: If she manages to hold onto the SmackDown Women’s Championship for the next seven weeks, she’ll defend it at WrestleMania XXXIII in her hometown of Orlando, Fla.

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Contributor

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.