6 Ups And 9 Downs From WWE No Mercy 2016

5. Bliss Gets The Shaft

alexa bliss
WWE.com

So with Becky Lynch out with an undisclosed injury, Alexa Bliss was forced to compete in an impromptu match against Naomi rather than competing for the SmackDown Women’s Championship.

To add injury to insult, Bliss would get rolled up and pinned after a short contest. And just like that, the #1 contender for the Women’s Championship was beaten on PPV in an unannounced bout. Now this is something WWE apparently does on a regular basis – when an announced match doesn’t go off due to injury, the replacement match is typically won by the face. We saw this last month with Kane replacing Randy Orton against Bray Wyatt and then winning the match.

That doesn’t make it right though. In fact, it’s counterproductive to beat the wrestler who is involved in an active feud like this. Naomi didn’t need the win, unless she’s suddenly going to challenge Bliss for the #1 contender’s spot on SmackDown. If anything though, Bliss could have used the win to further her case for the title shot.

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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.