7 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Raw (3 Mar - Results & Review)

Downs…

3. Women’s IC Wrestlers On Different Pages

Lyra Valkyria successfully defended her Women’s Intercontinental Championship against Ivy Nile on Monday night, but despite the match getting plenty of time and smartly working an injured body part into the finishing sequence, it still came off clunky.

Nile and Valkyria struggled to get on the same page several times, fighting through a few awkward sequences where they pawed at each other, trying to grab a hold or find the thread. While wrestling should feel like a struggle and not always be this liquid flow of moves, when it gets fragmented, that’s not a good sign.

Both women worked hard and executed some moves well, and Ivy’s anklelock on Lyra looked brutal, with Valkyria’s ankle bending at a completely unnatural, impossible angle. Nile’s targeting of the knee looked good in several spots, including when Lyra collapsed trying to land a Nightwing and Ivy immediately hit a knee-breaker. She then almost fell backward attempting a powerbomb and recovered at the last second just enough to sit down into the move.

There’s some praise to come for this in a bit, but this was not the kind of match you want for the women’s version of the “workers’ title".