7 Ups And 8 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (June 22nd)
3. Face/Heel/Face/Heel/Face
If youre playing along at home, take out your scorecard for this weeks edition of What Are the Bellas This Week? After cheating multiple times and using unfair advantages to win their matches, it looks like the Bella Twins are back to straddling the fence this week and its all to the detriment of the Divas division. Consider that the Bellas are being painted as the Mean Girls of the WWE roster, with Paige trying to rally support and no one willing to step up. (This presumably will lead to Charlotte debuting on the main roster to help Paige.) The most important thing for the Bellas to do is make sure they portray strong heels who fans want to see get their comeuppance, otherwise, things could fall flat on its face. So what do the Bellas do in their tag match against Naomi and Tamina (remember when they were the new dominant heel force?) Monday night? Brie plays face-in-peril and gets the hot tag to Nikki, who cleans house. Heel miscommunication takes out Tamina and Nikki finishes Naomi off like shes the jobber of the week. Fans cheer mindlessly because the Bellas gave them no reason to boo them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1sdErRm6Y4 This is now beyond maddening. People can talk about how improved Nikki is in the ring, but if she cant portray a consistent character where we dont know week-to-week whether shes a heroine or villainess, then it doesnt matter. Figure it out, because our scorecard is full.
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.
