8 Ups And 5 Downs From WWE Raw (Dec 23)
Downs...
5. Mixed Signals
By no means is this a suggestion that an NXT wrestler showing up on Raw should defeat Charlotte Flair on her first night, but Chelsea Green’s “debut” was a bit of a waste.
They aired a promo package on Green to introduce her to the audience, then had her stand her ground against Flair. She controlled a good portion of the four-minute match, with much of that being a headlock. Charlotte came back with a series of chops, ate a back elbow and countered with a big boot and Figure Eight for the tap-out win.
Technically, there was nothing wrong with this, but this seemed to be a bunch of mixed signals. Is Green joining the main roster? If so, that’s quite an ignoble debut. If she was going to lose to Charlotte, maybe it should have been a bit more competitive. If she’s just here for one night only, why do a video package and play her up before jobbing her out to two moves, especially when the submission came with no setup?
This wasn’t some great crime against wrestling, but it just came across oddly. It felt like they could have tweaked this a bit to make it come off better.