8 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Dec 17)

2. Nattie Stands Tall

Heading into the penultimate matchup of the women’s gauntlet match, it really looked like we were going to see WWE’s 50/50 booking on full display, with Natalya losing to Ruby Riott, who would then enlist her Riott Squad compatriots to topple Sasha Banks.

Instead, we saw Nattie run through Ember Moon, Riott and Banks en route to earning a Raw Women’s Championship match against Ronda Rousey next week on Raw. That helped Nattie look strong, winning at TLC in essentially a 3-on-1 match and then defeating three straight opponents. And that’s exactly what Rousey’s opponents need to be: strong.

It’s interesting though to see Neidhart get a title shot as friends. The early conventional wisdom about their relationship is that it would sour and Nattie would turn on her to become a challenger, but the death of her father and Rousey’s growth as a competitor might have changed those plans as we head into the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania season.

Seeing Natalya, who has suffered through some ridiculous gimmicks, including a farting spell, being treated as a serious veteran wrestler is a really nice touch at this stage in her career.