8 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Sept 3)

5. Setting Up ‘Epic’ Women’s Match

Oh God, they’re going to do it, aren’t they?

Rumors flew a bit ago that Ronda Rousey would defend her Raw Women’s Championship at Evolution against Nikki Bella, which seemed silly because Nikki hadn’t been on Raw in forever and there was just two months until the show.

But now, Nikki is back, and she and Brie are trying to be best friends with Rousey. Two signs from Monday’s program really brought it into focus: They announced a six-woman tag match for Super Show-Down three weeks before Evolution, pitting the Riott Squad against the Bella Twins and Rousey; and a backstage segment between the Bellas and Ronda. Nikki offered to help train Ronda (no, seriously), and Rouse rebuffed her, leading Nikki to say she was available to provide advice on anything else: running a company, writing books or fashion.

All of it smelled of desperation by the former Divas Champion, trying to keep Rousey close to her. And we’ve seen this before from the Bellas, being nice and then turning on a compatriot. Maybe that’ll happen in the six-woman tag match.

What makes this a “down” is that if they go this route, they’ll likely paint Nikki as a dominant champion because she held the Divas Championship from 300+ days and try to make her out to be a threat to Rousey, which is laughable.

Maybe all of this is misplaced and just petty. But Nikki coming back for a match at the first all-women’s PPV and getting a title shot against the biggest name on the roster? Come on…