The WWW: Women’s Wrestling Wrecap: November 29, 2020

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Women’s Wrestling Wrecap, there’s a lot to get to this week, for better or worse.

Raw

So…Lana won(?) Survivor Series. After being told by Nia Jax to stand on the stairs and not get involved, the two remaining members of the match, Bianca Belair and Jax, were eliminated by count out. Making Lana the de facto sole survivor. So essentially Lana survived by doing absolutely nothing.

That theme carried through this week on Raw. In a backstage promo Lana was asked if a title shot was in her future. Lana seemed hesitant to throw out an actual challenge, but Asuka was happy to accept either way. Later, Lana had her chance against Asuka. The match was cut short when The Empress of Tomorrow threw a water bottle on Jax and Baszler. Jax attempted to put Asuka through the announce table but Lana stepped in and saved the Raw Women’s Champion. Lana and Asuka exited the ring claiming they had “outsmarted” Baszler and Jax. Though this match ended in disqualification, the Tag Team Champions challenged the two to a tag team match. This match seemed more like a handicap match as Baszler and Jax seemed more focused on their grudge against Lana. The woman formerly known as “The Ravishing Russian” again outsmarted Jax by ducking at the perfect moment sending to send her through the announce table. The match ended with Asuka pinning Baszler who was distracted by Lana’s 3D chess antics. 

I would really like Lana to get over after all of this, though I’m not totally sold on the story. Who, again, seemed to win by doing absolutely nothing.  Hopefully someone realizes that this woman will need to hold her own in a match before she can start to get over. 

Meanwhile The Fiend still has control over Alexa Bliss, much to the chagrin of her former best friend Nikki Cross. Bliss appeared on the Firefly Fun House to discuss friendship, rather the downfalls of friendship. Which gave us the introduction of Friendship Frog, who attempted to play devil’s advocate. The Fiend was having none of it and as a result Bliss beat Friendship Frog to death. His loss was truly a sad day for the WWE.

Later that night before the match Cross claimed that she was done trying to help Bliss. Her only goal was to beat The Fiend out of Bliss. Cross was enraged throughout the entire match. While Bliss, keeping with her new Fiend possessed persona, acted like it was all merely a game. Eventually it seemed like Cross might have actually achieved her goal when Bliss became confused and began apologizing and asking for Nikki’s help.

It was all just a ruse though, as the Harley Quinn of Monday Night Raw betrayed Cross once again by slamming her with a Sister Abigail, pinning, and defeating her once again. 

The WWE has been pushing Nikki Cross and Alexa Bliss’s friendship for a long, long time. I don’t want to say it’s good to see it end. It is good however to see this feud go somewhere. And to see Cross do something because she has been wandering around backstage for what seems like weeks now. 

NXT

NXT opened with a match between Ember Moon and Candice LaRae. While the match built up a lot of steam at the start, it began to fizzle out as too many people were entering the arena. At one point we saw Indi Hartwell, Dakota Kai, and Raquel Gonzalez all on the side of the Poison Pixie. Moon was outnumbered, which allowed LaRae to hit her with the Wicked Stepsister, defeating Moon. As Moon tried to exit, Toni Storm, relishing her recent heel turn, aided the group in attacking Moon. If you haven’t guessed yet, this was all a build up to LaRae announcing her NXT TakeOver: WarGames team: herself, Kai, Gonzalez, and finally Storm. 

Later, Rhea Ripley discussed last week’s match with Io Shirai and her future with NXT. She was interrupted by LaRae and her War games team, carrying an unconscious Shirai.

Ripley attempted to come to the aid of Sharia but was outnumbered. There’s a good chance this puts Ripley on Shotzi Blackheart’s war games team. War Games is certainly shaping up to be an interesting pay per view and I can’t wait until next week to see where this goes! 

Dynamite

AEW Dynamite featured an amazing title match between Hikaru Shida and the Dark Order’s Anna Jay. Jay was dominating, until she asked her ringside companion Tay Conti to get a chair from under the ring. When Conti refused Dark Order member John Silver threw her Shida’s kendo stick, hitting Shida. The Champion struggled to gain momentum at first but defeated Jay, defending her title. As Shida was making her exit she was intercepted by Abadon, who stole the belt, marked it with blood, and made it clear that she’s coming for the title. I’m very excited for Abadon’s return to AEW and what this means for the future of Women’s Championship. 

SmackDown

SmackDown finished the week with one last match Bianca Belair and Natalya. Bayley joined on commentary giving us some of the funniest bits she’s given in a while. It wasn’t much but it was a quick and fun match that pushed Bianca a little closer to getting a shot at the SmackDown Women’s Championship. 

Later that night, Carmella spoke backstage about her recent attacks on Sasha Banks. Explaining that she was the most dominant woman on SmackDown. After claiming that everyone else jumps for her, Bank’s hand appeared, handing Carmella a glass of champagne. Carmella was caught unaware and Bank’s took advantage and attacked her. I’m anxiously awaiting the match between these two.

This week was a much better week in terms of plot development. This is exciting because in these times wrestling definitely has gotten much slower paced. I feel like across the board there’s been so much set up recently with little pay off, especially in the women’s division. I hope this trend continues next week!