RIShane

Vince and the Raw writers to Charlotte and Becky:

Yes! Reminds me that I love the cycle where Charlotte puts on incredible performances, fans kinda acknowledge that she's really good for a couple of days, then they magically forget about it to return to 'But she's not Becky!', 'But she's a Flair!', 'Vince likes her!", 'overpushed!' and all the other cliches.

Well said, and I agree that that's the thing with her best matches, they all feel genuinely distinct from each other. and have a lot of great storytelling in addition to the physicality and athleticism As for her importance as foil to Becky's rise, its partly due to the injury she suffered, but a little-remarked fact is that since Summerslam, Becky has spent a total of 8 1/2 minutes on TV or PPV in-ring with anyone besides Charlotte.

Charlotte Flair and Asuka are the best. Shane McMahon and overly long commercial breaks are the worst.

Bella Twins: [dressed identically, flowers in their hair] Wow, its co-creator of Seinfeld and star of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David! Larry: Uh, hello! Bella Twins: [cosying up] How are you doing, Mr. David? Larry: Pretty good, pretty pretty good...

You know they're desperate if they announce Guest Host Era 2.0.

Starts Jan 24.

The New Daniel Bryan is the most ecologically conscious heel since Ludvig Borga. Also, Charlotte/Asuka II next week should be lit.

Not sure whose fault it was, but Sasha/Bayley's tag finisher on Mickie (unlike at Elimination Chamber) looked crummy:

I liked OSW Review's take on that bit:

I'm leaning towards an Asuka win as it leaves things open for either Becky, Charlotte, or both--the latter possible via something like a tied finish in the Royal Rumble.

WWE can be kind sometimes, this match sounds amazing.

That and learning Becky is on SDL tomorrow. Wretched episode, and that Nia/Ronda segment was the worst.

Meltzer ratings, for anyone curious: Raw Tag Teams vs. SDLive Tag Teams: 3.5 Raw Women vs. SDLive Women: 2.75 Nakamura vs. Rollins: 3.75 AOP vs. The Bar: 1.75 Ali vs. Murphy: 4 Raw Men vs. SDLive Men: 3.75 Flair vs. Rousey: 4.25 Bryan vs. Lesnar: 4.5

This development of Charlotte Flair's character is very intriguing in that while on the surface she's playing unhinged and seeking to dominate her rivals, there's a lot of nuance there and continuity from her feud with Becky. One of the main themes of that feud was that Becky had meant everything to Charlotte--it didn't even matter that she won the title at Summerslam, she was just devastated to lose her friend. Her promos continued to emphasise her sense of loss, and her actions suggested that deep down what she really wanted was to get Becky back. A great example is HIAC, where after Becky beat her clean, Charlotte went to raise her hand, trying to be a good sport and win Becky back that way. Of course this didn't work (because Becky didn't just want the title, she wanted to humiliate Charlotte), which lead to a great little moment of Charlotte staring at her own hand as if wondering why she'd even done that, or if she'd done it unconsciously. For me, the key line of Charlotte's promo last night was when she said she'd taken Becky's words last week to heart, and that her sadistic beatdown on Ronda was her attempt to live up to what Becky wanted for her, as if she feels content because Becky must be proud of her. You can read a lot of what she's saying as trying to impress Becky, from repeating her backstage-promo line from last week about fighting against/with/for Becky, to threatening to beat down Ronda even more the next time they face, to trying to appeal to Becky by making a lame pun. (Fighting "Flair or square") Losing so decisively to Becky is still messing with her head, and what we're getting now is a version of Charlotte which after everything that's transpired still wants her Becky back. And judging by Becky's in-character twitter banter, even this won't work, Becky's just posting tweets mocking Charlotte as "imitating" her, because Becky in her 'The Man' guise only respects herself. I understand on one level the complaints in recent months that Becky and Charlotte have completely monopolised the SDL women's division (which had three matches last night! Even if two of them were Charlotte), but they're doing such interesting and nuanced work that to me it feels worth it.

I suppose in this case its only as Nia's sidekick to create more of a perceived challenge for Ronda at TLC. Ronda basically had Nia beat at MITB before Alexa's cash-in, so now we can predictably see her overcome both at TLC.

Sasha and Bayley came off looking like a 90s jobber tag team tonight, complete with attire somewhere between Sparkplug-era Bob Holly and High Energy.

She's been in three of WWE's top matches this year (Asuka at Mania, Becky at Evolution, Ronda tonight), and the best part is that they all felt completely different from each other. That's real talent. Props to Ronda too though, what a good match that was for being put together at such short notice.

But then the internet will explode with people complaining that Becky lost a match to 'female Roman' (even though Becky's been booked much stronger than her since Mania). Seriously though, Becky getting angry and reverting back to form ties beautifully into Charlotte's side of the whole feud. She wasn't happy to win the title at Summerslam, she was upset she lost her best friend. While Becky has been completely focused on destroying and humiliating her, Charlotte's been regretful and tried to be supportive and had it all rejected, nicely shown by the moment after Becky won the title at HIAC where Charlotte tried to raise her hand and got shunned, followed by that great 'call me queen' SDL segment.

I like the idea, (and its not hard to have Charlotte selling the disappointment of losing but even more the disappointment of letting Becky down), but would Becky wait until TLC, though? They'd probably book it so she starts insulting and beating her up again sooner.