RIShane

So Sasha and Bayley are now the stooges to Stephanie's Vince and Becky's Austin?

Speaking of Sasha and Bayley, they cut a (poorly acted--Sasha flubs at least one line and they kept it in) Fallout promo on Charlotte/Becky:

Hmm, I'd say they did some work tonight to make it a more intense and heated feud than just conventional heel/face. Charlotte's promo had edge (she's a face but she's definitely not just 'happy to be here'), and Becky was just angry and aggressive rather than trying to criticise the fans again. I also think that was probably Carmella's best singles match. One of Charlotte's radio interviews today had her talking about how you have to work hard to develop the best chemistry you can have with everybody, and that you can't just write someone off as not gelling with you, because "if you can dance with everybody, then everybody wants to dance with you." I think you could see the benefits of that approach tonight, and Carmella should be credited for her performance too, it was nice seeing spots like the hurricarana feel like an actual struggle. Also, Almas/Bryan was a great tease of a match, and King Booker's appearance was some fun silliness. About the only off-part tonight was the short and mediocre Billie/Naomi match.

Not going to have the pink ropes this year cause its in September rather than October.

And when the Bellas escape having to do 50/50 booking with the Riott Squad, Sasha and Bayley are going to look on and remark "there's a way out of this cycle?"

This episode was largely kinda there, but I have heard that the Ruby/Ember match they taped for Main Event is well-worth checking out when its available.

Becky already beat SDL's various low-card heels, and said heels aren't stars. She hasn't gone against faces like Naomi and Asuka who would be enough for Becky to have prominent feuds with. If Charlotte is going to be the heel against Ronda, then it'd be more logical to turn her later rather than just have her lose to face Becky. What puzzles me about the BECKY IS THE NEW STONE COLD! hot take is that she doesn't really have anyone to take that out on. She can beat Charlotte, sure, but then there isn't really anyone else for her, especially as Paige is a face GM and can't take bumps. And frankly, there's been a lot of careful storytelling to establish Becky as the heel in this feud that is getting completely overlooked because of meta-level reasons ranging from perceptions about booking to some fans refusing to believe Becky can be anything besides her old character.

Sami for one is proud of the new Becky.

I must say the vitriolic reaction to the Becky turn has perplexed me a little. I know people got behind her as a face, but this is a major opportunity for her to get the biggest push of her career and to become the top woman on SDL. The SDL women's division has struggled for months with not having a real top heel (Carmella's funny, but she didn't really cut it in that role), and it was basically necessary to turn one of her, Asuka, or Charlotte. Asuka is limited by the language barrier, and Charlotte can't stay around the SDL division all the way through Mania if the Charlotte/Ronda rumours are true. This also leaves a vacancy for a woman to lead the division and be someone for the faces to chase, and why not Becky Lynch? Becky already beat every heel on SDL during her 'streak', Paige is a face GM and Stephanie is on Raw, so after Charlotte there's basically no one legitimate for her to go against if she stayed in her face role. Sure there would have been a 'BECKY BALBOA DID IT AGAIN!' promo and it would have been a nice moment, but then what? As for feeling unjustified, a lot of the storytelling they were doing since Charlotte's return (both on-air and in social media) was suggesting that Charlotte wanted to stay friends while Becky was only seeing her as a "tall blonde boulder" in the path of a victory she thought was inevitable, right down to Becky refusing to tag her in on the go-home show and afterwards leaving her hanging on tea-time. The triple-threat at Summerslam went out of its way to continue this story, with the early sequence of Carmella tricking Becky into thinking Charlotte had slapped her, the moment of Charlotte almost losing because she was apologising to Becky, Becky breaking up a Figure 8 with a guillotine leg drop, etc: And Becky saying Charlotte stole her way into the match is Becky being a heel, given what happened on-screen was Charlotte saving Becky from Carmella upon her return, Carmella insulting Paige afterwards, and Paige making the match without Charlotte being in the room. Plus, Becky's really good at this role! Her Gorilla Position interview/promo is top-notch heeling, intense and delusional all at once.

Charlotte and Becky are going to struggle to get the crowds reacting properly to their feud because of the issues it has on the meta-level. I know why, but its a shame as the acting has been good, the feud has been carefully written so far (right down to explaining that Charlotte didn't ask for the match vs Carmella, that was Paige's response to Carmella mocking her, and both women's social media posts before Summerslam reinforcing the story that Becky was 100% focused on winning and 100% confident she was going to do so, while Charlotte also wanted to preserve their friendship), Becky's heel promo was actually really good on its own terms, and their facial expression work during the brawl was spot-on. I also highly recommend Becky's heel podcast on Gorilla Position: she's vicious (wanting to break Charlotte's jaw!), delusional (claiming that Ronda only came to WWE because of Becky and no one else) and generally fired up. https://www.acast.com/gorillaposition/beckylynchexclusive-

The Ric/Charlotte Photo Shoot is in part promotion for the collectors' edition of WWE2K19, but there's enough unique material and interesting stories to make it work. Highlights include unreleased behind-the-scenes footage from that old NXT bikini shoot with Charlotte/Sasha/Bayley, some audio and footage from last year's Starcade, and Ric telling a story about messing up the corner flip at Wrestlemania X8.

And no wacky rebound lariat! The transition into the Dirty Deeds at the end was pretty swank, too.

Plus it felt disingenuous having a segment where Ronda is simultaneously trumpeted as a huge star 9all those newspapers!) and also tries to present herself as someone who considers herself just like any of the other women.

Reminder that in storyline, Charlotte got into the Summerslam match because of Carmella insulting Paige, who then made the match. Its going to be really interesting to see where the storyline goes from here, but I'm not so sure that this is going to lead to a Charlotte turn even while I'm confident Becky will end the feud with the SDL women's title, whatever the alignments are. Interestingly, none of Charlotte's social media posts have been celebrating the win (though she did one complimenting Ronda on her win), they've just been expressing her emotional response to Becky's attack.

Rarely has a new champion looked so pensive.

Dolph Ziggler's dying words: I deserve this!

But the most logical way to build to Ronda/Charlotte is to have Charlotte win the Rumble and challenge for Ronda's Raw title. Unless they're planning to have Ronda win the Rumble, Charlotte will surely drop the belt in the next couple of months, most likely to Becky.

Thought it was a pretty strong show for what it was. It wasn't Takeover, but it wasn't trying to be Takeover and succeeded on its own terms. I thought the storytelling in the SDL women's three-way flowed on logically from the way the feud's been built, and while there's a lot of 'BECKY IS REALLY THE FACE!' reactions that are being based on the meta-story (Rebecca Quin hasn't won for a long time and deserves a title run) and crowd response, the storytelling itself has been very careful to say otherwise. In story, Charlotte only got her chance because Carmella insulted Paige rather than through her own actions, as was stated again by Paige on SDL this week, and they've been consistently presenting it on social media and interviews as a story where Charlotte wants to do well but also wants to be friends with Becky (to the extent she repeatedly declared she'd be just as happy if Becky won), while Becky has been completely focused on winning the match herself, to the extent that their tweets after SDL this week were Becky expressing confidence that she's winning, and Charlotte being shocked that Becky left her hanging on tea-time after their tag match. I'm just happy it looks like they're going to get a proper feud rather than being a Sasha and Bayley situation. (And Becky did say "we're not Sasha and Bayley" on SDL the other week, which really looks like it has a double-meaning now.) Also, Carmella did better than she has in her other matches, and her wearing pink and black felt like a nice Neidhart tribute.

The originally scheduled Story Time episode airing after Raw this week has been replaced by a Ric/Charlotte Flair episode of Photo Shoot. (Story Time's season premiere is still after Summerslam, though.)

Glad that Peyton is standing up to Meltzer's completely uncalled for comments.

And the coward?

Absolutely. I imagine that's the end-game here, especially if they're going to transition to Ronda/Charlotte afterwards. I also like that even their social media stuff is pushing the story. Becky's tweet (and her instagram stories post, which I highly recommend) is presenting her as absolutely confident she's winning the title at Summerslam, whereas Charlotte's is about Becky leaving her hanging on tea-time:

They're carrying their segments well. Also feel that logically, Becky should be SDL women's champ by Evolution at latest, though I fear online fans are going to ignore the careful storytelling if Charlotte wins this Sunday.

Those video packages were good stuff, and Miz and Mrs. even got a second season announced tonight. I also like the way they're continuing to build up the Becky/Charlotte story, with their tag match actually having continuity from last week's with Becky refusing to tag Charlotte in near the end, (Its a small thing, but its careful detail like that which makes the matches feel like they have purpose rather than being random filler.) and Becky later leaving Charlotte hanging on tea-time. Hoping they get a chance to have a major singles feud after Summerslam, preferably with the belt involved unless WWE really wants to keep this Carmella reign going. Its also really cool that both go-home shows opened with 30 minutes of build for the women's title matches.