RIShane

That his belt is made from an oak that fell over naturally is one of my favourite The New Daniel Bryan character details.

Asuka's match will be announced next week:

On the upside, at least Bayley's generally been looking good in-ring these last several weeks. (tonight was also her first ever SDL match, given she came up to Raw just after the 2016 draft.)

As the main event, the Raw women's match is the only story being built across both weekly shows. And I wouldn't blame them for why Asuka got no time tonight when the gauntlet (good though it was!) was more than an hour. It warmed my heart to hear the crowd still giving Charlotte/Becky LET THEM FIGHT chants. That tag match however did not leave me feeling confident about the rumoured Mania 4-way title match.

That was a pretty poor episode (and Travis being involved has me nervous about further overbooking in the Raw women's three-way), but on the upside, uh, Ricochet got a pretty good reaction and casually pulled out a Space Flying Tiger Drop.

I wanted a three-way. And I still think even with some of the narrative issues in the build (in my opinion it would have been a lot easier and more satisfying if Charlotte won the Rumble and this Fastlane match was Becky earning her way in the first time rather than again, but the rumour is that Vince personally insisted despite Creative's objections to have Becky win the Rumble, and here we are), the match will deliver, especially if they drop the Becky injury angle.

Good points. For me her social media makes it worse as it magnifies these same traits you're describing. She gives nothing to her opponents, will never let anyone else have the last word (the whole thing with Ronda last week started because Ronda actually had a funny tweet for once about those 'mugshot' photos, which lead Becky to act insulted and mock Ronda's promos) and goes out of her way to make them look bad, which is easy to do thanks to her super strong booking. Its 'in character' but comes off as selfish, and even worse is the impression that she's running out of material cause her creative and funny tweets are less common these days.

The New Daniel Bryan cutting loose: I love the line about KO getting injured through "overconsumption and neglect."

All Joe's really needed was just a strongly booked run. He's such a good promo and presence that he effectively conveys 'badass', but then he usually gets booked to lose, and so you can't really believe him. I've said it before, but without Becky's super-booking letting fans believe that she can back up any trash talk she says, she'd probably be in a similar spot.

I'm glad you mentioned Cena in the title because Becky's booking vs Charlotte at the moment is coming off as peak SuperCena. She took three armbars last night, claims to be "injured", yet still magically conjures a Disarmher and bends the legs that are supposedly "injured." while doing it, just because.

Though tastes vary, there's quite a few good reasons for a triple threat. Everything from the three-way nature of the story set up by Survivor Series and TLC (Ronda could have tapped Charlotte clean, but didn't, and Ronda could have just pushed Becky off the ladder, but didn't) to it freeing up Becky/Ronda to use weapons to Ronda's tendency to get rattled by hostile crowds requiring protection to Charlotte's skill set and excellent ring chemistry with both women helping ensure a stronger and more memorable match. Two of the best Mania main events (XX, XXX) were triple-threats, and so were the breakthrough match for WWE women's wrestling (WM32) and the match that set up Becky's character change (Summerslam). And that's even besides the sound logic in setting up two women credentialed as Mania main-eventers rather than only one, given the strong possibility Ronda's leaving after Mania. On the interviews front, its not as simple as only being about their names. Becky tends to use a kayfabe-heavy interview style (see her last Edge & Christian podcast appearance as proof of this, where annoyingly spends about 85% of it in kayfabe) and talks in ways which are great for wrestling fans who know her character and her backstory but can come off as quite confusing for non-fans. Charlotte has a lot of media experience (she's already been doing the heavy lifting on this front, doing Radio Row before the Superbowl, a series of interviews before Elimination Chamber, as well as biweekly media mornings before SDL) and is good at talking to casual journalists, even gracefully handling non-fan interviewers who got Ric's name wrong (one calling him 'Eric Flair') and accidentally assumed her brother Reid was still alive. On one level its surprising how relatively little media Becky does at the moment--she's got the booking and the merch of a top star but isn't doing the media or PR work of one yet.

If you trust rumours (always a dangerous game), I get the impression that Vince insisting Becky had to win the Rumble but the match still had to be a triple threat is making the route to it more awkward than it should be.

This Becky tweet irked me, which is annoying when she's meant to be the face. Charlotte spent a lot of her SDL promo talking about Ronda, and worse, she brought up going to Raw to literally be handed the belt (the object Becky and Ronda are meant to be desperate for), but then Becky and Ronda ignored it entirely to focus on their photoshopping and Ronda going full Russo. https://twitter.com/BeckyLynchWWE/status/1101923022410260485

Its probably more of an issue for Gargano/Ciampa.

Charlotte's 'coronation' next week is going to be a lot of fun. While its more likely leading to Becky and/or Ronda getting in the way, her being Corporate Champ would be highly entertaining. Her promo was very enjoyable too, especially the way she completely neglected her dad's welfare while taking the time to praise Vince for his business decisions, find old Ronda footage, and turn her Cena-like level of extra media/PR/charity work into a heel trait. I remain disappointed that Asuka's virtually disappeared from SDL since beating Becky.

Gotta make Becky look strong, pal!

It was definitely nice pacing on the main event story, especially as you know things are going down at Ric's 70th Birthday Celebration, including Charlotte being a jerk to her dad about his never main-eventing Mania, Becky invading, or quite possibly both. I thought Charlotte's promo nicely showed her range in that it was fairly soft-spoken (as if response to that Becky tweet the other day alleging she "shouts into the microphone") but still projected her ego and an air of menace.

Felt like a weird and flat show which did virtually nothing to advance stories for Fastlane or Wrestlemania after it. The NXT debuts were in theory a nice idea but they should have waited for a smarkier city where fans might have cared, it was sad seeing DIY/Revival do their NXT Greatest Hits to so little reaction. Ronda/Ruby was a strong match but also slightly undercut Ronda looking so dominant at Elimination Chamber the night before. I think as a whole the show reminded us that NXT and WWE are very different entities, and the awkwardness of the Bayley/Sasha tandem promo was just more proof of that. Next week should at least be a bigger story with Ric's 70th Birthday Celebration promising us Becky interrupting and/or Charlotte being a jerk to her dad about his never main-eventing Mania.

This is the thing that bugs me about some of the arguments about why-do-the-triple-threat-cause-it-means-the-SDL-match-will-be-lesser-when-they-should-be-equal. I hope the SDL match is still good, but of course it will be relatively lesser, this Raw Mania match is going to be billed and presented as the biggest match in the history of women's wrestling between three top stars who all despise each other, and its going to be a very big deal, as we're already seeing by it being the story across Raw and SDL. Some of the booking is going to be unequal to try and push that match, which I get the issue with but is also a consequence of it being Mania season, Ruby/Ronda had a more competitive match on Raw a few months back. My guess from here, predictable as it may sound is that the rumoured Charlotte/Becky match at Fastlane ends with Ronda beating the crap out of both of them, thus completing the triangle of hate and vicious beatdowns. (Though Becky is the strongest booked 'underdog' in a long time, right down to her ability to win fights and beat up opponents and win matches all on one sporadically-injured leg.)

For anyone wondering why Charlotte only focused on watching Ronda/Ruby.

Must say, they're doing a hell of a job with the long-term build for this Mania triple threat and establishing why all parties despise each other. Charlotte destroying Ronda at Survivor Series, Ronda screwing her and Becky at TLC, Becky's Rumble win, Becky attacking Ronda/Charlotte tonight. All it needs is Ronda destroying both of them at Fastlane, and the circle of bloodshed is complete.

In part of her efforts to promote Elimination Chamber despite not being on the card (save for appearing in the crowd for Ronda/Ruby), Charlotte Flair did a lot of local media in Houston yesterday, and the below interview's a very interesting one, with some thoughtful questions about topics like how to be a role model while being a heel and her perspective on an all-women's show. The reason I'm posting it here though is that she gives an answer about the importance of your character evolving that made me wonder about whether many NXT callups not getting where they'd like to be on the main roster is really because they were 'held back' or booked badly, or if just didn't keep pushing and developing:

Charlotte Flair's putting in work to promote Ronda/Ruby as anything other than a foregone conclusion: