Wednesday 14 March 2012

Vintage Week In Review For Women's Wrestling #5

This is the week beginning December 23rd-December 29th. Yes I skipped a week but there was really nothing worth recording except for a couple of interferences by Stacy, Lita and Torrie.

Raw:
We have a special Christmas party segment being held all night, with Vince McMahon and Ric Flair holding separate parties. At Vince's we see Stacy Keibler sitting on Bubba Ray Dudley's lap (he's dressed as Santa) and he asks her what she wants for Christmas. She whispers something inaudible into his ear and his response is "oh, you have been a naughty girl". Later on, The Fabulous Moolah and Mae Young show up when Howard Finkle states he's brought the two finest ladies money can buy. Even later Test approaches Terri Runnels and hangs mistletoe over her head but she rejects him. Sharmell is shown sitting with Maven which leads to a stand-off with Booker T and Mae Young is shown chugging her drink. Even later we get a surprise visit from Stephanie McMahon who presents her father with an engraved money clip. Vince isn't fooled by whatever game she's playing and orders her out. The final part of this segment has Mae Young overhearing the word "strip" and doing exactly what you'd expect her to. Pat Patterson ends up getting his head shoved between her legs. Oh my.

Now we get to Ric Flair's Xmas do. Our Santa is Tajiri and he presents Torrie Wilson with her present - a brand new set of lingerie. Debra also pops her head in with a plate of cookies for everyone. People including Trish Stratus and Jacqueline are shown mingling in the crowd.

Torrie Wilson def. Stacy Keibler in an Eggnog Match:
Both ladies are appropriately dressed in sexy Santa outfits and this match is apparently happening because these two got into a confrontation at ringside during a tag match on Heat. Stacy clearly isn't playing fair and actually body slams Torrie into the pool of Eggnog. Torrie pulls Stacy in by the hair and brings the referee in as well. Torrie apparently wants to drown Stacy in the Xmas liquid. Stacy tries to escape but Torrie lifts her skirt up and gives her a spanking before rolling her up for the win.
Well not much to say about this though I feel slightly weird reviewing another slop match. Those annoyed about what the Divas have to do today, just remind yourselves that at least they're not wrestling in pools full of god knows what. Slightly funny but after a week so Diva-light as the one before, I'd rather see an actual match. N/A


Smackdown:
Trish Stratus* def. Mighty Molly to retain the WWE Women's Championship:
The Women's Champion returns to the ring and so does Molly since the Alliance broke up. Bet the ladies of today wish they could get a title match after a month's absence. Molly was a heel back then but she is working as a face in this match. Pretty good opening with some nice display of wrestling including an innovative flying headscissors from Trish. Back body drop from the champ, followed by a sunset flip for two. Molly comes back with a backbreaker, elbow drop and snap suplex. Trish goes for the Stratusfaction but switches to a springboard sunset flip to get the win.
She doesn't have time to celebrate as none other than Jazz runs down to the ring to attack her. Molly tries to pull Jazz away from Trish but gets a DDT for her troubles. She then DDTs Trish and picks up the Women's title belt, pointing to it which is wrestling sign language for "I want this".
Less than five minutes for a segment and yet so much was accomplished. Let's start with the match - Trish and Molly always worked well together, even when Trish was so green. They were even having respectable matches that time the year before on Smackdown. Obviously it was short and not that impressive but it was a nice little match and did its job to put Trish over as a strong champion - now she's defeated Lita, Jacqueline, Stacy and now Molly so that gives her some strong build up. This is the start of her lengthy feud with Jazz, which many recognise as the start of the women's division going through a big boom for the next couple of years. Personally I can't wait to relive this feud. 6/10


These days we dismiss the brands as being useless and annoying but back here we can see that it was necessary to split things up at the time. Without separate rosters, more and more people got lost in the shuffle since neither Molly nor Jazz had been seen since Survivor Series and even Trish was having trouble getting on TV every week. Nonetheless the next few weeks should give us plenty of nice matches and nostalgia.

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