RAW: Tag Team Turmoil
This week’s RAW kicked off with women’s division tag team action—rowdy women’s division tag team action, even—as Ronda Rousey and Natalya teamed up against Nia Jax and Tamina. The intent was for the RAW Women’s Champion and her challenger to give the WWE Universe a little preview of what’s in store for the TLC pay-per-view. But before the match could even begin, The Riott Squad came out, giving Jax and Tamina the perfect opening to get the drop on their opponents. (The match never got underway after that).
While Rousey of course tried to fight back, Jax and Tamina were able to overpower her with the damn numbers game, and the same fate came for Natalya against The Riott Squad. Things looked even worse for Natalya as the Squad first attempted to put her through a table at ringside (it really is TLC season), but again, Rousey attempted to fight back to save her… Only, Jax and Tamina cut Rousey off, leading to Jax hitting her with the leg drop, right before the Squad finally put Natalya through the table (with a combination superkick from Ruby Riott and a double powerbomb from Liv Morgan and Sarah Logan).
“Ronda Rousey is seriously hurt. Natalya is seriously hurt.” — Michael Cole
After this, WWE officials finally came out to help, as Nia Jax and Tamina stormed off and The Riott Squad laughed and waved as they casually strolled out. Although, it seems they didn’t help all that much, as Rousey and Natalya ended up walking backstage alone, with the champ demanding any sort of help for her wounded friend. And one thing was for certain: Rousey wanted payback.
After the Sasha Banks/Bayley open forum (take two) segment, Rousey found Alexa Bliss backstage to address that need for payback, as well as Bliss’ general inability to run the women’s division well. While Bliss told Rousey she sent the Squad home as punishment (which, funnily enough, was the truth), that wasn’t enough to calm “The Baddest Woman on the Planet.” In fact, she still wanted to get her hands on Tamina and Jax, no matter where in the arena it happened. Instead, Bliss decided to allow the previously scheduled tag team match to be put back on later tonight, even offering to find Rousey a tag team partner to replace Natalya. Of course, knowing Bliss relatively well, Rousey decided to go find her own partner instead.
Toward the end of the night, Charly Caruso spoke to Nia Jax and Tamina backstage to inform them that Rousey’s partner (as first announced on WWE social media) would be someone they both knew very well: Ember Moon. Jax cut an intimating promo—even threatening Charly, a backstage interviewer—about beating both Ember and Rousey, and it was… unpleasant. But the point was simple: Their plan tonight was to isolate Ronda Rousey.
The tag team actually main evented this week’s RAW, and unfortunately for Tamina and Jax, the isolation plan didn’t quite work. That’s probably because the plan appeared to be more about isolating and decimating Ember Moon, actually avoiding Rousey as much as humanly possible. But even that’s a plan that didn’t quite work—though Jax was quite capable when it came to isolating herself away from Rousey—and the makeshift duo of Ember Moon and Ronda Rousey were at least able to take down Tamina for the win, with an Eclipse/armbar combination.
Ronda Rousey may not have been able to get total