Sasha And Becky Battle For The Chance To Face Charlotte

Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch have faced each other at both Raw and Smackdown this week. The results of both matches were inconclusive. The match on Raw ended in both being pinned at the same time. The match on Smackdown ended with Charlotte interfering. It seems even more likely that both faces will get the title shot at Wrestlemania.

I am just going to talk about that Raw match. That was a disappointing match. I am not going to over-analyze the entire match. Aside from a few nice sequences, the action was pretty mediocre. And people were supposed to buy this as something more. The finish, moreover, was the ugliest planned end to a match I have seen since Lesnar vs. Undertaker at Summerslam last year. The setup to the finish was just not smooth. It wasn't botched. It just didn't look believable.

I saw some fans in the audience getting into it. But that really wasn't an amazing performance. The potential was definitely there. There just were not enough big spots to warrant this being considered an awesome performance. There was more bark than bite in this match. Hype was there, but the action did not live up to it. The WWE needs to develop these matches better. I understand they want to sell Becky and Sasha as equals, but the action is becoming overrated. These women also need to step it up. What they have done in NXT created some high expectations. Fans are either going to be disappointed or lower their standards to accept mediocrity as something more amazing than it is.

Looking at the actual feud development, it is probably a good thing this is a three-way feud. The development of this feud does not feel like anything special and there are still a few weeks to go to build it. They will not be able to build this in an interesting matter. Of course, that doesn't matter to some fans. They are already sold on this title match because of the women involved. But how is the WWE going to inject heat into this feud? By having Charlotte just continue to tease Becky and Sasha can't trust each other? There are no injured or dead relatives the WWE can have the heel utilize to add that "edgy" feel. If this was a singles feud, it would be worse.  There was potential for Becky/Charlotte to be a great elaborate feud, but it has not been built up to that and I have no confidence in the WWE to handle that rivalry well in the coming weeks. Sasha/Charlotte would have been even harder to keep interesting. But all three of these women are involved and it gives the WWE more of an opportunity to properly fill up time until Wrestlemania. I still have no confidence in how they will handle it. So far, the development has not been too amazing.

Moving on to ratings for a moment, Raw did well this week. There was still a decrease from the previous week. Impressive would have been if Raw saw an increase. That would mean the Shane vs. Undertaker angle really succeeded in creating buzz, not to mention Taker made an appearance on Raw this week. Getting about 3.72 million viewers for this time of year still cannot be seen as a huge victory. But it wasn't a huge decrease from the previous week and it is surely better than record lows. Let's see if Shane McMahon draws next week.