WWE SmackDown Smacks and Downs: Bayley vs. Charlotte furthers Sasha Banks feud

Smack: a great match and great story

At this point, I think we all expect a great match when any of Bayley-Flair-Sasha Banks-Becky Lynch are involved in a match together. Those expectations are well placed considering the many memorable matches involving the four (going back to NXT). Last night was no different.

Bayley and Flair played their respective characters well and Bayley continues to bring a little more edge in the ring each week, something that ultimately paid off for her in this match.

Flair yelling at Bayley in the early stages of the match that she’s going to “teach (Bayley) how to be a champion” and that “there’s levels to this” irked me at first, but that’s also what Flair is supposed to do with her “genetically superior” character.

Flair saying those words to Bayley seemed misplaced considering Bayley is the first Grand Slam Women’s Champion in WWE and their recent track record against each other.

Heading into last night’s match, Bayley defeated Flair in two of their last three televised matches, including the two trading the Women’s Championship Bayley currently holds. Then again, that’s Flair’s character: no one could possibly measure up to her greatness.

I was a little unnerved by Flair showing a masochistic side as she kept smiling, laughing, and begging for more chops and strikes from Bayley, who was happy to oblige. It’s almost as if Flair felt the strikes and thought to herself, “That’s it? Wow, this is laughable!”

I malign Flair for many reasons (over-rotating on her moonsault every time, her melodic promos, her needing to be in every major angle, etc.), but her character work last night was fantastic.

Bayley, having told Banks to stay back in the locker room (seemingly to Banks’ chagrin), needed to win and wrestled the match as such. With these two knowing each other so well, their counters were warranted and I appreciated how different some of the counters were from previous matches.

I also appreciate how Bayley didn’t erupt in a tantrum after Flair kicked out of her flying elbow drop finisher, merely just nodding her head and saying, “OK, OK,” as if she knew beforehand that wouldn’t be enough to put Flair away.

Side note: did anyone else notice that just before the first commercial break in the match after Flair sent Bayley over the barricade outside, Flair rolled back inside the ring to pose to the hard camera but didn’t break up referee Drake Wuertz’s count? They went to commercial right after he counted “9.”

Did Bayley somehow jump the barrier and make it back inside within one count? Did Flair quickly head outside to restart the count, or instruct the ref that’s not how she wanted to win? They came back with no mention of this, so Wuertz must have stopped his count after the break. This is a nitpick, sure, but it’s also a shining example of the lack of detail we’ve come to (sadly) expect from WWE.

The finish worked for me because it put Bayley over strong while keeping Flair strong. Bayley showed great ring awareness by using the ropes for leverage on her pin she used to counter out of Flair’s attempt at her Figure Eight.

Flair, who probably was more dominant in the match, shouldn’t lose very much steam (if at all) for losing to a rope-assisted leverage pin. After all, she is in the number one contender’s triple threat match on Monday’s RAW against Nia Jax and Natalya to see who faces Women’s Champion Asuka at Backlash.

(By the way, did you know the tagline for the PPV is “The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever,” and not just for Edge and Randy Orton? As my colleague Chris Jeter said, “Every match will be 10 stars!”)

WWE also furthered the story of the tension between Bayley and her best friend, Banks. As the WWE on FOX Twitter account noted, many fans saw their hearts skip a beat during the backstage interaction when Bayley asked Banks, “You didn’t think I could do it, did you?” and Banks’ face looked like, “Well….” only for Bayley to say she was joking.

What will next week hold for the duo? Who will be Bayley’s challenger at Backlash? I, for one, am intrigued to see what happens next.

Also, did they ever clarify if this counted as Flair’s second of four Brand to Brand Invitationals after appearing for a promo last week? Does RAW Monday make it a third? Is it only for matches wrestled, meaning last night was her first and Monday is second?

I know they’ll completely forget about their own rules (see: Wildcard Rule), but I just like to keep track so I can call them on misapplication of their own rules.