Fox vs. Paige – Step Up & Down
To clarify, Alicia Fox gets a step up, and the Divas Champion gets a step down. Given that one beat the other, clean, in the loser's home town, it should be obvious why.
As I've said, Fox's new crazy gimmick works for me. I like her character – she's interesting for the first time in her career. That's six years, for those not keeping track. While I like the new direction, and I'm excited that WWE is building up a contender to a title that has largely not mattered, there has to have been a better way to do it than sacrificing a brand new champion's credibiliity. And I mean sure, anybody can beat any opponent on "any given Sunday", as the old football mantra states. But come in – they were in London!
If you want to make Paige pay her dues on the main roster, that's fine, but don't do it while she's the champion. Don't kick her legs out from under her before she even has a shot at doing something memorable. Could they not have given Alicia a surprise win over somebody like Natalya? Wouldn't that have potentially meant MORE in the long run? Wouldn't it have been BETTER to have both the champion and the challenger looking good going into a title fight? Or was this the only way creative could think to actually get Fox in the picture?
I'm sure this is less of a deal than I'm making of it, but I'm kind of a mark for Paige at the moment (read: good women's wrestling), and feel like they should be better protecting a 21-year-old who could very well be the future of the business.