86.
Tag-Team Turmoil
Billie Kay & Carmella vs. Lana & Naomi vs. Liv Morgan & Ruby Riott vs.Dana Brooke & Mandy Rose vs. Natalya & Tamina
Wrestlemania 37 - Night 1
It’s a sad state of the women’s tag division at the time that this match exists on Wrestlemania. Winner of this match faces for the women’s tag team championships at Night 2 of Wrestlemania - a match that features one properly established team, and three makeshift teams that are set to face the makeshift champions the following night.
I’ll come outright and say that Billie Kay is the biggest disaster of this match and pretty much single handedly brings this otherwise below average yet inoffensive match onto this list. You have to do something quite special to make Lana, fucking Lana, look like Ricky Steamboat in there. There’s a good 30 second section of wrestling which might just be the worst piece of wrestling in Wrestlemania history where Billie first completely screws up on a tilt-a-whirl bump, wildly and embarrassingly flails at thin air while Naomi hits the ropes, and then sells a similarly whiffed kick from Lana. It’s as ugly as anything from the infamous Jackie Gayda tag match. She’s uncoordinated, her timing is all over the place, and she can’t bump for shit. She looked every bit the untrained wrestler that Jackie Gayda was, but without the excuse that she actually was that. She had been wrestling for over 10 years at this point, compared to Gayda’s 3 televised matches, yet she didn’t look like she’d stepped foot in a ring before.
Carmella assists Billie Kay in eliminating Naomi and Lana ensuring that the pain had to continue a bit longer. At the very least Lana is out, and they’re replaced by the Riott Squad who spend the whole match trying to get something good out of what was around them.
I somewhat enjoyed the IIconics outside the ring, they were funny characters when given the right material. But once they got in the ring the pair of them were bad, both in terms of their wrestling ability and - most obnoxiously - their incessant screeching. That’s on full display here. In an era where women’s wrestling is supposed to be taken more seriously on a show main evented by Bianca Belair and Sasha Banks, having her and Lana in this match feels incredibly out of place.
Once Billie Kay and Carmella are out, the match improves significantly, although that is a low bar to clear. Mandy and Dana come to the ring - edited from the Network version is Mandy Rose’s Ultimo Dragon-esque trip.That’s not to say the match isn’t without its problems after this point. Dana and Mandy are no special talents, but thanks to Liv’s bumping and the general work of the Riott Squad it is a lot better in the second half. Even the ring announcer gets in on the misery, declaring that the Riott Squad had been eliminated, despite the fact that it was actually Dana and Lana who were out.
The final team out is Natalya and Tamina, who I’m afraid to say are two of my least favourite wrestlers on the roster. I am not a fan of talents that just exist for nearly a decade without changing anything about their character or significantly improving. They don’t do anything offensive, outside of Natalya waiting around for the sharpshooter for entirely too long before deciding to tag in Tamina for the win. The wrong team won, as Natalya and Tamina are old news, whereas at least the Riott Squad were a somewhat interesting team. The following night they’d have a mediocre match with Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler, although inexplicably Tamina got some great reactions on Night 2. I don’t understand it, but good for her at least.
Up Next - Billy Gunn debuts his new gimmick against the man that would save his career.
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