The return of Lita & Trish Stratus should feel like a bigger deal

Third time’s a charm?

From Trish Stratus vs. Alexa Bliss and Lita vs. Mickie James to Trish and Lita vs. Alexa and Mickie and now we are at Trish and Lita vs. Mickie and Alicia Fox.

The story so far

If the build to Trish vs. Alexa has felt like it has gone for months, your instincts are correct. Bliss vs. Stratus was announced one day before the Five Feet of Fury defended her Raw women’s title versus Ronda Rousey at SummerSlam.

On Sept. 3, Lita vs. Mickie James was announced as another single match for Evolution. The Lita vs. James match-up would have been a rematch of the pair’s 2006 Survivor Series WWE women’s title bout.

The build to Evolution

With rumors and reports of Bliss being off the house show circuit with an injury, the two match-ups at Evolution were folded into a tag match on the Oct. 8 edition of Raw. James causally brought up the idea of a tag match and Stratus was left looking for a partner.

It was a extremely tough (and short) decision for Stratus as Lita’s music hit and she came out to help save her partner from a Bliss and James attack. Let the record show, Lita’s entrance music is still one of the top 10 best in the WWE today.

The go-home show

On the final Raw before Evolution, Bliss was mysteriously absent from the backstage brawl. Two days before the scheduled match between Trish, Lita, Alexa and Mickie, the WWE added Alicia Fox to the match and put Bliss in the corner of her allies.

With the possibility of seeing Lita and Trish Stratus in two separate singles matches still fresh on our heads, devolving into what looks like a standard tag match is a tough pill to swallow. Two WWE legends are coming back for their first matches in awhile, and maybe the best move is to have them in a tag match to shake off the ring rust.

Lita and Trish vs. Alicia and Mickie feels more like a Raw match-up then a main card bout set for WWE’s ground breaking pay-per-view event. From a pure fan/fantasy booking perspective, would it have been better to put Lita and Trish in separate matches on separate brands?

What if Lita had an one off feud built on a few NXT or SmackDown episodes? What if the WWE leaned on Stratus’ appearance in the Royal Rumble and built a story around her versus Sasha Banks or Bayley?

Lita and Trish are back which is great but we just wish they were in a different kind of match with a much better story to build on.

Tune into cSs for full bell-to-bell coverage of Evolution this Sunday starting at 6:00 p.m. ET with the Kickoff show leading right on into the main card at 7:00 p.m. ET.