This is not an indictment of Lexi Kaufman, the person, in any way, shape or form. She’s not my personal favorite, but she’s a confident performer who WWE clearly trusts to carry angles and segments on the microphone and who they have no concerns about putting in high profile matches, either.
Nor is it an examination of her behind-the-scenes life as it appears on social media, in rumor reports or on reality shows. If you’ve got opinions on that, nothing I or anyone says is likely to change them anyway.
This is about how confused I am about how the Alexa Bliss character has been presented on-screen of late. And genuine bewilderment at how that presentation is supposed to help Bliss, or anyone else in Raw’s re-worked Women’s division.
For starters, coming out of her hosting gig at WrestleMania 35, it seemed like WWE might be testing our a babyface run for the Goddess. She defeated an angry-acting Bayley clean, then spoke up for the fans during Sami Zayn’s epic appearance on A Moment of Bliss in Montreal:
That was then. For the past couple weeks, she’s been back to her conniving/cowardly heel act. Which she’s good at, but it feels kind of been there-done that as opposed to the freshness of her possibly playing a fan favorite for the first time on the main roster. And considering how long it’s been since she was a regular in-ring performer, there’s not a lot of momentum behind her in that role.
How does WWE try to change that? By making her entrance into the Money in the Bank ladder match, which could very well serve as her re-entry into the Raw Women’s title picture, mostly about her... shoes?
And in case the match set-up focusing on Alexa’s ill-fitting footwear, and the outcome of her match to Naomi itself hinging on a sneaker malfunction, didn’t drive the point home that her Converse were the most important element of this angle... the five-time champ got a fallout interview that was focused on her shoes, too...
In a division reeling from the loss of Ronda Rousey and Sasha Banks, there’s really no time for indecision from Creative about alignments. The scene where four possible title contenders are introduced for the Money in the Bank ladder match shouldn’t end up leading to match where both the winner and the loser look bad because the focus was on shoes. Raw’s weeks past the Superstar Shake-up and almost a month past WrestleMania. There’s nothing lined up for Becky Lynch or Lacey Evans after the May pay-per-view (PPV) - let alone the many, many shows which will follow Money in the Bank.
The last batch of episodes could have been spent establishing a new identity for Alexa Bliss, or re-building her old one. She could have been racking up wins to make her look like a credible threat for the champ, or putting over another challenger who’d long stronger for having beaten a multi-time titleholder.
Instead, she’s done had a turn teased and been 50/50-ed in a some inconsequential matches. And everything having to do with the Raw Women’s division’s remained in the same place.
Coming out of the historic first-ever women’s main event at MetLife Stadium, the scene n WWE’s flagship brand shouldn’t look so... meh. But it does, and we only need look to how they’ve booked Alexa Bliss since the Showcase of the Immortals for examples of several reasons why.