This is the sixth week of the WWE Mixed Match Challenge, a half-hour show featuring a 12-team mixed tag tournament between Raw and Smackdown, in which each team is battling to win $100,000 for their chosen charity.
The episodes air live on Facebook Watch at 10 p.m. every Tuesday night, but you can watch the new episode any time you want. Last week, Rusev and Lana redefined their characters in relation to each other, Bayley took the pin, and Elias was also there.
This week’s episode features Charlotte Flair and Bobby Roode, fighting on behalf of Girl Up, in a match against Nia Jax and Apollo, fighting on behalf of Susan G. Komen. WWE must have noticed people pointing out that fighting on behalf of charities is a little weird in a worked tournament, so they’ve started mentioning that every charity represented in the MMC gets $10,000 just for playing along.
Now let’s take a quick look at this week’s teams, before we dive into the match itself:
The Robe Warriors: Making It Look Easy
It’s probably just me, but Charlotte Flair and Bobby Roode have my favorite dynamic in the Mixed Match Challenge. They’re not old friends like Sasha and Finn or Becky and Sami. They’re not comedy characters like Big E and Carmella. They’re certainly not playing to a romance angle like Braun and Alexa. Charlotte and Bobby are playing it straight and that works for them: They’re two people who love wrestling, respect each other’s abilities, and are proud to be a team.
There’s also the aspect where Bobby idolizes Ric Flair and now gets to work closely with his daughter. Charlotte attempting to teach him to strut and “woo” is a fun touch, especially since Bobby’s almost certainly been practicing those moves since he was like eight.
I guess what I love about the two of them is that it’s so rare to see a dynamic between a man and a woman in wrestling (or most of pop culture, honestly) that’s based primarily on respect. Charlotte and Bobby are both born heels who are currently faces, and as such they’re both kind of defined by knowing who great they are. What’s interesting is that they also each seem to respect how great the other is. There’s never even a hint that Bobby thinks Charlotte is any less capable because she’s a woman, or that Charlotte judges Bobby for being a bit of a Flair tribute act. They just seem to get along, and I’m into that.
Nia and Apollo: Making It Look Very Complicated And Messy
Let’s talk about Apollo. Losing his last name is not the worst thing that happened to him this week. Actually, I kind of think the name change, no matter why it happened, is a plus. He used to be named after a Rocky character and a sitcom actor. Now he’s named after a Sun God. No disrespect to Terry Crews or Apollo Creed, but that’s a step up. No, the worst thing that happened to Apollo this week was being the fifth or sixth most important person in a four-person match.
The story of Nia Jax teaming with Apollo, from day one, has been about Nia’s distaste for Titus Worldwide. That’s understandable, since the whole point of Apollo being in Titus Worldwide is that he doesn’t seem to have much personality on his own. Apollo’s just so great in every other way though, that it’s consistently disappointing to see him fail to rise up and become as entertaining as those surrounding him. Titus O’Neil and Dana Brooke may not be the best wrestlers in the company, but they’re great at doing comedy bits and bellowing loudly from ringside. As such they make great foils for Nia, whose real-life sense of humor and refusal to put up with nonsense has now bled into her once-taciturn monster character, to great effect.
The Match: Getting In Their Own Way
WWE has done a pretty good job of training me not to expect much when it comes to longterm storytelling or any real acknowledgment of character history. So imagine my surprise when Charlotte gave Dana Brooke the shadiest little wave and called out “Dana! It’s nice to see you,” adding as an aside, “That’s my protégé.” Later in the match Charlotte’s knocked to the floor outside the ring, and Dana just stands over her yelling angrily, although you can’t hear what she’s saying over Titus, who of course is also yelling. It’s actually better that you can’t hear her, though. The nature of Dana’s relationship with Charlotte was always a bit elliptical and open to subtextual readings (although it was nothing compared to the subtextual feast that was her relationship with Emma), so it’s more fun to imagine exactly what she’s still mad about a year later.
The match was good—everyone performed their usual physical feats. At the end of the match, Apollo did his standing moonsault, immediately followed by Charlotte doing her top rope moonsault. This should have been an amazing one-two punch (albeit from opposing teams), but Bobby got his knees up and Charlotte’s landing looked a bit awkward. Basically, whatever wrestling was going on, the story remained about Titus Worldwide. That worked for this match, but it does make me wonder where the faction is headed. After they lose (with Apollo taking the pin, naturally) Nia gets on the mic and tells Titus and Dana that they’re losers, then gives Titus a shove that takes him off his feet. The best part is Dana trying to punch Nia, Nia catching her hand, and then Dana trying to talk her way out of it before taking a Samoan drop.
Again, all of this is fun, but Titus Worldwide, strange as it seems, are supposed to be babyfaces, and I get tired of WWE telling me that babyfaces are losers and then wondering why they fail to get over. But of course, this is the Mixed Match Challenge, a strange alternate world where nothing that happens necessarily effects the rest of WWE continuity. Back on RAW, Creative can continue their ongoing slow-burn storyline of definitely not having any specific storyline planned for Titus Worldwide.
You can watch the whole thing yourself right now, on Facebook Watch.
The Future: Quarter-Finals!
The first round is complete! That means that next week, Finn Bálor and Sasha Banks face off against the Miz and Asuka in the first match of the quarter-finals. This will probably be where the Miz/Asuka team explodes, leading to Finn and Sasha facing Braun and Alexa in the Semi-Finals. Yes it’s true, this tournament has proven almost comically predictable so far, but there’s so much fun stuff in it that I don’t even really care.
As for this week’s teams, the Robe Warriors will return in Week 9 to face Rusev and Lana. The winner of that match (almost certainly Bobby and Charlotte) will go on to fight the team that wins the Second Chance fan vote (which let’s be real, is definitely going to be Big E and Carmella). Meanwhile, Nia Jax will presumably stay as far away from Titus Worldwide as possible, although if there’s time on Raw she might squash Dana Brooke just for fun. That’s what Dana’s there for, after all.
That’s all for this week. Join us next time when Boss Club faces Team Awwwwsuka.
