Reviewing Raquel Rodriguez's Villainous Return at WWE's Bad Blood

We all saw it coming, but what we did not see was how slightly messy it was. Even so, it was pretty cool and I loved it. So the first Bad Blood event in 20 years featured, among other things, the Women's World Championship contest between Rhea Ripley and Liv Morgan. It's been a long uphill battle for Rhea ever since she returned from injury. Liv's sinister Revenge Tour saw her succeed in taking everything from Rhea: her faction, Dom, and in Liv's mind, her title, but Rhea never lost that title.

Bad Blood was Rhea's latest chance to regain the title, and to make sure that she would have a fair fight, Dominik Mysterio would have to be locked up in a shark cage and hoisted above the ring. So Liv's ace in the hole was out of the way. Even so, Liv was quite confident that she would walk out of Atlanta as champion, and would finally put Rhea behind her. It didn't look good for Liv or Dom at first. Liv was losing, and while Dom did manage to get the cage door open, he ended up left literally hanging by a thread.

Liv was down and out, but Rhea decided to punish Dom for, well, existing. With a kendo stick in her hand, Rhea delivers a Gleyber Torres-esque swing (Torres homered for the Yankees in Game One of the ALDS) to Dom, and continues having her fun with her traitorous ex-boyfriend.

However, a certain someone decided to spoil Rhea's fun...big time:

Out of nowhere, Raquel Rodriguez appeared and attacked Rhea from behind, and after delivering two shots to Rhea, she tossed Rhea back into the ring, and gave that evil scowl that tells us that she's a heel now. Raquel placed Liv on top of Rhea for the pin, but one problem. The bell rang during the attack. So it's a DQ win for Rhea. That was not part of the plan. That was definitely not part of Raquel's evil plan. The plan was for Raquel to attack Rhea behind the referee's back, and then Liv defeats Rhea in the ring. Instead, the attack was caught, so we have a DQ finish.

Even so, Raquel turned heel for the first time in three years, and this was needed. It was part of my list of turns that needed to happen this year, and I'm happy that five of the ten I listed have occurred. Now to the million dollar question. Why would Raquel side with Liv? It's actually an easy question to answer. Raquel does have a long history with Rhea, and shes been tag champs with Liv, but it's how Rhea recently plagued Raquel and Liv together. Rhea's attack towards both women several months ago actually ended up costing them the tag titles. So with all of that still in her mind, the evil Raquel decided to take this opportunity to enact her own revenge against Rhea, and align with Liv in their shared villainous quest.

Is it me, or is Rhea Ripley basically WWE's equivalent of Xena? Before I continue, I want to tell anyone born after 2005 that I did not misspell John Cena's surname. Once upon a time, there was a show called, Xena: Warrior Princess, and of course, Xena (played very brilliantly by Lucy Lawless) was the central protagonist. Of course, in actuality, Xena was actually a villainess, a former evil warrior who spent every episode looking to right the wrongs she committed. Most antagonists were usually people Xena plagued, with the main recurring one being Callisto, we all remember her. Rhea's in the same boat, a former villainess now fighting as a heroine, but now dealing with villainous foes who Rhea plagued when said foes were on the side of good. So yeah, if Rhea is Xena, clearly Liv is Callisto.

And there's Raquel in the standard "evil enforcer pose," which I love. We should hear Raquel reveal her villainous motive as soon as Monday's Raw, but one has to wonder how long this will last. The DQ finish that shouldn't have happened should lead to one more title contest, which Liv should win. I could see Rhea and Raquel in their own side feud for a while, and it would be just as gripping and violent as their NXT battle was. But what happens after that? A thought I had could see Raquel actually turn on Liv down the line, maybe in time for WrestleMania? Who knows?

For now, I'll enjoy seeing Raquel's evil side back in full form after three years. She will definitely make things very interesting in Raw's Women's Division, and I can't wait to see what develops!