With Eva Marie suspended from the WWE from the next month, many wondered who would replace her in the SummerSlam 2016 women's tag team match from the SmackDown Live side
of the roster. Some thought Billie Kay or Bayley or Asuka might make an
appearance coming up from NXT since they're in town after Takeover
anyways, but WWE surprised everyone by having former Divas Champion
Nikki Bella make her return nearly nine months after undergoing neck
surgery.
The entrances for the match
initially faked out the crowd, running Eva Marie's entrance music and
movie-trailer voiceover after her teammates, Natalya and Alexa Bliss,
had been introduced. Instead of having Eva come out, though, the
voiceover explained that she "needed time off to recover from
exhaustion" because of "incredibly negative fans." The truth is that she
was suspended this week because of a violation of WWE's wellness
policy, but it made for a great moment of storytelling -- and when Nikki
Bella's music hit, the crowd exploded to see her make her return.
It took a few minutes to see
Nikki back in the ring as her teammates
worked against Naomi, Carmella,
and fellow crowd favorite Becky Lynch, but she certainly made her
presence felt. She may not have pushed quite as hard as she did before
her neck injury, but Nikki proved she's ready to compete again, taking a
superkick and bronco buster from Carmella to show that her neck is
healthy, and then putting her away with a Bellahammer clothesline and a
big swinging neckbreaker to get the pinfall.
It's fantastic to see Nikki Bella make her return, because she had taken massive
strides to improve in and out of the ring before her injury. She's
going to help propel the women's division to new heights, and she'll be
right at the heart of the women's title picture on SmackDown once their new title is established.
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