Monday Night Raw May 25th 2015
Lillian Garcia stood in the middle of the ring, with a dazzling smile on her face. "The next contest is a triple threat match to determine the number one contender for the WWE Divas Championship. The winner of the match will face Sarita Lopez at Elimination Chamber."
Brie Bella was the first to enter the arena, to a warm reception. As she did so, the commentators once again discussed the betrayal that Brie had suffered at the hands of her sister, Nikki.
Next, May Devany entered, her music also being greeted was a cheer. "All three women in this match are fan favourites," Cole said. "And at this point I don't think many people would mind which of the three win the Divas title from Sarita Lopez, as long as one of them can do it."
"You might be right," Booker T said. "But I want to see Ronda Rousey get her hands on Sarita one on one. I really want to see that."
By this point, May had rolled into the ring, and she and Brie stood face to face, exchanging words. Without wasting time, May threw the first punch, and the referee called for the bell. "We're underway, guys. This should be a good one," Saxton said as the crowd cheered May on while she got the upper hand on Brie with right hands.
Brie began to fight back after kicking May in the stomach, but many of the fans now had their attention on someone who wasn't even in the match as yet. The crowd began to chant Ronda's name, and within moments the chant had grown incredibly loud. With perfect timing, Ronda's music hit and the crowd erupted.
"Here she comes," Cole yelled. "Ronda Rousey's not one hundred per cent, but she's cleared to compete following her knee injury, and she wants her Divas title back."
"I think you'll find the Divas title belongs to Sarita Lopez," Saxton pointed out.
Although they were both popular, neither Brie or May stood a chance of being cheered over Ronda, so when she slid under the bottom rope and started going to work on both opponents with punches, both lefts and rights, the crowd roared her on as loudly as they could.
Over the next fifteen minutes, all three Divas generated near falls on each other, but the match never really looked likely to end as the third woman was always in the ring to break up the pin attempt in time. However, when May clotheslined Ronda over the top rope and turned around, only to walk right into a running knee from Brie, which seemed to come from nowhere, a three count definitely did seem possible. Brie covered May as quickly as she could, hooking her leg.
"One."
"Two."
May kicked out, drawing a cheer from the crowd as Brie slammed her hand on the mat in frustration at the referee. The referee held up two fingers and gestured that May's shoulder was up, but Brie wasn't happy about the call. She got up and made a point of arguing with the referee again, not noticing when the noise from the crowd rose significantly. The reason for this was that Ronda had just gotten back into the ring, and was now standing poised to strike, glaring at Brie.
"Brie," Saxton warned. "Don't turn around. You're going to get..."
Brie did exactly what Byron was trying to warn her against, turning around right into a huge clothesline from Ronda. "Boom!" The crowd all yelled as Brie was flattened to the canvas, looking like she had been hit by a bus rather than another woman.
"That's got to be all," Cole said as Ronda made a cover. The crowd joined in with the count, considering it a formality.
"One."
"Two."
"Wait a minute!" Cole yelled as the referee was yanked out of the ring by his ankle. Sarita Lopez was revealed as the person responsible. "Damn it! Ronda Rousey had the match won and Sarita Lopez pulled the referee out of the ring! I can't believe this! This is bull..."
"Careful." Booker warned him.
The crowd booed angrily at Sarita, who stood there with an arrogant smile on her face as the referee yelled at her for what she had just done. She was clearly very pleased with her actions. But then, as she turned back to face the ring, the smile froze on her face. She had just seen that Ronda was up, and staring at her with a look of pure anger on her face.
"Uh, Sarita? You might want to run," Saxton advised. Sarita had the same idea, and ran for her life as Ronda sprinted across the ring and jumped through the ropes. The crowd cheered Ronda on as the two women ran up the entrance ramp, disappearing through the curtain.
In the ring, Brie was up, and rather stupidly, she had decided to stand near the ropes, watching Sarita and Ronda as they ran away. Seeing this as she got to her feet, May ran at Brie from behind and caught her with her signature flying kick to the back of the head.
"Oh! Mayday!" Booker yelled. Brie had collapsed into an awkward position, making May's Five Star Frog Splash finishing move difficult to hit from three corners of the ring, and seemingly too far from the other one.
"No way," Cole said as May pointed to the top rope in the most distant corner, bringing the crowd to their feet. "She can't. Not from there."
"She's going to try," Booker said as May ran over to the corner and jumped up onto the top rope.
After taking a moment to line herself up correctly, May launched herself a truly incredible height into the air and almost easily flew the large distance towards Brie as phone camera flashes went off throughout the arena, accompanying the collective gasp of awe from the crowd.
"Unbelievable!" Cole shouted as May hit the move and rolled around holding her stomach in pain. "Surely it's over, if May can capitalise?"
Still holding her stomach, May crawled over and covered Brie as best she could.
"One."
"Two."
"Three." The crowd cheered loudly.
"May Devany did it," Cole said. "May Devany will meet Sarita Lopez at Elimination Chamber."
All three commentators hyped up the match which was now in prospect as May celebrated her victory.
Earlier that night
There was a real battle going on inside Ronda's head as she sat in the locker room which she shared with Seth, and it was a battle that she was losing. The battle had been going on for a period of days, but had worsened significantly over the last ten minutes, since she had sat down to read over her copy of the script for the night's show. The objective of the battle was to stop herself from letting her frustrations get the better of her. Since her previous meltdown and the confrontation with Stephanie McMahon, Ronda had been determined not to let the same thing happen again. As she sat there, though, Ronda's mood only got worse and worse by the second, until she could not contain herself any more.
"I'm going to the bathroom," she said to Seth, who was reading over and memorising the lines that he needed to deliver in the show's opening segment. She knew that she had to lie to him about where she was going, or the other cause of her frustration and anxiety would get a lot worse, too.
"You okay?" Seth asked, looking up from his script. "You've been quiet."
"Stomach feels a bit strange," Ronda lied offhandedly as she headed for the door.
"Something you ate?" Seth asked, noticing that she still had her script in her hand. That fact caused him to strongly suspect he was being lied to.
"Don't know," Ronda mumbled as she opened the door and left the room.
When the door banged closed behind her, Seth narrowed his eyes slightly and flicked through the pages of his own script, looking for the details of Ronda's match. There was not much to read on the relevant page. It simply said that May was to win the triple threat match, and that Sarita Lopez was to come out to pull the referee out of the ring when it appeared that Ronda had the match won with a clothesline. Ronda would then chase Sarita to the back, leaving May to beat Brie. How this was to take place was not specified, and would therefore be left to May and Brie to work out between themselves.
"For fuck's sake," Seth groaned under his breath as he decided that he had figured out exactly what Ronda's problem was, and where she was really going.
Hunter and Stephanie were in the middle of a conversation with John Cena when a loud knock came on their office door. Ronda walked in, looking a lot less than happy.
"Can we pick this up later?" Hunter said to Cena, not really making it sound like a question.
"Sure," John said easily. "Ronda," he smiled as he made to leave.
"John," Ronda nodded slightly.
When John closed the door behind himself, Hunter gave Ronda a slight smile in greeting. "You've got the facial expressions for this business Ronda, especially that one. So, what are you pissed off about?"
"This," Ronda said heatedly, raising the script in the air. "I mean, is there some kind of joke that I'm not in on or something?"
"Calm down," Stephanie said gently, as if she might have been talking to one of her young daughters. "Remember what we talked about before. Let's talk about whatever you're worked up about, without anyone losing their temper. Okay?"
Ronda blustered on, "How can I stay calm? I mean, really? You're having May fucking Devany become the number one contender while I fuck around every week, pretending to have a bad knee? Just level with me, Hunter. You are taking me for an idiot, right?"
"That's enough," Hunter insisted, his own voice rising. "You're not going to come into my office ranting and swearing like that. I don't care who you are, or who you think you are."
"Honey?" Stephanie interjected. "How about you give me a few minutes and we'll get this taken care of? You catch up to John and finish going through that stuff with him."
"Fine," Hunter huffed, heading for the door. "You're really disappointing me, Ronda," he added as a parting shot as he opened the door.
"Sit down, Ronda," Stephanie instructed, rubbing her eyes in frustration. Ronda sat down on the office's small couch and Stephanie pulled a chair over to sit opposite her. "I thought we were getting past this king of thing?"
"So did I, until I read this crap," Ronda said sullenly, slapping the script down on the couch beside her. "I want to wrestle, Steph. I want to win matches. I don't want to play this stupid..."
"Calm down," Stephanie urged again. "Take a breath and calm down. You need to think of the bigger picture, Ronda. This is all leading to something, trust me. You're going to get your payoff. We are all going to get the payoff. Do you honestly not think that this storyline is planned out a long way forward of this point?"
"I don't doubt that it's planned out. What I want to know is, is it planned out to continue to make me look stupid? I mean, running around after Sarita Lopez halfway through a number one contendership match? As if I would be that dumb."
As she watched the woman in front of her speaking, Stephanie could tell that there was more to Ronda's frustration than the creative for the match later on in the night. It was obvious to her. "You're going to like where we're going with this," she said pleasantly, and then paused for a moment. "This isn't the only problem you have though, is it?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ronda asked, guardedly.
"I can tell that you're frustrated about something else. Maybe this other thing is the real reason that you're here. You don't know how to ask for help, or who to ask, do you?" Stephanie knew that she had hit a bullseye when Ronda leaned forward and looked down at her own feet rather than looking her in the eye. "It's Seth, right?" Stephanie encouraged. "I mean, if it wasn't, I have to assume you would talk to him about whatever it was. I'm here to help, or just to listen, if that's what you want."
For a long moment a heavy silence hung in the room. "It's not working," Ronda mumbled eventually.
"Your relationship isn't working?" Stephanie asked delicately, even though she could tell perfectly well that this was what Ronda meant. She needed more information before she could offer any advice.
"We rushed into it. We rushed into it and I don't think he really loves me, now that he's getting to know me, I mean."
"Why do you say that?" Stephanie asked.
Ronda fiddled unnecessarily with her top, still avoiding looking at Stephanie. "I can just tell. He doesn't want to be with me. He wants to be with the person he thought I was when we met. I 've considered breaking it off with him, but I love him."
Stephanie felt for Ronda, but there was not much that she could do to help, other than steer Ronda in the direction that she had to go. "You need to talk to him, Ronda. It will be hard, but you need to do it. If he does feel the way that you think then yes, it will hurt, but you need to know. Not every relationship works out. You guys have only been together for a few months. We've all been in relationships with people that have gone that far and then we've realised that it's not working. That's life, sadly."
"What about you and Hunter?" Ronda asked, now looking at Stephanie, who could see the tears in her eyes. "You guys must have had it tough? In the beginning I mean."
"Tough?" Stephanie laughed once, humorlessly. "My dad forbade us from being together. We spent almost a year apart, even though we knew we loved each other and wanted to be together."
"Really?" Ronda asked, surprised. "You guys never gave up on it?"
Stephanie shook her head. "We knew that we loved each other. You need to figure out of you and Seth feel the same way, or if you need to accept that you're not the special people for each other, and let it be."
"Let it be?" Ronda whispered, feeling tears stinging her eyes again, thinking of the lyrics to one of her favourite songs by The Beatles. "There's a song..."
"I know," Stephanie said softly. "I was thinking of it when I said it."
Ronda wiped at her eyes. "I always thought that when Paul wrote that song, he was trying to tell their fans who listened to it when it was released that The Beatles were going to break up, and they should let it be."
"Maybe he was," Stephanie said. "Go and speak to Seth, Ronda. That's what you need to do. You know where I am if you need me. I'll straighten this out with Hunter, okay?"
"Thank you," Ronda said with an awkward attempt at a smile before standing and quickly walking out of the office, looking like she wanted to run.
Stephanie had been prepared to offer a hug, but she guessed that hugging wasn't Ronda's kind of thing. "Good luck," she said quietly to the closed door.
By the time Ronda had walked back to their locker room, she was almost looking forward to talking with Seth and clearing the air. She had done a good job of convincing herself that things would work themselves out. "Hey, sorry about before," she began as she walked through the door, but then stopped. The room was empty, not only of Seth, but of his belongings too.
A wave of sadness washed over Ronda as she sat down on the bench next to her things and picked up her phone. There was a text message from Seth.
I know you went to have another go at Hunter and Steph about the script. I can't keep supporting you with that childish bullshit. I need some space for few days. I think it will be best for both of us, so I've gone to change with Roman and Dean tonight. I'll call you in the week.
With something close to resignation, Ronda sighed, deleted the message and set her phone aside. There was a show to get ready for.
