Chelsea Green slapped Roxanne Perez in the head and immediately discovered that hitting Roxanne Perez in the head hurts.
This was tremendous.
Perez was hanging backwards over the ring apron, her head suspended in precisely the sort of position that makes professional wrestling seem like a particularly elaborate workplace accident. Green saw the opportunity, raised her hand, and cracked it across her head.
Then she recoiled.
Green shook the offending hand and stared at it with the wounded disbelief of somebody who had just touched a baking tray they had personally removed from the oven.
Across ringside, Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez watched.
Their expressions were magnificent.
Not angry. Not particularly worried about Roxanne, either. Mostly disturbed.
Chelsea Green arrived on Monday Night RAW as the WWE Women’s Champion and, within minutes, apparently convinced The Judgment Day she was some strange creature that had wandered into the building.
That’s when this match started to get fun.
Chelsea Green Is Very Good At Being Chelsea Green
The October 12 episode of Monday Night RAW was never really supposed to be about Chelsea Green against Roxanne Perez.
Green had crossed over from SmackDown to confront Women’s World Champion Liv Morgan ahead of their Champion vs Champion meeting at Crown Jewel on November 7. Perez intervened, words turned into a challenge, and suddenly Green had an impromptu non-title match against The Judgment Day’s resident prodigy.
Much more was happening beneath that simple setup.
Perez had beaten Green before. Twice, in fact.
Rok-C and Miranda Alize defeated Green and Willow Nightingale in Ring of Honor in 2021, before Perez beat Green again while defending the NXT Women’s Championship in 2024. A win here would make it 3-0 across ROH, NXT, and RAW.
Some wrestlers’ real skill rests on making everything look devastatingly realistic. Some wrestlers can turn a sequence of counters into something approaching choreography.
Green can make a hand shake after a slap feel important.
That is a skill too.
And this match became significantly better once it understood that.
Somebody Apparently Forgot To Tell Chelsea this was Roxanne
The actual wrestling wasn’t iwasn’tate.
There were awkward moments early, particularly as they tried to establish the match. That seems to have shown up in the broader reception, too, with the bout sitting at 5.19/10 from 53 valid Cagematch votes in the supplied data.
Then everyone started flying around ringside, and the match found itself.
Green launched herself through the ropes and wiped out both Roxanne and Raquel.
Not one.
Both.
This was supposed to be Chelsea wandering onto enemy territory to face a Judgment Day member, with the rest of the group lurking nearby. Instead, she briefly decided the best strategy was to attack the entire faction at once.
Excellent.
Liv Morgan tried running at her.
Chelsea caught her.
Into the announce table she went.
Suddenly, the WWE Women’s Champ caused complete havoc. Raquel was down. Liv had been introduced to the furniture. Roxanne was recovering.
Chelsea had, somehow, won the battle.
Unfortunately, a wrestling match was still technically happening.
Perez slipped back inside.
Green followed.
Pop Rox.
One.
Two.
Three.
Roxanne Perez had beaten Chelsea Green again.
For all the chaos Green created, the finish was almost beautifully straightforward. Chelsea spent so much time fighting people who weren’t her opponent that her actual opponent simply got back in the ring and beat her.
Very Chelsea Green.
Roxanne Perez Just Beat The Woman Liv Morgan Has To Beat
That result is considerably more interesting than it initially appears.
Perez didn’t steal it from some random roster member.
She pinned the reigning WWE Women’s Champion. More importantly, she pinned the woman Liv Morgan is preparing to face at Crown Jewel.
More importantly, she pinned the woman Liv Morgan is preparing to face at Crown Jewel.
Perez is nominally part of Morgan’s support structure within The Judgment Day, yet she’s now ahead of something Morgan still needs to do. The supplied match information also makes this Perez’s third over Green across three different promotions.
A lovely little problem is buried inside that.
If Liv beats Chelsea, she has done what Roxanne already did.
If Chelsea beats Liv, Roxanne can reasonably point out that she did what the Women’s World ChampWomen’sldn’t.
Neither could Perez look particularly subordinate.
Perhaps nothing comes from that immediately.
It doesn’t need to.
It doesn’t work when someone leaves a loaded object on the table without immediately picking it up and firing it.
Roxanne Perez just put one there.
Unfortunately, Chelsea Green Wasn’t Finished
The bell had rung. This would normally be the point when everyone goes home.
Chelsea had other ideas.
Liv approached her and started talking.
Chelsea responded in the most Chelsea Green manner available.
She slapped her.
Apparently the Roxanne experience had taught her nothing about slapping members of The Judgment Day.
This time there were consequences.
Raquel and Roxanne descended on Green, and suddenly the woman who had spent the closing stages of the match attacking everyone at ringside discovered the downside.
The numbers swallowed her.
Then came Liv Morgan.
Oblivion.
Chelsea hit the canvas.
And the silliness disappeared.
Liv Morgan Only Needed One Foot
Liv stood above Chelsea Green and placed one boot across her midsection.
Championship raised overhead.
That was the image.
After everything else, the slap, Chelsea hurting her own hand, Raquel and Liv staring at her as though they had just encountered an unexplained animal, the suicide dive, the announce table and Pop Rox, WWE ended the segment with something remarkably simple.
Liv standing.
Chelsea underneath her.
The championship above them both.
It wasn’t subtle.
It didn’t need to be subtle, louder, stranger, or considerably more dangerous than everyone expected. She had attacked Roxanne, Raquel and Liv in the space of several minutes and still found time to turn injuring her own hand into a joke.
Green spent tdidn’tch louder, stranger, and considerably more dangerous than everyone expected. She had attacked Roxanne, Raquel and Liv in the space of several minutes and still found time to turn injuring her own hand into a joke.
But Crown Jewel isn’t Chelsea Green against The Intent Day.
It’s Chelsea Green against Liv Morgan.
And Liv wanted the final image to make the hierarchy unmistakable.
One foot was enough.
The interesting thing is that Roxanne Perez had already complicated that message.
Liv Morgan stood over the WWE Women’s Champion, looking every inch the dominant champion heading towards Crown Jewel.
Standing nearby was the woman who had actually beaten her.
Sometimes wrestling accidentally leaves the most interesting story just outside the camera’s centre.
