Chelsea Green and IYO SKY defeated Roxanne Perez and Raquel Rodriguez on WWE Raw on October 19, with SKY pinning Women’s Intercontinental Champion Rodriguez after countering her power into a hurricanrana-style pin.
That is the result. The more interesting part is how WWE got there.
Because this was another good night for Chelsea Green without Chelsea actually needing to win the match herself.
A week after Roxanne Perez pinned the WWE Women’s Champion, Green arrived in San Diego with backup, a point to prove and Liv Morgan hovering around ringside ahead of Crown Jewel.
IYO SKY was the backup.
And suddenly a storyline that could easily have become another exercise in Judgment Day numerical superiority had something much more interesting running through it.
Why did Chelsea Green and IYO SKY team together on WWE Raw?
The alliance came together after Judgment Day spent the previous week treating Green with roughly the amount of respect normally afforded to an expired parking ticket.
Perez had already pinned her. Liv Morgan then hit Green with Oblivion. Raquel Rodriguez subsequently called her a “temporary champion”, while Morgan’s broader dismissal of Green as a placeholder continued to hang over the feud.
Green responded backstage in the most Chelsea Green manner possible.
“I may be many things: tall, gorgeous, tanned, big-brained… But one thing I am not is a scaredy-cat.”
Fortunately for her, IYO SKY was also there.
“Hey! You two need to learn respect,” SKY told Rodriguez and Perez. “Raquel, last week you just talk, talk, talk, talk. This week, you disrespect WWE Women’s Champion.”
And there was the match.
It also gave SKY an obvious reason to be involved. Rodriguez holds the Women’s Intercontinental Championship. Beat the champion and suddenly you have a pretty compelling argument for getting a title match.
Simple wrestling mathematics.
IYO SKY and Roxanne Perez started with actual wrestling
Perez and SKY opened the match and, before everything inevitably descended into people flying into barricades and Liv Morgan stealing clothing, we got some lovely wrestling.
Arm locks. Side-to-side movement. Counters.
REAL WRASSSSSSLIN’.
Then Perez slapped IYO directly across the mouth and gave her a little bow.
There she is.
Roxanne has become increasingly comfortable playing the obnoxious little menace in Judgment Day. She can wrestle beautifully, but there is now always the possibility that she will interrupt the technical exchange because being annoying sounds more entertaining.
IYO responded with a handstand flip into a takedown.
Also, aesthetically, this looked fantastic.
IYO in dark purple opposite Roxanne in vibrant pink and black gave the opening exchanges a genuinely striking visual identity. Sometimes wrestling is allowed to simply look cool.
Chelsea eventually tagged in and immediately combined with SKY for a double elbow drop before finding enough time to blow Liv Morgan a kiss.
That little interaction has become one of my favourite recurring parts of this feud.
Morgan wants Green angry, distracted and insecure.
Chelsea keeps responding by being aggressively Chelsea.
“PLEDGE YOUR ALLEGIANCE”
Green dropped Perez with a big dropkick, forcing her towards the Judgment Day corner and bringing Raquel Rodriguez into the match.
Now we had the obvious physical mismatch.
Rodriguez swung with a massive clothesline.
Chelsea ducked.
Then slapped her.
And then came the important bit.
“PLEDGE YOUR ALLEGIANCE!”
This was magnificent nonsense.
Green leaned fully into the salute while Rodriguez stared at her with the expression of somebody who has been sitting in a dentist waiting room for 40 minutes and has just discovered there are still three people ahead of her.
She was even chewing gum.
Sugar-free, please, Raquel.
It would have been incredibly easy to book this section using the old powerhouse formula. Rodriguez enters, gets angry and flattens the smaller wrestler until WWE decides the audience sufficiently understands that she is large.
Instead, Green was allowed to move.
She ducked. She slapped. She performed. She annoyed.
Eventually, yes, Rodriguez absolutely levelled her with a clothesline. Liv Morgan also managed to sneak in a shot while referee Jessika Carr was occupied elsewhere.
But Chelsea never felt like a prop.
That matters.
Liv Morgan stole Chelsea Green’s hat because of course she did
IYO returned and started attacking Rodriguez with considerably more urgency.
A running crossbody connected before SKY climbed towards the top rope.
Meanwhile, Liv Morgan had acquired Chelsea Green’s hat.
Why?
Because apparently psychological warfare before Crown Jewel now includes petty wardrobe theft.
I approve.
Morgan paraded around ringside with it while trying to distract SKY.
IYO responded by hitting the missile dropkick anyway.
Excellent work, Liv.
SKY looked for another attack, Rodriguez escaped outside with Perez’s help, and IYO followed her.
Bad idea.
Rodriguez caught SKY in a gutwrench and swung her body brutally into the barricade.
That looked horrible.
Suddenly the fun colour, stolen hats and Chelsea theatrics disappeared. Rodriguez had found the thing she could control.
Physicality.
Judgment Day almost trapped IYO SKY
After the break, Perez continued working SKY over.
A huge round kick landed. Perez then attacked from the ropes, only for IYO to get her knees up and create another opening.
SKY landed a chin stunner, dumped Perez outside and cracked Rodriguez with a buzzsaw kick.
Then came one of the few moments that did not quite work.
The attempted transition towards Chelsea’s hot tag looked slightly wobbly. Everyone seemed half a beat apart, Perez pulled Green from the apron and the whole thing had that brief wrestling quality where you can see people trying to arrive at their assigned positions.
I can’t unsee it.
I also don’t particularly care.
Green and SKY are not an established tag team. This was not supposed to look like two people who have spent five years developing microscopic timing cues together.
Rodriguez quickly restored order with a huge boot.
One.
Two.
Kick-out.
Then she tried to powerbomb IYO.
SKY countered into a sunset flip but could not drag Rodriguez down. Raquel simply hauled her back upwards.
IYO escaped again.
And finally Chelsea was standing on the apron.
TAG.
Chelsea Green finally got loose
Perez tagged in as well.
Wrong time.
Green came flying into the match with all the momentum WWE had spent several minutes storing up.
She knocked Perez down, sent Rodriguez outside and suddenly Judgment Day were retreating rather than controlling the ring.
Green attempted the Unprettier, but Perez escaped and brought Rodriguez back in.
Raquel tried a back suplex.
Chelsea backflipped out.
Rodriguez charged into the corner.
Chelsea raised both knees and sent her stumbling backwards.
Green climbed.
And Liv Morgan interfered again.
Morgan yanked Chelsea down onto the turnbuckle while the referee was looking elsewhere.
Ouch.
Right in the family jewels.
Chelsea was left sitting dazed on the ropes as Rodriguez returned, apparently thinking superplex.
Green fought her off.
Slaps.
Kicks.
Raquel fell away.
Chelsea remained perched on top.
Then she launched herself out of the ring.
Green’s crossbody wiped out Morgan and Perez together.
It was not subtle.
It did not need to be.
IYO SKY pinned Raquel Rodriguez
There was one rather important detail amid the chaos.
IYO SKY had tagged herself in.
Rodriguez realised what had happened and tried to put her away quickly, using her strength to haul SKY upwards.
That was the mistake.
IYO turned the power move against her, twisting through Rodriguez’s control and catching the Women’s Intercontinental Champion in the pin.
One.
Two.
Three.
IYO SKY had pinned Raquel Rodriguez.
Chelsea Green and IYO SKY had defeated Roxanne Perez and Raquel Rodriguez.
More importantly, WWE now has a completely logical next challenger for the Women’s Intercontinental Championship.
No tournament required.
No six-woman number-one-contender match.
No general manager wandering onto television to announce that several women have been “impressing him lately”.
SKY pinned the champion.
Give her the match.
Are Roxanne Perez and Raquel Rodriguez friends?
There is also a nice real-world wrinkle beneath their Judgment Day partnership.
Perez and Rodriguez are not simply two wrestlers thrown together for television. The Texans have known each other for years, with Rodriguez present for Perez’s first independent wrestling match when Perez was still remarkably young.
That history helps their pairing.
They wrestle here with a familiarity that contrasts nicely with Green and SKY. Judgment Day are the established unit. Chelsea and IYO are essentially two women who independently reached the conclusion that they were sick of the same people.
Sometimes that is enough to build a temporary friendship.
Chelsea Green keeps making vulnerability work
Wade Barrett said during Raw that “Chelsea Green has been doubted and looked down upon for her entire career.”
That is increasingly the point.
Green does not need to suddenly become an indestructible champion.
Please don’t do that.
The interesting thing about this championship run is watching somebody whose character has spent years losing, complaining, scheming and surviving now attempting to carry herself as the most important woman in the room.
Sometimes people still beat her.
Sometimes Judgment Day jump her.
Sometimes Liv Morgan steals her hat.
Yet Green keeps returning with the belt and behaving as though everyone else is ridiculous for ever questioning her.
There is something strangely effective about it.
At Crown Jewel on November 7, she is scheduled to face Women’s World Champion Liv Morgan in a champion-versus-champion match. Before that, Nikki Bella awaits in a WWE Women’s Championship defence on SmackDown.
WWE therefore has to balance vulnerability with credibility.
This match managed it.
Green absorbed interference but also produced the biggest dive of the match, neutralising Morgan and Perez. She did not steal IYO’s moment by getting the pin herself.
SKY got that reward.
Chelsea got something else.
Momentum.
What does IYO SKY’s win mean for Raquel Rodriguez?
This should be the beginning of IYO SKY versus Raquel Rodriguez for the Women’s Intercontinental Championship.
The finish was too deliberate to mean anything else.
Rodriguez spent much of the match demonstrating why she is such a useful opponent for SKY. Her power creates problems that IYO cannot simply solve by being faster or more athletic.
The finish demonstrated the counterpoint.
Raquel can pick IYO up.
Keeping hold of her is another matter.
That gives them a straightforward championship story: Rodriguez possesses the physical advantage, while SKY possesses the movement and technical imagination required to turn that strength against her.
The October 19 Raw tag match did not need to resolve anything bigger than that.
Instead, it moved several pieces at once.
Chelsea Green survived another Judgment Day attack and finally got one over on Liv Morgan.
Roxanne Perez remained the irritating little spark bouncing around the faction.
Raquel Rodriguez looked terrifying for long stretches without being made invulnerable.
And IYO SKY pinned a champion.
Not bad for a match that also found time for a stolen hat, a dentist-chair facial expression and Chelsea Green demanding that a deeply unimpressed Raquel Rodriguez pledge her allegiance.
Sometimes wrestling really does contain multitudes.
