WWE Has Divas Lana and Summer Rae in a Weird Soap Opera Catfight

WWE characters Lana and Summer Rae are embroiled in a love quadrangle with male wrestlers Dolph Ziggler and Rusev. The latest development, which aired on Smackdown Thursday night, featured a continuation of Summer Rae (who is Rusev’s “girlfriend,” which Lana used to be) saying she was seduced by Ziggler (who is now Lana’s “boyfriend,” though there’s been zero apparent chemistry). If you used to watch wrestling but don’t anymore, think of this “Miz TV” segment as something along the lines of a Piper’s Pit reboot.

Summer Rae had begun “revealing” this seduction on Monday night Raw. As a nominal heel, she did it in such a prolonged, exaggerated way that it felt fake. Because it’s wrestling, obviously it’s fake, but it seemed like a lie within the confines of the story, to cause dissension within enemy camp. Last night, Summer Rae’s further specificity, and the look on Ziggler’s face before Lana pounced (there were always gonna be fisticuffs), gave the impression the allegations might be “real.”

For whatever flaws there have been in the storytelling since a “Divas Revolution” saw the ascension of Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, and Sasha Banks to WWE’s main roster, at least daytime soap opera relationship angles have not been used as a crutch. Again, it hasn’t been executed so well by the writers, but at least the idea is for them to thrive and gobble up television real estate on their merits as wrestlers. This has, without a doubt, worked in NXT.

But, the crowd pops louder every time Lana accosts Summer Rae than it does for any of the legitimate women’s wrestling, which is more likely than not a signal as to where the booking will continue to head.