Match Of The Week: 10.21.06.

October 23, 2006.
WWE Monday Night RAW
Mickie James vs. Melina Perez (Women's Title Tournament)

While a lot else may have been seemingly going on this week in wrestling, this match was hands down the winner for me.

When Melina Perez first burst onto the scene as the manager of Johnny Nitro and Joey Mercury (Collectively known as MNM), I was immediately impressed. She was so much of what the typical, current WWE diva was not. She had this intensity, real character and just didn't seem so fake and plastic like pretty much every other diva on the WWE roster at the time. It was kind of odd, because she was representing someone who was pretty much a shallow, Hollywood actress type. Yet, she seemed to be one of the few women with an actual character. I mean, she wasn't some bleached blonde bimbo who had breast implants and was out on television for the T&A Show. She was a manager. A vallet. She represented something respectable women should do in wrestling.

Some time later, Alexis Laree (Who had made fame in ROH under the same name) came up to the RAW roster under the name "Mickie James". She immediately became my second favorite diva on the WWE roster because, well, she was Alexis Laree. A sassy young firestarter who could fight. Though when she came up, Melina Perez seemed less than excited. Melina posted something somewhere to the extent that even though Mickie James appeared to be copying Trish Stratus on television, Laree was really copying Melina in real life.

The seeds were planted and it seemed like this was a match made in heaven.

Some time passed before Melina found herself on RAW the first time. Though she was looking toward Mickie James, she actually ended up in a smaller program with Trish Stratus. After going back to Smack Down!, an MNM break up and then Johnny Nitro showing up on RAW with Melina, we finally got the match I'd be waiting seemingly forever to happen.

While it wasn't on the grandest of stages, I really hope they decide to have a bigger, longer rematch at a pay-per-view or maybe even Wrestlemania. I don't know if the legit heat is still there or not, but it doesn't even matter at this point. I just want to see these two fight each other more. They're like the Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas of the Women's Division.