La Arquitecta

Chapter 37

Tuesday Night Smackdown – May 29th 2018

After a video package to recap what had happened at Payback, Smackdown went live with Renee Young back on commentary.

"Welcome, everyone, to Tuesday Night Smackdown. Renee Young alongside Jonathan Coachman and Corey Graves."

The Vega Cartel's music hit, firing the crowd up straight away into aggressive booing.

"Here they come!" Graves exclaimed as the team walked through the curtain. "Bobby Roode and Samoa Joe, the Smackdown Tag Team Champions. Bayley, the Smackdown Women's Champion. Seth Rollins, the WWE Champion. And at the front, their leader, the woman who destroyed you at Payback, Renee, Zelina Vega."

"Destroyed," Renee scoffed. "She beat me, Corey. She didn't destroy me."

"That's not how it looked to me when she had your head bouncing off our table like a rubber ball."

"Can we leave the bickering for a moment?" Coach cut in. "We should probably be talking about the fact that, as Corey just described, The Vega Cartel managed to scrape their way out of Payback with their championships intact."

"Barely," Renee grumbled. "Bayley got herself disqualified against Carmella for refusing to break a submission hold, and Seth Rollins managed to steal a pin on Finn Balor after AJ Styles hit him with a Phenomenal Forearm."

"You're either the champion or you're not," Graves said.

The Cartel were in the ring and Bobby had fetched a microphone for Zelina. She had a triumphant announcement to make when their theme music faded out. "I came, I saw, I kicked Renee Young's ass!"

"Yes!" Graves exclaimed, laughing delightedly while the fans howled their displeasure at Vega.

Renee made no comment.

"I did exactly what I said I was going to do at Payback," Zelina went on, then moved over to stand in front of her prize tag team. "Samoa Joe and Bobby Roode did exactly what I said they were going to do." She moved on to Bayley, with the boos still raining down. "Bayley did exactly what I said she was going to do." She moved on to Seth, who was greeted with even louder disapproval. "Seth Rollins did exactly what I said he was going to do. I said they would all leave Payback as champions, and here they stand before you. Get on your feet and applaud them!" she ordered the crowd.

"Yeah, that'll work," Renee said sarcastically over the latest boos.

Looking around the arena with utter contempt, Zelina said, "Just what I'd expect from the inhabitants of a hole like this."

A small group of fans began the second obscene chant in as many weeks to be directed at Zelina, such was the heat she had with the audience. "Fuck you, Vega!" could be faintly heard over the booing. More people began to pick the chant up, and it was soon clearly audible.

Before Zelina could respond, Joe gently took the microphone from her. "Shut the hell up and show some respect!" he roared at the crowd, firing them up even more.

"The atmosphere's getting nasty in here," Coach observed. "The fans utterly despise Zelina Vega and her cartel."

"They're not the only ones," Renee muttered.

Having stopped the excessively abusive chant, Joe deferentially handed the microphone back to Zelina.

"The only piece of bad news at Payback," she continued after a moment, "was that WWE's board of directors inexplicably decided to vote in favour of keeping Stephanie McMahon in her position as Smackdown's commissioner."

The crowd began to cheer, then Stephanie's music hit and they roared their approval.

"Speaking of the commissioner, there she is!" Renee called out as the boss entered the arena. "Stephanie McMahon has the backing of the board of directors, and she has managed to come to terms with Daniel Bryan so that they'll put their differences aside and work together as a management team."