Nikki Bella Defends WWE Survivor Series Match Against Criticism

Nikki Bella has defended her most recent WWE performance.

At Survivor Series, Nikki Bella unsuccessfully challenged Stephanie Vaquer for the Women’s World Championship.

In the lead-up to the match, Bella turned heel for the first time in almost a decade by attacking Vaquer on Raw. However, there were numerous negative comments about the match online, with a section of fans believing it fell well short of what it needed to be.

One of the biggest complaints was of the slow pace, with some even claiming that this was because Bella is unable to keep up with stars such as Vaquer in singles matches.

Nikki Bella Responds

On the latest edition of The Nikki & Brie Show, Nikki looked back on her match with Vaquer and addressed the criticism she had seen online. With regard to the slower pace, the veteran said that the match was structured that way to put an emphasis on the story they were trying to tell.

“It’s so funny when I see online, they had to talk to me about this because I did say ‘Hey, I’m going to take the Devil’s Kiss how she wants, but watch online rip me apart saying I don’t know how to do it.’ They were like ‘Stop worrying about that.’ But it’s so funny as that’s exactly what happened.

I loved back in the day that you followed more along with the story and a feeling, so it wasn’t like you had an expectation of every match is just hardcore wrestling.

You knew this is going to be the funny, quick three-minute match, and this is going to be the more intense 15 minute match, they all told different stories.

That’s kind of what ours was, and I really liked it, but when people were (commenting on match speed), when they bring all that, you’re missing part of the story in it.

We didn’t even have a lot of fast movement to go fast because that’s not what we were trying to do.

It wasn’t about that, it was actually more about emotions between people who were friends and turned on each other. Yeah, they only had a few weeks to really tell that story, but it was supposed to have more emotion and really recognize that this person turned bad, and this person is good.”

Despite her defeat to Vaquer, Nikki Bella vowed to return to the ring, telling fans they haven’t seen the last of her. In the days leading up to the event, the star admitted that her 2025 run has been lonely without her sister Brie.

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H/t to Wrestle Talk