Total Divas Season 7 premiere : Episode 1 – This Is Make or Break

New cast members, including Nia Jax and Alexa Bliss, shake things up when they clash with veteran cast members like Maryse on the
Season 7 premiere of E!’s Total Divas, airing Wednesdays

The WWE announces its first ever Money in the Bank ladder match for the women’s superstar division; Nikki mentors Nattie and Lana
in hopes of becoming Smackdown GM; Nia Jax makes a bad impression when she questions Maryse’s history in the WWE.

Paternity leave

We’re back with Total Divas Season 7, so let’s pick up right where Total Bellas left off: The birth of Birdie Joe Danielson.
A few months have passed, and Daniel Bryan is comfortably playing house while he’s off on paternity leave, though he and Brie
Bella are both dreading the call that will send him back to work as the General Manager of SmackDown LIVE. And even though Nikki
Bella doesn’t seem to be heading back to the ring anytime soon, she and Bryan come up with an idea for her to be his proxy on
television, getting Nikki back in the game as the Women’s division starts to get new opportunities and giving Bryan more time
at home with his family. The idea, alas, is shot down, and Bryan is told to report back to Team Blue.

Not like most girls

Maryse and The Miz have been moved over to Raw as part of the post-WrestleMania Superstar Shake-up, and Maryse immediately
runs afoul of one of the newest Total Divas cast members, Nia Jax, when an innocuous comment about whether Maryse has ever competed
in a Gauntlet Match is interpreted as disrespectful of her accomplishments. It takes Alexa Bliss — another new Total Diva — to
help Nia see Maryse’s side of the story, and The Miz explains to his wife that she should never see herself as anything other
than a pioneer, as Maryse’s class of Divas was attempting to build a Women’s division with half the TV time the current crop
is getting.

“Champ with perks”

Naomi and Jimmy Uso have moved to Pensacola, Fla., to be closer to his family, but the SmackDown Women’s Champion isn’t
loving the change of scenery. She’s both “bored” by her new town and dispirited by the lack of romance in their marriage,
and his well-meaning gestures aren’t cutting it in terms of bringing her out of her funk, so to speak. He seems to finally
score a hit when he dresses up as a chef and serves Naomi spaghetti … only it takes her about five minutes to discover the
poorly hidden takeout boxes. That said, she does appreciate the sentiment, and she comes to agree with his statement that
“it’s the thought that counts,” even while she chases him around the house with a plate.

Russian into it

Elsewhere on Team Blue, Lana is finally transitioning to an in-ring competitor, with her first singles match slated to
be a title bout against Naomi for the SmackDown Women’s Championship. She’s changed her diet and is upping her training regimen,
but Rusev remains skeptical because he’s worried his wife, with her combination of million-miles-an-hour effort and minimal
in-ring experience, is going to hurt herself while attempting to put on a good performance. At a pre-Money in the Bank pool
party hosted by Nikki Bella, however, Rusev is convinced to step back and be supportive. And Lana’s far from the only woman
with a big day coming up …

Here comes the money

The SmackDown Women’s division is put into the spotlight in an unprecedented way when the first-ever Women’s Money in the
Bank Ladder Match is scheduled. Of the Total Divas cast, the only one we get to hear from today is Natalya, who spends the
episode trying to overcome her fear of heights. That’s a bit of a mess in and of itself, but while the Team Blue ladies are
celebrating their new opportunity, Nikki Bella offers the most prescient observation on the whole thing: If they don’t
deliver, they’ll never get the chance to do so again. As to what happens in the actual match, the episode ends right before
bell time, so we’ll have to get to that next week when Total Divas returns to E!