Tiffany Stratton Advances In WWE US Title Tournament Before Hometown SmackDown Crowd
The semi-finals of the WWE Women’s United States Championship tournament have officially been set as of Friday’s episode of “WWE SmackDown.” Clad in Vikings-inspired gear, Tiffany Stratton took the win in a thrilling match — much to the excitement of her home state of Minnesota — after some key interference from Candice LeRae neutralized Naomi in their triple threat, which also involved Elektra Lopez.
Stratton, Naomi, and Lopez opened up the Minneapolis-based episode of “SmackDown” with an impressive show from Lopez. As Naomi and Stratton lunged at each other — feelings obviously rather sore from their recent WarGames collision — Lopez took advantage of the chaos to dominate the initial goings of the match. Things eventually evened out in the Triple Threat, with all women going for a series of roll-up pin combos before Lopez nearly ended the fight with a modified Blue Thunder Bomb onto Naomi. Stratton broke the hold, but a Rear View from Naomi sent Miss Money in the Bank rolling out of the ring.
Naomi nearly had the match won when she set-up Lopez for a Split-legged Moonsault, but a certain “Poison Pixie” attempted to level the top rope-bound Naomi with a right hand. Naomi countered LeRae’s distraction and eventually landed her finisher, but a Swanton Bomb from an opportunistic Stratton took Naomi out of the fight. Minneapolis roared as Stratton landed a clean Prettiest Moonsault Ever onto Lopez for the victory. Shortly after the match, Naomi expressed frustration at the loss, claiming that both Stratton and LeRae were “on [her] neck.”
With her victory, Stratton enters the Women’s United States Championship tournament semifinals. She is slated to take on Michin in one-on-one action on the upcoming December 13 episode of “SmackDown,” with the victor of that match-up destined for the tournament finals at Saturday Night’s Main Event, which will happen the following day.
Welcome to Car and Driver’s Testing Hub, where we zoom in on the test numbers. We’ve been pushing vehicles to their limits since 1956 to provide objective data to bolster our subjective impressions (you can see how we test here).
Now that we’ve had a Volkswagen ID.Buzz at our office and put it through our rigorous testing, we figured it’s as good a time as any to compare its test results with the Kia EV9. As things currently stand, the pair are the most affordable family-sized three-row EVs that you can buy.
For the 2025 model year, the entry-level, rear-drive version of the Kia starts at $56,395, while VW’s van carries a $61,545 base price. All-wheel-drive models start at $65,395 and $69,545, respectively, but the ones we tested had most of the best features, making them quite a bit pricier—$72,065 for the ID.Buzz Pro S Plus and over $77K for the EV9 GT-Line.
An EV’s driving range is one of its biggest selling points. Of course, there’s typically a big difference between the EPA’s combined-range figure that’s listed on the window sticker and what you’ll see in real life, especially at sustained highway speeds. Going, say, 75 mph at a steady cruise will suck the juice out of the battery much quicker than schlepping around town at a slower, stop-and-go pace. The former scenario is what our real-world highway test aims to replicate. It’s also where the EV9 GT-Line, which features a 99.8-kWh battery, made it 240 miles on a full charge. That’s 30 miles shy of its 270-mile EPA estimate, but it’s also 50 miles farther than the ID.Buzz Pro S Plus.
The VW only made it 190 miles in our highway test—41 miles short of its 231-mile EPA estimate. It’s worth noting the ID.Buzz has a smaller 86.0-kWh battery capacity, but it still consumed more energy on the highway than the EV9, with the van averaging 2.2 miles per kilowatt-hour versus the SUV’s 2.4 mi/kWh. The electric SUV also has a slight advantage when it comes to DC fast-charging, where its 215-kW peak is higher than the Buzz’s 200 kW—though our test model slightly outperformed its claimed peak. The EV9 GT-Line’s fast-charging time was impressive, going from 10 to 90 percent in 38 minutes, with the electric van taking just 33 minutes thanks to its smaller battery.
