The heated feud between Nikki Bella and Carmella reached a fever pitch Sunday night at TLC, where Nikki was victorious in a vicious No Disqualification match.
Nikki used a fire extinguisher to temporarily stun Carmella.
WWE Universe shared a clip of the attack:
WWE Creative Humor joked that the extinguisher may have been too effective:
As Carmella was still reeling, Nikki hit the Rack Attack 2.0 for the win.
After the match, Carmella revealed that Natalya was the assailant who attacked Nikki on Nov. 20 at Survivor Series, courtesy of WWE:
WhatCulture's Adam Pacitti tweeted about the reveal:
After missing several months with a neck injury, Nikki made a surprise return to WWE as part of the SmackDown Live roster Aug. 21 at SummerSlam. Since then, she and Carmella haven't seen eye-to-eye.
The Princess of Staten Island took a pinfall loss at the hands of Nikki at SummerSlam, which caused her to snap and turn heel. Carmella alleged that Nikki overshadowed her pay-per-view debut in front of her home crowd, and she has been unable to let go of her grudge.
Nikki defeated Carmella on Oct. 9 at No Mercy, and while their angle took a backseat to the Survivor Series five-on-five women's elimination match for a period of time, there were still underlying issues between them.
The longest-reigning Divas champion of all time accused Carmella of being the one who attacked her prior to the Survivor Series match. Carmella denied any involvement and didn't take kindly to Nikki's suggestion.
That prompted Carmella to run down Nikki on the mic, with the primary focus of her promo centering on Nikki's relationship with John Cena, as WWE's official Twitter account shared:
The poking and prodding enraged Nikki to the point that she orchestrated a brawl with Carmella on the go-home episode of SmackDown prior to TLC.
Although Carmella took the brunt of the beating, she got in some shots of her own, such as a stinging slap to Nikki's cheek, as WWE Universe shared:
With the groundwork properly laid for their match at TLC, Nikki and Carmella threw caution to the wind by using myriad weapons and doing everything possible to hurt each other.
While Raw has received much of the praise for its elevation of women's wrestling following the Oct. 30 Hell in a Cell main event between Sasha Banks and Charlotte, SmackDown has been pulling its weight in that regard as well.
WWE shied away from putting women in the hardcore environment in the past, but the chains appear to be off in that regard, which was apparent with Nikki and Carmella attempting to rip each other limb from limb.
Due to a lack of depth in SmackDown's women's division, Sunday's match was important in terms of building momentum toward a potential title shot.
Nikki did precisely that by taking down Carmella once again, which suggests the former Divas champ could be on her way to becoming the SmackDown women's champion for the first time.
Listen to Ring Rust Radio for all of the hot wrestling topics. Catch the latest episode in the player below (warning: some language NSFW).
Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.