Last Tuesday night on SmackDown LIVE, Charlotte Flair faced Asuka for The SmackDown Women’s Title and defeated her to become The New SmackDown Women’s Champion for a record-breaking eight times.
The original plans were for RAW Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey to defend her RAW Women’s Title against Charlotte Flair & Becky Lynch in the main event of WrestleMania 35, but now there are two champions in the match. According to Dave Meltzer on a recent edition of The Wrestling Observer Radio Program, Charlotte Flair winning The Smackdown Women’s Title wasn’t planned until the day of the show itself.
The original plans for last Tuesday night’s episode of SmackDown LIVE were for Mandy Rose to face Carmella, Naomi & Sonya Deville in a Women’s #1 Contenders Fatal 4-Way Match to see who would be facing Asuka for The SmackDown Women’s Title at WrestleMania. Meltzer went on to say that WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon apparently scrapped the plans for The Women’s #1 Contenders Fatal 4-Way Match the day of the show itself and wrote on The F4WOnline forums that McMahon did not want to have Asuka face the winner of that match, since nobody would care about it anyway.
The idea of Charlotte Flair going into WrestleMania with a title has been talked about for a while now, but the trigger was only pulled at last Tuesday night’s episode of SmackDown LIVE. As of this moment, Asuka is not scheduled to be involved in the main event match at WrestleMania.
WrestleMania 35 takes place on April 7th from MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.