The Road to WrestleMania is often ripe with filler, but just two nights after the monumental heel turn that took place with John Cena, we have another massive detour as the Women's World Championship just changed hands on Monday Night Raw!!
Before diving into what happened tonight, let's first back up and set the scene.
This past Saturday night at WWE Elimination Chamber, Bianca Belair was able to outlast the competition and win the Women's Elimination Chamber match, wherein she became the No. 1 contender for this Women's World Championship.
On tonight's episode of Raw, Rhea Ripley was set to defend her title against Iyo Sky. This came about when The Eradicator inadvertently cost The Genius of the Sky a chance to qualify for the Women's Elimination Chamber match by interfering in her match against Liv Morgan.
Morgan, for people keeping count of these interconnected feuds, just won the Women's Tag Team Championship titles alongside Raquel Rodriguez last week on Raw, defeating Bianca Belair and Naomi (who has been the replacement champion to take over Jade Cargill's spot, seemingly because Naomi attacked Cargill back in November, which is why Cargill jumped Naomi at the start of the Elimination Chamber match and got her medically disqualified from the bout. Keep up!)
As a result of feeling guilty over leading to Morgan's victory over Sky, Ripley granted the Damage CTRL member the title match for this week as a sign of respect.
During this match, Belair was ringside, scoping out her two possible opponents for WrestleMania, and it led to a confrontation between The EST of WWE and Ripley. This would ultimately prove to be a massive lapse of judgment on the part of the women's world champion, as she spent so much time distracted arguing with Belair that she allowed Sky to recover from the damage she had dealt.
After referee Jessika Carr was able to separate Ripley and Belair, Ripley went for a Riptide off the ropes, only for Sky to reverse it into a hurricanrana and follow it up with her patented moonsault, scoring the pinfall and winning her second world title on the main roster (for the record, she also won the NXT Women's Championship and has been a three time women's tag team champion in WWE, as well as a Money in the Bank winner).
This also makes Sky the first woman to win both the Women's World Championship and WWE Women's Championship titles after they had undergone their name changes away from the Raw and SmackDown Women's Championship designations from before.
Also by doing so, this means Sky is going to WrestleMania and is currently booked as the woman Belair will face for the Women's World Championship.
Yours truly thinks that this will come back around to Ripley getting inserted into the match to become a Triple Threat, but at least as far as tonight's episode of Raw is concerned, nothing of the sort has been hinted at or confirmed by any means. With WrestleMania being 47 days away, there are 6 episodes of Raw left to tell that part of the story.
Until that changes, though, here is the updated lineup for WrestleMania 41 as it stands right now:
- Undisputed WWE Championship Match: Cody Rhodes (c) vs. John Cena
- Women’s World Championship Match: IYO SKY (c) vs. Bianca Belair
- World Heavyweight Championship Match: GUNTHER (c) vs. Jey Uso
- WWE Women’s Championship Match: Tiffany Stratton (c) vs. Charlotte Flair
What do you think of this title change? Are you more interested in a Triple Threat, Iyo/Bianca without Rhea, or do you think Ripley should have retained the title? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!