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Becky v Rhonda: TLC to Mania and Beyond

So it seems fairly inevitable that Becky Lynch is going to drop the Smackdown Women’s Title at TLC and I can’t really blame them for it because it’s a way to take the belt off of her without really beating her and hurting her momentum, setting up her transition to Raw and the much-anticipated feud with Ronda Rousey.

But what if it wasn’t inevitable…?

Becky retains at TLC in a brutal affair. All three women look strong, all three elevate themselves. This is the beauty of ladder matches. There’s no pinfall so no one has to look weak or beaten, just a bunch of badasses, one of which happens to have won.

Building to Royal Rumble

Now along the line of no one losing, both Charlotte and Asuka want another shot at Becky but once again the rest of the women’s locker room wants their shots at the top as well. So Paige says that in two week’s time there will be a fatal four-way elimination match to determine the number one contender to Becky’s belt at The Royal Rumble: Charlotte and Asuka are automatically in, the other two spots to be determined by a pair of triple threat matches on this week’s and next week’s Smackdown. (Because we need to start building up some more members of the SDL Women’s Division if Becky is potentially leaving to feud with Ronda.) This week it’s Billie Kay, Sonya Deville, and Carmella with Sonya winning, next week it’s Peyton Royce, Naomi, and Lana with Peyton Royce going over (with help from Billie of course).

So it’s a Fatal Four-Way Elimination match because Becky had to fight her way through the entire women’s division to get her shot at the title, so “If ya wan a shot at The Man’s title, ya can do da same ting!” This match is on Smackdown but you want to build Sonya and Peyton… and Asuka for that matter, so this should be given about 20 minutes with zero eliminations in the first ten. Eventually, Peyton is forced to tap to the Asuka Lock, then Sonya catches Charlotte with a hard knee shot and pins her. Shock. Then it’s Asuka vs. Sonya and while it isn’t easy, Asuka does win, again with the Asuka Lock.

The Royal Rumble

So it’s Becky versus Asuka one-on-one at the Royal Rumble because we deserve nice things. I’m certain that they could and would have a great match, only somewhat tainted because it goes to a No Contest because of Charlotte and her kendo stick once more. After a brutally hard-fought match, she lays into both of them relentlessly. Charlotte goes Full Heel.

She also enters the Royal Rumble at number one. Number two is Bayley and oh it’s a bad day to be Bayley. She gets a little bit of offense in before Charlotte takes over and just lays into her. Number three is Dana Brooke and there’s just this brief look between the two of them before they both go to work on Bayley. Now I’m not going to do the whole Rumble, but in general, there are going to be a whole lot fewer Legends and a lot more spotlight for the NXT/PC ladies: Nikki Cross, Shayna Bayzler, Biana Belair, Dakota Kai (wearing her Kingslayer shirt, ofc), Kairi Sane, others make appearances. Billie Kay takes her time entering at number 12, gets to the ringside area, stops and waits. Then Peyton Royce enters at number 13 and they go in together and stick together.

Bayley despite having the absolute crap kicked out of her the whole time just refuses to be eliminated.

About number 19 or 20 Nia Jax’s music hits but she doesn’t come out. Cut to backstage where Nia is laid out in an area that looks like it was hit by a hurricane. There has been some sort of wild brawl here. Alexa Bliss is there, Paige is there, no one seems to know what happened until Becky’s music hits out in the arena and The Man comes to the Royal Rumble. She’s covered in welts and bruises from the earlier beating but she’s still coming, still carrying the Smackdown Women’s Title. She hands off the belt to a referee and makes a beeline for Charlotte, eliminating her in pretty short order with Bayley’s help. Charlotte stares daggers back up at Becky and once again very audibly Becky calls Charlotte a bitch.

Have Sonya Deville go on a tear eliminating a lot of people, have her get six or seven total (because the current record holder is Michelle McCool and no one is helped out by her having that distinction).

Eventually, the final four are Becky, Bayley, Sonya, and Sasha Banks. Sasha is super-fresh, having come out at number 29. Bayley is your iron woman, having been in from the start at 50+ minutes on now, mostly due to sheer determination at this point. Becky has been through a war with Asuka already, then Charlotte and her kendo stick, then the Rumble match itself. And Sonya is on a roll right now.

Becky immediately goes for Sasha judging her to be the biggest threat. Sonya eliminates Bayley just past the 56 minute mark, giving her the new record for the longest time in the Rumble which builds her up. Sonya then jumps Sasha from behind and lays her out.

Then she squares up with Becky and because we’ve built Sonya up over the last month, it starts to look like maybe… just maybe they’re going to go this way instead. For a minute or two a wrestling match breaks out in the middle of the Royal Rumble. Sonya is fighting with Becky rather than just trying to eliminate her, seemingly to prove to herself that she can hang with The Man, which proves to be her undoing because Sasha gets back up and throws her out of the ring. Becky and Sasha then go at it for a couple of minutes before Becky just manages to get Sasha out of the ring.

Becky grabs the microphone and says, “Hey, Ronnie, ya didn’t think I forgot about ya, didja? I’ll see you at Wrestlemania.” She drops the mic. She holds the Smackdown Women’s Belt up with one arm, then she holds the other arm up the same way as though it had the Raw Women’s Title in it.

The Road to Wrestlemania

Now, Becky/Ronda is going to suck up a lot of oxygen in both women’s divisions so I would use this as the opportunity to announce the cross-branded WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles and the tournament to crown the inaugural champions culminating at Wrestlemania. This gives the other women something to fight for that’s actually worth fighting over, so they aren’t just all in a battle royal for the fifth time in just over a year. The finals at Mania should be Sasha and Bayley vs. The IIconics and The IIconics should win.

Becky defends her title in The Elimination Chamber and wins. I’m not going to get into the specifics of it but you have enough credible challengers to make this look like Becky is definitely going to lose the belt here and then she overcomes.

Now things are getting interesting. What are Shane and Paige going to do? Ultimately they decide that they can’t force Becky to vacate the title and they can’t stop Becky from fighting Ronda, she earned that right by winning the Rumble. They can, however, book a Smackdown Women’s Title match for Wrestlemania. And suddenly “Oh my god, is Becky Lynch going to have to pull double duty at Wrestlemania?”

Paige suggests a gauntlet match with all the Smackdown women to determine who gets the shot. Shane likes that idea but decides he’s going to one-up it and makes it an Open Invitation Gauntlet Match, any woman from any WWE Brand can show up and be in the match. Now, this is a gauntlet match like we had earlier this year on Raw, where it’s a series of full-length TV matches that take up most if not the entire episode of Smackdown, and like that match, Naomi will be playing the part of Seth Rollins. She beats Carmella. She beats Mickie James. She beats Dakota Kai. She beats Lana. She beats Ember Moon. She beats Liv Morgan by DQ when the rest of the Riott Squad jumps her. (They are all ejected from the match and from the building as a result.) She just beats Mandy Rose with a well-timed head kick and FTG. 

Next comes Asuka and try as she might, Naomi is exhausted. She’s been fighting for 50+ minutes. Asuka would be a challenge if she were fresh, like this she’s got nothing. One spin kick and Asuka pins her. Asuka beats Nattie and Candice LaRae and Alicia Fox. (No IIconics, Sasha, or Bayley because they are in the tag team match at Mania, no Nia Jax because I don’t like her, she clearly doesn’t know how to work a safe match, she needs to go back to the PC and relearn her fundamentals.)

Then out comes Charlotte, but before she can get to the ring, from behind Ronda Rousey with a kendo stick blasts Charlotte again and again and again and again. While the referees are dealing with that, Mandy and Sonya drag Asuka from the ring and hurl her into the ring steps. They put her through the announce table (a spot someone would have set up earlier in the gauntlet). They roll her back into the ring and Sonya makes the cover. Mandy gets a referee to notice what’s going on. He makes the three-count. 

Sonya stands up to see if there’s another challenger and no sooner than she’s turned around, she’s slammed to the ground with a judo throw and locked into an armbar. Sonya taps. Ronda is seething at the mouth and staring up the ramp towards the back, no one else wants a piece of her. The new number one contender for the Smackdown Women’s Championship is Ronda Rousey.  

The match at Wrestlemania is now Title v Title, winner takes all, winner gets to choose their brand going forward. Only one other time in Wrestlemania history has there been a Title v Title match. That was billed as The Ultimate Challenge, this is The Ultimate Fight! This is your main event of Wrestlemania 35.

Again, Becky wins (by pinfall, neither of them can get their submissions locked in). She’s the absolute hottest act anywhere in the company. She’s a fantastic worker, she a great promo, she’s basically social media royalty at this point. After all this build, it costs Ronda nothing to lose to her so there’s literally no downside to closing your biggest show of the year with your hottest act, your biggest babyface holding all the gold.

After Mania: Becky is The Man!

Monday on Raw they hype is “What will be Becky’s choice? Raw or Smackdown?” Before that happens though, Becky’s walking around backstage and runs into Bayley and Sasha who are upset that they lost the tag title tournament. Becky basically says, “So what ya lost? Ya gonna let it get to ya or ya do sometin about it?” “We’re gonna do something about it,” they answer in unison. “That’s my girls,” Becky says walking off.

So come time for the announcement and it’s Becky in the ring with Renee Young and when asked what brand she chooses she says, “Both.” Asked how she plans to do that she says “I am The Man and I will be The Man every day of the week and twice on Sundays and anyone who wants to take either of these belts offa me, inside the ring or out, better come ready for a fight.”

No one is really interested in sharing Becky across brands so both sides start making plans to get the belts off of Becky at Backlash. Stephanie and Alexa’s strategy is that if Ronda wins the Raw belt back Becky’s going to want another shot at it and they’ll force her to declare herself for Raw in order to get it. Shane books Becky into a Triple Threat Match against Sonya and Mandy that essentially a handicap match convinced that he is actually going to force a feud between Becky and him. He’s a bigger target than Ronda Rousey, Shane’s a McMahon, after all (just to intentionally belabor the comparisons between Becky and Austin some more).

Backlash: An (Un)Equal and Opposite Reaction

Naturally, Becky plays Sonya and Mandy against each other and swoops in at the opportune moment to tap out Mandy, jump-starting a Mandy-Sonya split. Then against Rousey, Becky gets her in the Dis-Arm-Her and Rhonda won’t tap, won’t tap, won’t tap but can’t seemingly escape either. Eventually, she can’t answer the referee’s call and the ref stops the match.

After the match, Shayna Bayzler, Marina Shafir, and Jessamyn Duke hit the ring and put the boots to Becky. Rhonda comes to momentarily and gets in Shayna’s face asking what they’re doing? Shayna responds, “Are you done trying to act like a good girl, yet?” Rhonda thinks about it for just a second before saying, “Yes.” Then the beating resumes. As the segment closes, they stand over Becky’s laid out body, flashing the four fingers.

Elsewhere on the card Bayley and Sasha won the Tag Titles from The IIconics who want their rematch on Monday. 

The Man Goes to War

The tag title match only gets a couple of minutes in before Duke, Shaffir, and Bayzler jump in and start fighting everyone, though Billie and Peyton take off pretty quickly. Sasha and Bayley put up a fight but are outnumbered until The Man comes for her girls. Ronda’s crew isn’t at all interested in a fair fight just at the moment so they clear out. Becky, Bayley, and Sasha stand tall and, in true Horsemen style, hold all the gold so they all throw up the four fingers despite them being only three.

Tuesday opens with Paige in the ring with Becky, Bayley, and Sasha. Bayley and Sasha are there to give The IIconics an actual rematch but they’re here for Becky’s announcement too. Becky says:

“For almost three years now, I’ve been proud to represent Smackdown Live. I was the first woman drafted to this brand, which is how I knew that Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan were smart enough fellas that I wanted to work for them. Because they could see that, even then, that I am The Man. I was the first woman to hold this belt. I was in the first ever Women’s Steel Cage match on Smackdown Live, I was in the first Women’s Money in the Bank match, the first Last Woman Standing match… and with all due respect to AJ Styles, he did not build this house alone.

But Sunday night at Backlash, Rhonda Rousey started a war and it’s a war I aim to finish, but I can’t do that while my attention is divided. So reluctantly I have to surrender the Smackdown Women’s Title. (She goes to hand over the belt but pauses.) To alla yous in the back, just remember, I never lost this title. None a ya beat The Man, but come Survivor Series I’ll be waiting to let ya prove that ya really deserve it.”

From there, Becky, Sasha, and Bayley 3-on-4 feud with the MMA Horsewomen. I’d have Ruby Riott win MitB and then you can throw The Riott Squad into the mix with them to keep things fresh (as well as The IIconics and maybe make Lana and Carmella a tag team, too. The Dancing Queens or whatever.) 

Asuka wins the Smackdown Women’s title, for sure, and now we’ve got a strong Smackdown Women’s division for her feud with: Charlotte, Sonya, Naomi, Mandy, maybe at this point start building Zelina Vega as a serious women’s wrestler as well.