When the WWE draft and brand extension were announced, there were a lot of WWE fans contemplating the future of SmackDown’s women's division, since the Women’s champion Charlotte went to Raw with the likes of Sasha Banks, Nia Jax, Paige and Bayley been drafted to the three-hour show. This left smackdown without a title and with a lack of accomplished wrestlers on the roster.
On the recent episode of SmackDown Live, Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan officially introduced SmackDown’s women's championship and moreover, they declared that it will be awarded to the winner of a Six-pack challenge match at WWE Backlash.
The match at Backlash will feature Alexa Bliss, Becky Lynch, Carmella, Naomi, Natalya, and Nikki Bella. With three weeks to go for the Backslash PPV, it seems the WWE officials have already made up their mind about who they want to as the first Women’s Champion for SmackDown.
According to a report from Cagesideseats, Nikki Bella is the top choice to become the first SmackDown Women’s Champion at WWE Backlash. It was speculated that WWE initially had planned for Eva Marie to win the title, but her thirty-day suspension for violating WWE’s Wellness Policy has killed that idea.
It seems WWE is looking back to Nikki Bella since she is the most accomplished woman on the roster. The rumored plan is that the 32-year-old won’t be holding the championship for very long, yet, those plans can always change. It seems she’d only be helping establish the new title for SmackDown and then drop it to someone else before the end of 2016. Nikki is still finding her feet on SmackDown, therefore, she’ll sometime in the ring before becoming the champion at Backlash.
The only issue now is to see whether Nikki Bella is heel or face. On SmackDown Live, Nikki Bella was meant to have her first singles match ever since returning at WWE Summerslam, but Carmella attacked Nikki during her pre-match interview with Renee Young. The match never officially began and the attack continued even on Talking Smack on the WWE Network.
Based on Carmella’s actions, we came to the conclusion that Carmella was the heel and Nikki Bella was the face. However, Nikki returned to WWE at WWE Summerslam to a baby face reaction, but she teamed with Alexa Bliss and Natalya, who are both heels.
At the moment we just hope Nikki Bella’s role will be made much clearer in the next few weeks, which will establish who she’ll be feuding with if she does become the first SmackDown Women’s Champion at WWE Backlash.
