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What's the story?
According to Dan of Belts By Dan on a post on Reddit, WWE had ordered side plates for Eva Marie over a year ago when the SmackDown Women's Championship was made, lending credibility to Dave Meltzer's rumour last year that WWE planned to eventually make Eva Marie women's champion.
In case you didn't know...
Dan of Belts By Dan often posts on Reddit's Squared Circle forum regarding title belts that he made and time and again posts news regarding title belts. On his latest post, he spoke about championship belt news of various promotions apart from WWE, including ROH, GFW and NJPW.
Regarding WWE, he also spoke about news of the NXT Championship belts, a possible new Intercontinental Championship and United States Championship belt and more.
Eva Marie was drafted to SmackDown Live in the 2016 draft. She was beginning to find her footing with a very entertaining storyline and fans were beginning to enjoy her work. However, just as she was picking up steam heading into SummerSlam, she was hit with a Wellness Policy violation, facing a suspension of 30-days. That was her last WWE appearance and she has since left the company.
The heart of the matter
Dan noted that WWE ordered Eva Marie side plates as part of the first batch of side plates, indicating that WWE did indeed have plans to make her the SmackDown Women's Champion prior to her suspension.
When a Reddit user pointed out that WWE may have ordered side plates for all the other women, Dan was quick to point out that WWE order in batches and Eva Marie was part of the first batch, so there were possible plans right from the start.
According to Dan, Eva Marie's side plates looked as follows:
"They are plain, red background with EVA in big black letters, and MARIE in smaller letters enclosed within a black box."
What's next?
Eva Marie will continue her new career in Hollywood and try to make it big on the silver screen. She seems done with pro wrestling for the near future.
Meanwhile, fans will be wondering "what if?", but probably won't think too much on it, as a vast majority of fans would be dead set against the thought of Eva Marie as women's champion.
They teased Eva Marie beating Bayley for the NXT Women's Championship in 2015, but it was a great catalyst for Bayley, who got a huge pop when she won.
Author's Take
Eva Marie, no matter how entertaining the story she was in prior to her suspension, was not ready for a championship run. It's true that she would get a ton of heat, but fans would be dead set against her due to how green she was in the ring.
It's a good thing that she didn't see gold while she was in WWE. This isn't anything against Eva Marie herself, but she just wasn't ready for that mega push.
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