"Gut-wrenching" – Ex-WWE star on nixed WrestleMania title match due to Becky Lynch moment

Becky Lynch defeated Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey in WWE's first women's WrestleMania main event in 2019. Sonya Deville, a SmackDown star at the time, recently recalled how the booking affected her.

Deville was supposed to face Asuka and Mandy Rose in a Triple Threat match at WrestleMania 35 for the SmackDown Women's Championship. However, the idea was nixed after Flair defeated Asuka for the title shortly before the show. As a result, both the RAW and SmackDown Women's Championships were on the line in the WrestleMania 35 main event.

On her Daria & Toni Unwrapped podcast, Deville admitted it was "gut-wrenching" to find out she had been removed from the WrestleMania main card:

"They pulled us aside and they were like, 'Hey, actually, we're taking the title off Asuka so that we can get a Becky 2 Belts moment in the main event.' Remember when Becky won and was Becky 2 Belts? They were like, 'If we take the belt off Asuka,' it was all for that moment, which I totally understood the magnitude of that moment, how cool it went on to be, but when you're on the other side of that coin and you're getting that news, you're like, 'Urgh, holy s**t.' Gut-wrenching, you know?" [24:41 – 25:10]

Lynch captured Rousey's RAW Women's Championship and Flair's SmackDown Women's Championship in the history-making match. Asuka, Deville, and Rose competed in a kickoff show Battle Royal, which Carmella won.

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Sonya Deville on Shotzi's WWE Royal Rumble omission

On February 1, Shotzi was replaced as a 2025 Women's Royal Rumble participant at the last minute following Alexa Bliss' surprise WWE return.

Based on her own experience with sudden changes, Sonya Deville thinks WWE's higher-ups likely booked Shotzi in case Bliss did not sign a new contract:

"They were having some contract negotiations, trying to get her to agree to something. From what I understood, it was up until that last minute, so I think they called Shotzi, like, 'All right, we have Shotzi. She's gonna be in it unless something comes through, and then we can swap it out.' I think it was probably, in their minds, as transactional as that because they're just moving pieces on a map." [23:58 – 24:22]

Shotzi appeared on the latest episode of Daria & Toni Unwrapped. The departing WWE star recalled how Bliss reacted after finding out about the Royal Rumble situation.

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Please credit Daria & Toni Unwrapped and give an H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription if you use quotes from this article.