The rules for the WWE Women’s Championship match at WWE Extreme Rules are straightforward and logical.
The main rule is that the match is a submission match, which makes sense because Charlotte uses a Figure Eight as her primary finisher and Natalya uses the Sharpshooter as hers. Further, both women have a family tradition of submission victories.
Another recently added stipulation is also very logical given the circumstances. Because he has been regularly interfering in matches to allow his daughter to retain her title, Ric Flair is banned from ringside. Furthermore, if Flair does come out to the ring area, Charlotte will forfeit her title.
This has led some to predict that the booking will be such that Charlotte is about to lose in some fashion, and Flair can’t help himself. As such, some have predicted that Natalya will come away with a title victory that continues the storyline with her and Charlotte for another month and send it in a new direction.
There’s just one problem with that prediction: It may not follow the rules. See, no one ever said that if Flair came out, Charlotte would be forfeiting the title to Natalya. So, in reality, by the way the McMahons clearly set up the match, it’s more likely that the title would just become vacant.
What does this mean?
Any other time of the year, there wouldn’t really be much benefit to booking a vacated title. That makes the division a frustrating one to watch and seems contrived and complicated if not done perfectly.
But this isn’t just any time of the year. The next pay-per-view is Money in the Bank, where some of the top men’s talent will be competing in a ladder match for a briefcase containing a contract for a shot at the World Heavyweight Championship. The women don’t have such a match, and some have called for that to change.
Vacating the title allows the WWE to take it one step further. The top women’s talent could actually get in the ring for a ladder match with the belt itself on the line, making their match just as important as the men’s match, if not more so. That could be huge in an era when WWE’s top executives seem ready and willing to further emphasize women’s wrestling.
Who would be in it?
The obvious and most necessary participants in the women’s ladder match would be Charlotte and Natalya. By virtue of being the women’s champion forced to vacate, Charlotte would be almost a “lock” for the match because she could argue that she’s owed a chance to earn her title back. She could even be booked to have a falling out with her father and want a chance to earn the belt.
Natalya, on the other hand, could be written to assume – like many have – that she’s going to automatically get the belt if Charlotte has to vacate. Thus, she would be furious when that didn’t happen, and the younger McMahons would be likely to give in to any request that she be placed in the ladder match.
Next, there’s absolutely no way this happens without Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch. For all the people who have claimed credit for the Divas Revolution on television, the change in the division truly began with Banks, Lynch and Charlotte coming to the main roster. For that, all three of them should be in this milestone match.
That brings the total to four, and to match the men’s version, there would likely be at least two, maybe three, more women in the match. That could be any combination of Paige, Dana Brooke, a healthy Naomi, or even Bayley fresh off a call-up from NXT.
Who wins?
The smart choice to win the belt in a match like this is Sasha Banks.
Many felt that she was the right pick to win the Triple Threat at WrestleMania, but apparently the WWE wanted Charlotte to get the chance to hold the new Women’s Championship. The booking since, however, has been lackluster as the division focused more on Ric Flair’s shenanigans than it did the good work being done by the female competitors.
Once Charlotte won that match and the belt, having Sasha defeat her in a singles match creates some problems. Charlotte would’ve been essentially guaranteed a rematch, and the creative team may have been hesitant to put two quick losses on her with SummerSlam coming up. On the flip side, they wouldn’t want a fan favorite like Sasha to have a short first run with the title.
This eliminates both problems. Vacating the title means that Charlotte will exhaust any claim to a rematch by gaining entry into the ladder match. Thus, she won’t be guaranteed a rematch, and the creative team will be free to do whatever they want with the women’s title for Battleground. They could have someone do a filler feud with Sasha there before building to something bigger at SummerSlam, or they could even make Battleground part of some sort of tournament.
Either way, getting most of the division involved in a ladder match won by Banks would be ideal for the WWE, and that starts with a vacated title Sunday.
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