Becky Lynch has revealed the original plans for the SmackDown Women’s Championship.
The 2016 WWE draft saw the company reintroduce the brand extension. This resulted in some of the top titles becoming exclusive to one brand, leading to the creation of the Universal Championship on Raw and a new Women’s Championship on SmackDown.
During a recent interview with No-Contest Wrestling Podcast, Becky Lynch reflected on being underappreciated in WWE before the introduction of The Man persona. Lynch, who was crowned the inaugural SmackDown Women’s Champion during the 2016 Backlash PPV, revealed that Nikki Bella was originally supposed to win the title that night, but the fan reaction forced the company to alter plans:
Even the first time that I won the SmackDown Women’s Championship. That wasn’t the plan. I think it was meant to go to Nikki Bella, actually, who, by the way, had just come back from her broken neck. But the audience kind of liked me, you know, and they just, once it was revealed, they just started chanting, ‘Becky.’ The office had to take notice of that and go, ‘Well, yeah. All right. I guess we got to go with her.’
Becky Lynch later expressed the belief that there was no plan for her to win the title again even after her first reign as the Women’s Champion. This is why she decided to make things as interesting as possible instead of just sitting around. Though she admitted that she regrets some of the mean things she said during that time period while trying to sell the conflict.
The Man only had one successful title defence after winning the SmackDown Women’s title, when she picked up a victory over Alexa Bliss on an episode of the Blue Branded Show. She ended up dropping the championship to Bliss during the TLC PPV later that year.
