Reviewing a Night of Big Changes to SmackDown's Women's Division

The latest edition of SmackDown was a big one: it was their final one inside the ThunderDome. Among many things, the COVID-19 pandemic affected World Wrestling Entertainment's programming, as beginning in March 2020, all shows and PPVs originally took place inside their Performance Center with no fans in attendance. It was in the late summer of 2020 that the ThunderDome debuted; a bubble that allows fans to attend virtually, with SummerSlam being the first event to take place inside the ThunderDome. The bubble was the site for Raw, SmackDown, and PPVs, though this year's WrestleMania did take place at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay, in front of fans.

Regarding SmackDown's ThunderDome finale, the program featured many developments to the blue brand's women's division, and it started with the main roster debuts of both Tegan Nox and Shotzi Blackheart. For Tegan Nox, it caps off a big week for her, as she returned from another long injury hiatus on Main Event, before appearing on NXT and causing Candice LeRae (who put her on the shelf) and Indi Hartwell to lose the NXT Women's Tag Team Championship to Io Shirai and Zoey Stark. Speaking of tag team champions, Shotzi and Nox (as they were billed) faced off against reigning tag champs Natalya and Tamina, and emerged victorious!

Thoughts: The call-ups serve as a quick fix to the lack of depth regarding the Women's Tag Team Championship, but let's face it, it's also a desperate move made due to the wave of releases that crippled the division. Even with the addition of Shotzi and Nox, it's still just them and Raw's team of Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke in contention. They cannot just pillage from NXT's Women's Division just to save face. Even so, I am happy to see Shotzi and Nox on SmackDown.

Next up, the news regarding the SmackDown Women's Championship, as well as the Women's Money In the Bank Ladder Match. The news broke hours before SmackDown aired, that Bayley got injured while training and will be out for nine months--very damaging to the division. Sonya Deville, who had been acting as an on-screen official since the year began, promised an announcement regarding plans for Bianca Belair's next defense of her title, and she definitely delivered.

After Bayley cut a scathing promo blaming the fans for her injury, Sonya announced that Carmella, a former champion and former two-time MITB winner, will replace Bayley as Bianca's challenger, and added that the title bout would take place on the next SmackDown (the first in front of fans in over a year) instead of the Money in the Bank PPV on July 18. After this announcement, Liv Morgan came out and, again, confronted Sonya over her latest decision--past weeks had seen Liv question Sonya for giving Carmella and the returning Zelina Vega spots in the MITB ladder match, while not considering Liv despite beating both of them in back-to-back weeks.

Sonya finally had enough and gave the following additional announcement: Carmella would be pulled from the ladder match to compete for the title, and replacing her would be Liv herself. Sonya said that Liv deserved to be in the match, but ordered her to leave before she changed her mind, with Liv acquiescing.

Thoughts: I heard about Bayley's injury, and it was heartbreaking as well as crippling to the already depleted division. Bayley was definitely the top woman on SmackDown during the ThunderDome period, and it's terrible that she's sidelined right before WWE starts traveling again. I figured Carmella would be the replacement; they needed another heel to go up against Bianca, and she's the only one with credentials. Happy that Liv was finally part of the ladder match, though I was expecting the whole Sonya/Liv thing to continue, with the potential angle seeing Liv being kept down by an evil and power-mad Sonya, leading to a possible grudge match at SummerSlam.

Finally, Shotzi and Nox aren't the only NXT callups heading to SmackDown, as a brief promo aired for the upcoming SmackDown debut of former NXT UK Women's Champion Toni Storm. Toni's WWE career began with her appearances in the Mae Young Classic events, reaching the semifinals in 2017 before winning the tournament in 2018. Following her successful run as NXT UK Women's Champion, Toni headed to NXT in October of 2020, but a month later, Toni turned heel by attacking Ember Moon, and later became part of Candice LeRae's villainous WarGames team, which won the Women's WarGames match. Since then, Toni had unsuccessfully challenged for the NXT Women's Championship, and had been briefly feuding with Zoey Stark.

Thoughts: Again, good for Toni, but this is more pillaging from NXT's female roster to make up for their releases. Three NXT women called up just like that, and all of them heading to the SmackDown brand. A positive in this is that SmackDown has another strong heel with credentials, but again, it's a desperate fix. And remember, that's the SmackDown side. One has to wonder if we'll see callups on Raw as well.

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