Welcome to the latest round of the eWrestlingNews Quiz of the Day!
This evening on SmackDown, a tag team gauntlet match will take place to decide who will challenge Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez for the Women’s Tag Team Championship at WrestleMania 41.
The list of potential winners narrows to: Katana Chance & Kayden Carter, The Secret Hervice (Alba Fyre & Piper Niven), Maxxine Dupri and Natalya, B-Fab and Michin, Pure Fusion Collective (Shayna Baszler & Zoey Stark), and Bayley and the women’s intercontinental champion Lyra Valkyria
Our discussion question for today is “Who do you believe should triumph in this match and why?”
Make sure to drop your answers in the comments section below.
Moving on to my opinion…
Well…this isn’t ideal. Despite each of these women being incredibly talented, no team has any sort of momentum. It seems like WWE hasn’t quite made the effort to present any team as a serious contender. It feels like WWE should focus on “quantity over quality”, but even if they included every team, I doubt the match would add much to the WrestleMania card.
Being blunt, it’s most likely that people would want to watch this match simply because it’s available or to see Liv Morgan. Liv Morgan is undeniably the primary draw, even more so than her tag partner or really any of the other women. This isn’t some hotly anticipated championship match for the women’s tag team titles. Are The Street Profits vs Motor City Machine Guns going to be overlooked at WrestleMania in favor of this? Furthermore, will both women’s midcard titles be left unchallenged? The booking decisions are perplexing.
Given this is a gauntlet match, logically only one team can triumph. So, we have to choose just one pair.
The logical choice would be Lyra and Bayley given that this would ensure the women’s intercontinental champion gets featured on the card, in addition to Bayley, who is arguably the most famous name in the group.
Nonetheless, the central question remains: is this worthwhile? My firm opinion is – no, it’s not. This year’s handling of the women’s division has, in my perception, been subpar. Matches such as Tiffany Stratton vs. Charlotte Flair looked promising but failed to deliver. Rhea Ripley vs. Bianca Belair vs. Iyo Sky relies heavily on in-ring chemistry, given the ‘push Iyo out of the way over and over’ plot has underwhelmed. The women’s tag team division is worryingly stagnant, the women’s midcard champions aren’t even defending their titles, and arguably matches such as Jade Cargill vs. Naomi don’t need to take place at WrestleMania (nor does a match like Rey Mysterio vs. El Grande Americano).
Let’s hope WWE has an intriguing twist in the pipeline. If not, and if it’s as simple as Bayley and Lyra or any other team winning and leading up to a poorly developed Mania match, then it wouldn’t be surprising if viewers were to tune out — as if three hours of pre-show each night and endless advertising breaks in between matches aren’t enough.
This is another indication of this year’s WrestleMania losing its steam around November and struggling to put a cogent lineup together ever since. It seems to have fallen into the every-other-Mania mess trap. It’s a pity. Regardless of who their challengers are, Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez will retain their title, so let’s see who WWE highlights.
What are your thoughts? Share them in the comments below!