Former Women’s Champion to return after nearly 80 days to cost Rhea Ripley at WWE Crown Jewel? Exploring potential swerve
While Rhea Ripley has managed to retain the Women's World Championship thus far, WWE Crown Jewel looks like an ideal place for her to drop the belt. After all, the trend of late has been members of the top faction dropping their titles only to regain them soon after.
Ripley will be defending her championship against the likes of ex-UFC mauler Shayna Baszler, her longtime friend-turned-rival Raquel Rodriguez, the still relatively fresh Zoey Stark, and the returning Nia Jax.
If the end is nigh for the matriarch of The Judgment Day in Saudi Arabia, then it makes sense for it to be caused by someone with whom the Aussie can kickstart a lengthy rivalry.
Bianca Belair, to the surprise of the WWE Universe, is featured in the official poster for the extravaganza. The word on the rumor mill is that she will return to television as soon as this week's edition of SmackDown.
While Belair can easily resume her program with Damage CTRL on the blue brand, WWE can still book her to have a face-off in some fashion with Mami at WWE Crown Jewel. Why these two, though?
Rhea Ripley and Bianca Belair have named each other as dream opponents for WWE WrestleMania
After winning the SmackDown Women's Championship at WrestleMania 39 despite being a RAW Superstar, Rhea Ripley and then-RAW Women's Champion Bianca Belair met on the follow-up edition of the red brand earlier this year.
Regarding a potential match between the two, Ripley called it a WrestleMania showdown on The Ringer Wrestling Show. There is no other venue for a match of such massive proportions, according to the Aussie:
"With Bianca [Belair], coming up in NXT with her, I also know her extremely well and I know that she’s gonna be in this business for a very long time so our time is gonna come when we’re gonna get to step in the ring again and go face-to-face. Whether that’s WrestleMania 40, WrestleMania 41, WrestleMania 42, I don’t know when that’s gonna happen but it’s gonna be a WrestleMania match and it’s gonna steal the show and it will be the main event of one of the nights of WrestleMania. We’ll see when it happens," said Ripley. [H/T POST Wrestling]
Bianca Belair, long before Ripley's rise to superstardom, named the latter as an ideal dance partner for The Show of Shows. Check it out here.