Ranking every SmackDown Women's Champion in the SmackDown Live era from worst to best
When WWE reinstated the brand split in mid-2016, they made an enormous variation in the SmackDown's schedule. The company decided to air the show live on Tuesday nights instead of taping the episodes. The reason behind that action was the downwards trend of the show ratings. The fans used to find out the spoilers online and a lot of them would not tune it to watch the episode.
As the then ‘B’ show got its own roster in 2016, the WWE creative team put a lot of effort to make the best use of it. In fact, a majority of the WWE Universe believes that in the 2016-17 season, SmackDown Live and not Raw was the ‘A’ show of WWE.
Two years later, the product became stale because of the Wild Card rule which compelled WWE to organize another draft. Now that the show has moved to Friday nights on Fox, the fans can say that the era of SmackDown Live is headed towards the peak.
The then SmackDown commissioner and General Manager Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan had introduced the SmackDown Women’s Championship as the premier crown of the women’s segment of their brand. Since then, eight Superstars have managed to seize that Championship during the three years of SmackDown Live.
Here is every SmackDown Women’s Champion, who headed the division on Tuesday nights, ranked from worst to best.
#8 Natalya
The Queen of Hearts, Natalya won her only SmackDown Women’s Championship at SummerSlam 2017 after defeating Naomi via submission. However, the Canadian Superstar could not live up to the prospects. During her title regime, she defended the SmackDown Women’s Championship on just one pay-per-view.
Her feud with Charlotte Flair did not gain much traction as the creative team had booked a disqualification finish for their contest at Hell in a Cell 2017. Also, Natalya was supposed to meet the then RAW Women’s Champion Alexa Bliss in a Champion vs Champion match at Survivor Series but, WWE ended her reign just five nights before the event by having her fall to Charlotte on the go-home SmackDown show.
Post that defeat, she even failed to lead the Blue brand to a win in the 5-on-5 traditional Survivor Series tag team match. Additionally, her rivalry with Charlotte had a tepid end as the two Superstars collided in a Lumberjack match at Clash of Champions which ended in Charlotte’s favor.
So, this championship reign did no good to Natalya, as well as the SmackDown women’s division.