What if Carmella wins the women’s Royal Rumble match?
Carmella won the very first women’s Money in the Bank briefcase and cashed-it-in in memorable fashion to start a several month reign as SmackDown Women’s Champion. A lot has changed since then, but the Princess of Staten Island found an unlikely resurgence in her oddball pairing with R-Truth. As half of a largely comedic duo, she is arguably more popular than she has ever been before and fans were all too eager to support the team in its run to win the Mixed Match Challenge.
That victory meant that Carmella will enter the women's Royal Rumble match from the number thirty position and thus have the biggest kayfabe advantage in the match. Few critics actually expect for her to win, though, with a greater focus on Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, or Ronda Rousey doing so to facilitate a two or three-way match, and justify the bout going across brand lines.
However, if that three-way program does come together, presumably over Rousey’s Raw Women’s Championship, the question remains who will compete for the SmackDown title. With Lynch and Flair spoken for, Carmella may well be in that title conversation, and could conceivably win the Rumble to make it happen.
#5 Carmella vs. Asuka at WrestleMania
Rumors abound about a featured women’s match at WrestleMania, and the women’s division potentially even getting the main event. Most of those rumors center on the Raw Women’s Championship, and particularly Ronda Rousey. The prevailing theory is that she’ll work a match with Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, or both women in a triple threat.
Any of these matches would leave the SmackDown Women’s Championship available for other competitors (unless WWE constructs a champion vs. champion scenario which, while possible, seems less likely). Asuka stands a perfectly reasonable chance of retaining her title going into ‘Mania and if Flair and Lynch are occupied elsewhere, then Carmella wouldn’t be an unreasonable choice for challenger.
Between her previous title reign and retaining over Asuka, the popularity of her team with R-Truth, and perhaps most importantly the credibility that would come from winning the Rumble, Asuka vs. Carmella is a realistic possibility.