WWE WrestleMania 33 preview: Charlotte vs Sasha Banks vs Bayley vs Nia Jax

Previewing the WWE WrestleMania 33 match for the RAW Women’s Championship between Charlotte, Sasha Banks, Bayley and Nia Jax

One of the staples of recent WrestleMania match cards has been the multi-woman title match on the biggest show of the year. For whatever reason, WWE has insisted on not having a 1-on-1 match on the card for women’s titles and has instead offered this type of match up. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. However, it’s admittedly something that you’d like to see change with the renewed focus on women’s wrestling. But alas, it won’t be changing at WWE WrestleMania 33.

The RAW Women’s Championship will be defended in a Fatal 4-Way on Sunday in Orlando. Moreover, it will featured two of the women who were on the Mania card a year ago vying for the then lone women’s belt. Those two female competitors are Sasha Banks and Charlotte, who will join the most recent addition to the match in Nia Jax in challenging Bayley for the strap.

Given the talent and the way that these four women have been billed on the main roster—all four being products of NXT—any of the quartet are worthy of walking out of WWE WrestleMania 33 as the RAW Women’s Champion. To get a better idea of who might actually have that honor, however, let’s take a deeper look at this match.

How Did We Get Here

For starters, the feud between Bayley and Charlotte has been ongoing virtually since the former was called up to the main roster. The Hugger finally got her moment on RAW prior to WWE Fastlane as she defeated The Queen. What’s more, Bayley was then able to defend the belt successfully at Fastlane and end Charlotte’s winning streak on pay-per-views. However, Sasha Banks interfered in that match to help her best friend, Bayley, pick up the win.

That speaks to another layer of the Fatal 4-Way at WWE WrestleMania 33 in that Banks and Charlotte’s rivalry is even more long-standing than the Bayley-Charlotte feud. The two women played hot potato with the belt for many months, partially due to injury concerns regarding Banks—and also partially due to the indecisive booking of the company.

With all of this, Bayley and Charlotte were slated for another match for the title at WWE WrestleMania 33 originally, slated to be a fabled 1-on-1 affair. That came per Stephanie McMahon as she sided with the former champion about getting wronged by Banks’ interference at Fastlane.

But again, the company is inexplicably opposed to that notion. Subsequently, Sasha was able to defeat Bayley on RAW four weeks out from WrestleMania in a friendly rivalry match to win her way into the match in Orlando. Thus, it looked as if it would be yet another triple threat for the women of the red brand.

However, two weeks away from WWE WrestleMania 33, Bayley again felt the ire of McMahon. After standing up for the fired general manager, Mick Foley, the champ was put into a non-title match with Nia Jax. Then the stipulation was added that Jax would win her way into the Mania bout if she could defeat the champ. In a dominant physical showing, she succeeded in doing so.

What To Expect

With the addition of Jax to the match, the rightful assumption would be that we’ll see an early effort from Bayley, Sasha and even Charlotte to at least momentarily subdue Jax. None of the three former champions can ultimately match her power or strength, thus teaming up to take her out and remove her from the equation would be the prudent course of action for them. Of course, this will only last but so long.

After removing Nia Jax from the mix, the assumption would then be that Sasha and Bayley would take out their common enemy in Charlotte. Perhaps they take care of this prior to focusing on Jax, even. Either way, it feels like a foregone conclusion that both the heels in this match will be dispatched at some point to see a bit of 1-on-1 action between the two best friends.

As previously stated, though, Jax (and also Charlotte) won’t be taken out for the entirety of the match. And once they get involved in the action again, they should gain the upper hand. In the process, though, they should ultimately turn their attention to one another and do damage in that regard.

The heels focusing on one another should likely be a key to the matchup as it will ultimately open the door for either Sasha and Bayley to come back in and capitalize. They’ll be able to take out one of the strong foes after they’ve been weakened. Because it’s WrestleMania, frankly, it’s hard to see either one of the faces not walking out as champion with a win notched on their belt.

Predicted Winner

When the final bell rings, my guess would be that Bayley will retain the RAW Women’s Championship. Despite the popularity of Banks and the success of Charlotte as champion, none of the four are going to elicit the positive reaction from the crowd like The Hugger will. She resonates to the fans in a way that, truthfully, few people on the roster are able to. However, I don’t think that the end of the match is necessarily the end of the story here.

For weeks, there have been slight teases on RAW that Sasha Banks is no longer content being on the periphery of Bayley’s success story. Through things she’s said, side-eyed looks at her friend and various other instances, there’s been a tease that a heel turn is coming. What better way to make an impact like that than after their match at WWE WrestleMania 33.

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So while Bayley will ultimately walk out of WrestleMania still holding the belt, she won’t walk out head held high. The Sasha Banks heel turn is coming and, rather than having it come on RAW the next night, there’s a bigger impact to be had by doing it in front of the Mania crowd.