WWE Stomping Grounds 2019: SmackDown Women’s Championship match preview
SmackDown Women’s Champion Bayley is defending her title for the first time at a PPV when she faces Alexa Bliss at WWE Stomping Grounds.
“Bayley Blue-Belt” has a nice ring to it. Ever since her big night at Money in the Bank where she won the women’s ladder match and went on to capture the SmackDown Women’s Championship from Charlotte Flair, Bayley has been on a roll. The main roster is finally starting to see what NXT knew for years: Bayley is a badass.
For her first title defense on a pay-per-vew she has Alexa Bliss to contend with, which at first blush is a strange choice considering Bliss is supposed to be on the Monday Night Raw brand. But since we all know the “wild card rule” basically means the brand split is non-existent, Bliss has found her way into the SmackDown Women’s Title match at Stomping Grounds.
This writer assumed Flair would be the first one in line for a title shot (again) since she is the one Bayley took the title from in the first place. But having Bliss as the challenger in the match isn’t the worst choice. She and Bayley have a history both on- and off-screen and they’ve even brought their real life Twitter beef into the storyline now.
But it was back in April of 2017 where Bliss defeated Bayley for the Raw Women’s Championship in her hometown of San Jose at the WWE Payback event. Bayley has spoken of this defeat on social media recently saying she’s “re-writing history.” Let’s hope that’s the case because having Bayley lose her title this fast would be a tragedy especially with Bliss being on RAW. The real wild card here is Nikki Cross.
We’ve seen a strange yin-yang friendship form between Bliss and Cross recently but with Bliss being her usual manipulative self in backstage promos it’s only a matter of time before Cross turns on her. The question is will that be at Stomping Grounds or will Cross actually help Bliss win the title and then go on to capture gold for the first time from her former BFF?
Another question that must be brought up is Bliss’ health. Bliss was pulled from the Money in the Bank ladder match just days before the PPV because she wasn’t medically cleared. So is she healthy enough now to take on Bayley at Stomping Grounds? Because as we’ve been witnessing lately Bayley isn’t playing around anymore.
It all goes down at Stomping Grounds on June 23 on the WWE Network.