The fast-changing nature of the wrestling business showed itself again on Friday. WWE reportedly wiped a marquee main-event match at WrestleMania off the board.
Becky Lynch and Ronda Rousey made for the hottest pro wrestling rivalry at the start of 2019. The two WWE women’s superstars were scheduled to meet at the 2018 edition of WWE Survivor Series in Los Angeles. However, former WWE superstar Nia Jax punched Lynch inadvertently during a wild, chaotic segment on the episode of Raw the Monday before.
The punch concussed Lynch and caused her to miss the match that Sunday, where Charlotte Flair replaced her.
It then looked like they were going to face off at WWE WrestleMania 35 that ensuing spring. However, WWE added Flair to make it a Triple Threat at WrestleMania. A match that Lynch famously won in the first-ever women’s main event in WrestleMania history.
Lynch and Rousey appeared destined to renew their hostilities at next year’s WrestleMania in Hollywood. But now, as 2023 approaches, the match is reportedly off the board. A report from WrestlingNews.co surfaced Thursday afternoon that told a different story. “Plans for a match between Ronda Rousey vs. Becky Lynch have been scrapped,” wrote writer Angel Aramboles.
Preeminent wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer would later corroborate the report. “Right now, that is not the plan,” Meltzer said. He continued, “You know, things change like we said. You go in a different direction, the world takes you in different places. I don’t know what Ronda’s match is, or Becky’s match. But, as of today, as of this morning, it was said to me it is ‘very unlikely’ and another person who’s very well-connected said, ‘I heard it’s dead.’ And I asked, and said, ‘Not dead. Because, nothing’s dead in WWE and someone can get hurt, blah, blah, blah. But definitely not the plan now.”
Steven Muehlhausen of DAZN then later contributed to the news too with an interesting tidbit. Muehlhausen tweeted, “Sources: In regards to no Becky Lynch vs Ronda Rousey at Mania, people close to Lynch feel the match has lost its luster and should’ve been 1 on 1 at WrestleMania 35 when Ronda was at her apex.”
The wrestling business changes all the time. So, if this somehow ends up happening anyway, and your friend shows you this, tell them “plans change” and leave it at that.
About Chris Novak
Chris Novak has been talking and writing about sports ever since he can remember. Previously, Novak wrote for and managed sites in the SB Nation network for nearly a decade from 2013-2022