Backstage News On How Ronda Rousey's WWE WrestleMania 35 Match Has Changed Over Time
It was reported yesterday on Wrestling Observer Radio that Charlotte Flair will eventually be added to the WWE RAW Women's Championship match at WrestleMania 35, making it a triple threat between Flair, Ronda Rousey and Becky Lynch. On today's WOR, Dave Meltzer went into greater detail about how the plans with all three women have rearranged over the past year and lead us to this upcoming match.
According to Meltzer, WWE's original idea was to gradually build toward a Charlotte Flair vs. Ronda Rousey one-on-one match at WrestleMania 35. The push for both women started at last year's WrestleMania 34, where Flair defeated Asuka's 914 winning streak to retain her WWE SmackDown Women's Championship and Rousey debuted in an impressive showcase many media outlets called the match of the night.
WWE then decided to start building toward a Natalya vs. Rousey feud because Flair and Lynch were in the midst of a heated rivalry on WWE SmackDown. Unfortunately, the sudden loss of Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart put a halt to the WWE's plan to turn Natalya heel and face Rousey.
November and WWE Survivor Series rolled around, and it was scheduled to be a one-off match between Rousey and Lynch – Champion vs. Champion – however, it's well documented how Lynch suffered a broken face and severe concussion after a punch from Nia Jax. This injury, just days prior to her Survivor Series match, would force Lynch to sit on the sidelines and watch her friend-turned-rival, Flair face Rousey one-on-one at the PPV.
Meltzer noted how the ending of the Flair vs. Rousey match was the exact same plan they set for the Lynch vs.Rousey match, where Flair went berserk with a kendo stick and crushed Rousey's throat with a chair. The waves that the Rousey vs. Flair match caused convinced WWE management to rearrange things once more. A new plan that originally saw Charlotte Flair vs. Ronda Rousey at WWE Royal Rumble and Becky Lynch one-on-one with Ronda Rousey at WrestleMania 35 also got scrapped because they wanted Flair, Rousey, and Lynch to all be a part of the same match at WrestleMania this year.