Welcome to another eWrestlingNews Question of the Day!
The tournament for the WWE Speed Women’s Championship is underway, with the bracket having been revealed on August 23rd (featured above). While this title is about as popular as the 24/7 Championship, and very few fans will truly care about it, it is still a title nevertheless, and should be treated with at least a little dignity—so let’s give it some discussion here.
My question for you today is “Who do you think should win this tournament to become the first-ever WWE Speed women’s champion?”
Remember to answer with your response in the comments below.
As far as my answer…
Ignoring what I would want to happen at first, and just going with my predictions of what I think will happen, here’s how I’d imagine this will pan out.
Iyo Sky beating Lyra Valkyria almost immediately puts her in the finals. That means Blair Davenport beats Naomi so Sky can beat Davenport. On the opposite side, Kairi Sane beats Elektra Lopez, but loses to Piper Niven, who beats Candice LeRae in the quarterfinals.
This sets up Sky versus Niven, with Sky becoming champion by overcoming the bigger woman, since that’s a better overall story than just giving it to Niven, even though she could certainly use a title to try to help boost her career—not that it’s going to matter much, as nobody is going to look at this title and go “Wow! Piper Niven is the Speed champion! She must be next in line for the Women’s World Championship!”
If I were in creative control, I would have booked a rather different tournament bracket. In fact, I would have stretched this out more, making it 16 women for a longer bracket to include lots of names not involved here, like Kayden Carter and Katana Chance, Ivy Nile, Tegan Nox, Indi Hartwell, and Kiana James, among others.
Without getting into the minutiae of plotting out the whole bracket, I would have likely ended it with Naomi against Davenport, with Naomi coming out on top. She’s probably never going to be that serious of a title contender ever again, and one of the things WWE has been slacking on is trying to promote Speed, but if she’s going to team up with Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill here and there, having her stand next to the tag team champions while holding a belt of her own would inherently give Naomi and the Speed Women’s Championship a bit of a boost. Casual fans would assume she must be great if she’s holding a title and the other two are, and some might even misconstrue it as her being part of a trios title situation.
At the very least, it’d be nice to see her check off another accomplishment. I think Iyo stands a much better chance at winning a women’s midcard title (if that ever comes to fruition) or to regain the women’s tag titles than what Naomi is being positioned as. This might be the last chance Naomi has to win gold, and she does have a solid fan base who could follow her on Twitter to watch these matches. Iyo, Lyra, and others can win it further down the line, but I’d probably go with Kiana James being the one to dethrone her, as that girl needs to get some kind of a boost, too. She’s fading into obscurity fast, just as Naomi is getting lost in the shuffle.
What do you think? Drop your thoughts below!
