This Week's Observer Covers The Women's Mania Match

There was a very interesting piece in this week's issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that sort of adds more to something I published on Christmas Day about my feeling that we'll get Ronda Rousey, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch wrestle each other in a triple threat match at WrestleMania 35.

The article starts off by stating that there have been reports circulating about Charlotte Flair having been promised the main event of WrestleMania. I have not read the reports because I've been somewhat out of the loop with Christmas, but Dave Meltzer states - in his story - that whatever is going around is not true whatsoever.

Meltzer goes on to point out that the original plan for WrestleMania wasn't even going to be Ronda Rousey versus Charlotte Flair, which is what many had guessed. The match that was originally penciled in was Rousey meeting Natalya. The main event was going to be whatever was planned for Roman Reigns. Both make sense with hindsight considering they didn't rush to Rousey versus Natalya by having the latter win the Money in the Bank briefcase during the summer and Reigns has had successive WrestleMania main events, so it's plausible for the company to want to extend this streak.

As some will recall, I thought Reigns would defend the title against Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose, but that's not what this post is about.

What changed the booking - in regards to the planned Rousey/Natalya Mania match - is the death of Jim 'The Anvil' Neidhart as Vince McMahon didn't want to turn Natalya heel following the death of her father. This doesn't make sense to me considering how they wouldn't have had to do anything with Natalya's character until early 2019.

The WrestleMania plan for Rousey - as of this week - is still to face Becky Lynch in a singles match (the decision on it being the main event hasn't been decided). Everyone is apparently on board with the match being on the Mania card following everything that happened when it was pulled from the Survivor Series due to Lynch's injury. This plan also included a Rousey .vs. Flair rematch at the Royal Rumble. The rematch doesn't make any sense to me now considering both wrestlers are on opposing brands and the only way it could have feasibly been done is if both ladies were representing their respective brands as champions. Ronda is, Charlotte isn't. This should have been something I added in the Christmas Day post when I was giving reasons why I suspected we're getting a triple threat match at WrestleMania instead of two singles matches across the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania.

Meltzer notes that the WrestleMania match 'could absolutely end up as a three-way' and pointed out how Flair was the MVP in the TLC match. He also goes on to point out that - if the bout does end up being a triple threat, and it's the main event of WrestleMania - the company gets to make legends out of two long-term acts in Charlotte and Becky with both being put in the spot rather than just one of them.

As of the time of writing, Becky Lynch is a 4/5 favourite to win the Royal Rumble with Sky Bet. A decision in favour of Charlotte Flair has been priced at 6/4.

Those looking to back both wrestlers to be joint-winners of the women's Royal Rumble can find the option in Sky Bet's 'Royal Rumble RequestABet' section. It's currently 6/1.

As for WrestleMania 35 betting - Sky Bet has Becky Lynch .vs. Ronda Rousey as a 6/5 favourite to main event the show. The triple threat is next up at 7/2. Bear in mind that Meltzer has written that the decision for the final match of the April 7th card still hasn't been decided yet and this sort of thing won't be set in stone until nearer to the event.

The news written in this post was taken from the December 31st 2018 edition of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter