It’s WWE Holiday Week, and all sorts of stuff has been happening on USA, from Tribute to the Troops to a New Day Holiday Special we didn’t manage to cover (which was almost certainly our loss). But meanwhile, over on Hulu, WWE Main Event is still doing its thing, whether you remembered that that’s a show that exists or not. In fact, there weren’t even any new matches on this week’s show, it was just Scott Stanford hosting a recap episode. There was one thing, however, that’s got everybody talking about Main Event way more than usual: Stanford announced that Asuka will be defending her Smackdown Women’s Championship against Becky Lynch at the Royal Rumble. There was an official graphic and everything.
It’s weird enough to announce a major PPV match on Main Event, but what’s even weirder is that WWE doesn’t seem to have confirmed the match anywhere else. It hasn’t been tweeted from the official WWE account, and it’s not on the website. For that matter, neither Asuka nor Becky has posted about the match on social media. Which raises the question of whether it might have been a possibility under consideration that wasn’t meant to be announced yet. Except that Main Event isn’t aired live, so why would they release the episode with the announcement included if it’s a mistake?
There’s a lot here that doesn’t make sense, but that will pass. If the announcement is legit, we’ll presumably hear about it from other WWE sources soon. In the meantime, feel free to debate what this means for the Women’s Royal Rumble Match and WrestleMania and Becky versus Ronda and all that other stuff. Arguing with other smart marks about booking is what wrestling’s all about, after all.
UPDATE: The match is officially not official, and that comes from a pretty strange (but also authorized) source as well.
https://twitter.com/realpaigewwe/status/1076219918637395968
Paige, who’s no longer the General Manager of Smackdown, is taking the fall for the misplaced announcement. It’s still possible we’ll get back to Becky fighting Asuka at the Royal Rumble (“not official” doesn’t always mean not happening), but after the backpedaling, it seems unlikely. It’s still weird that they let the announcement go live on Main Event.
