We’re all still getting used to referring to WWE’s much-anticipated women’s wrestling tournament as the “Mae Young Classic,” but we’ll get there. We already knew that WWE was planning on rolling out the tournament in some sort of binge-watching-amenable batch format, and we already knew when they’d be taping the opening rounds at Full Sail, but now we’ve got a bit more information. ALLEGEDLY.
PWInsider.com reports that WWE will be following the mid-July tapings up with a late-August rollout for the beginning of the tournament. If you’ll recall, the Cruiserweight Classic took place over the course of a few taping dates, but the show was released in weekly installments. WWE apparently believes this will NOT DO for the Mae Young Classic, and will be releasing the show onto the Network a round at a time.
After the July 13 and 14 taping dates, there will be a preview special for the tournament (we assume similar to the CWC Bracketology special that previewed that tournament last summer), which will air on August 20. The entire first round of the tournament will then drop the final week of August, and the entire second round will be released during the first week of September.
The live finals of the tournament will air on Tuesday, September 12th. The current speculation is that given this is the same evening Smackdown Live will hit Las Vegas, the finals of the Mae Young Classic may well take place in Las Vegas, either before or after Smackdown Live airs. That would definitely bring a different flavor to those finals.
