Real reason behind WWE scrapping major tournament final from Raw’s Netflix debut reportedly revealed
Reports reveal why WWE removed a marquee match-up from the debut episode of Raw on Netflix on January 6th, 2025.
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Real reason why WWE removed finals of the Women's Intercontinental Championship from Raw's premiere Netflix (via WWE)
After years of the WWE Universe asking for women’s midcard titles, WWE finally obliged by introducing the Women’s United States and the Women’s Intercontinental Championships. However, some fans have recently argued that even after introducing these belts, the promotion is not giving these titles the importance and recognition that they deserve.
According to WrestleVotes, WWE altered their plans of having the finals of the Women’s Intercontinental Championship tournament take place on the debut episode of Raw on Netflix. They believed that this match taking place on January 6th would make it get lost in the shuffle. The promotion reportedly wants to “get this title off and running in a big way.” Thus, the company believed that mixing it in at such a huge stage would not do it justice.
This news upset a lot of fans. After all, the Women’s United States Championship was crowned in a huge manner at Saturday Night’s Main Event. Chelsea Green and Michin were even given the penultimate spot on the card. The Hot Mess also got a grand celebration after becoming the inaugural women’s US Champion.
Dakota Kai vs Lyra Valkyria was moved from the Netflix premiere as the creative team was afraid it would get "lost in the shuffle"
— ??? (@RhodesKotaEra) January 2, 2025
(WrestleVotes) pic.twitter.com/LxaYCHpzut
The latest episode of Raw featured both semi-final matches of the Women’s Intercontinental Championship tournament. Lyra Valkyria shocked the world by beating Iyo Sky and proceeding to the finals. On the other side of the bracket, Damage CTRL had a bit more luck. Dakota Kai successfully overcame Zoey Stark and now has a shot to win her first WWE singles title.
Why WWE removing the finals of the Women’s Intercontinental Championship tournament from Raw’s Netflix debut may be a good thing
WWE likely wants to stack up the first few episodes of Raw on Netflix as much as they can. They already have a stellar card planned for the inaugural episode. However, fans still do not know the plans for the episodes following it. Placing the finals of this tournament can be a great way to create extra hype for a future Raw episode on Netflix.
The debut episode of Raw on Netflix already has many high-profile matches placed on the current card and will most likely require a lot of time factoring in all the entrances and the in-ring time. As fans have seen this in the past, this always results in time being cut out from the women’s matches. This would do a lot of injustice to Lyra Valkyria and Dakota Kai.
Placing these finals on a future episode will give these women sufficient time for their match. Furthermore, they can even take up the main event spot at a future show. An incredible match to headline the show, followed by a grand celebration of the inaugural champion, is simply highly impractical for WWE to do on January 6th.
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Mokshit Batra
(1425 Articles Published)