3. Pledging Allegiance To Chelsea Green
First, a quick complaint about the notion of an interim title in WWE.
There is no real precedent for WWE crowning interim champions when a champ is sidelined for a prolonged period. AEW did it and phased it out, as it became incredibly convoluted and confusing. For WWE, this kind of concept only works if you’re going to be consistent with how it’s used, and we all know that they’re not going to follow through.
That said, none of that should diminish the accomplishment of Chelsea Green Sunday night, climbing the ladder and becoming Interim WWE Women’s Champion. The match itself was mostly very good, with some entertaining spots involving everyone, while avoiding some of the overdone tropes we’ve seen in ladder matches in recent years.
WWE did a great job subverting expectations by having Chelsea get the big hope spot climbing the ladder and being foiled by the Baddies, only to rise up after everyone else fell off their respective ladders to retrieve the title.
Green winning certainly made the fans in Minneapolis happy, though it defied conventional wisdom, as many figured Charlotte Flair would win to set up the eventual collision with the lineal WWE Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley when she returns.
However, if Rhea’s more injured than anyone realizes, this might be a smart way to build interest in an interim title: put it on a babyface who probably won’t hold it for very long and then transition it eventually to Flair in time for Ripley to return, or even just have a heel beat Chelsea and then Rhea returns to unify the titles. Either way, there are options.
