New RAW Women’s Champion Becky Lynch and new SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair reportedly had a backstage confrontation after last night’s SmackDown on FOX taping at the INTRUST Bank Arena in Wichita, KS.
As noted, the show ended with the Women’s Title Exchange segment between Flair and Lynch, due to their respective roster moves in the WWE Draft. That segment ended with Lynch excusing herself as Sasha Banks interrupted and had words with Flair, which led to Flair and Banks brawling to end the show.
In an update, PWInsider reports that the backstage issue between Flair and Lynch came up after Flair allegedly voiced concerns before the show went on the air, concerned with the exchange segment. Flair reportedly did not want to look weak and did not want her title reign to look weak during the segment. Despite those concerns, WWE went ahead with the exchange as the show-closing segment.
During the segment, there was a moment where Flair was to hand the belt to Lynch, but instead pulled it away and threw the belt on the mat. PWInsider notes that this is not the way the exchange was expected to go. That’s when Sonya Deville demanded Flair retrieve the belt and hand it to her, which Flair did. Deville then asked for Lynch’s title but Lynch instead chucked the belt at Flair. This was also not part of the plan. Flair picked the belt up and continued her promo to set up Banks coming out, which put the segment back on track and left Lynch teasing a WWE Survivor Series match against Flair or Banks.
After SmackDown ended with Flair and Banks brawling, Flair returned to the backstage area and there was said to be a confrontation between Flair and Lynch over Flair allegedly disrespecting Lynch by “trying to make her look bad,” according to one source. There were loud words between the two, and the situation was described as heated, but it did not get physical.
Furthermore, Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful noted that PWInsider’s report is in line with what was going around. There were disagreements with how the segment was going to go, as they hadn’t planned on the belt being thrown down, and there were some words exchanged backstage. It was noted that a large portion of the roster, including officials, producers and referees, had already left the arena due to the busy travel week and many trying to get out early. Most of these people also heard second-hand what happened, but within an hour word was making the rounds among employees who were gone.
There’s no word on if this incident has anything to do with Andrade’s late night “FU” message to WWE.
Stay tuned for more.
