WrestleMania 35 was historical because it marked the first time a women’s match main evented WWE’s biggest event of the year. Becky Lynch won a triple threat match against Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey, leaving the event with the RAW and SmackDown Women’s Championships.
According to former WWE writer Dave Schilling, WWE originally planned a different triple threat match for that event that would have seen Asuka face off with Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville.
Schilling detailed the original plan for the match on a recent episode of Fightful’s In The Weeds with Jeremy Lambert & Joel Pearl. Schilling shared that not only would the match see Mandy win the title, but she would have shared a kiss with Sonya to pay off a romantic storyline between the two.
“On TV, the Mandy Rose, Sonya Deville storyline. That was supposed to culminate in a romance between Sonya and Mandy at WrestleMania 35 where it was a triple threat for the SmackDown Women’s Championship and Mandy was going to win because Sonya would lay down for her and they would embrace and kiss in the middle of the ring. I said, ‘Oh boy.’ If you’re going to do this, I understand why it could be great because it’s a representation and it’s necessary.”
Schilling said that WWE actually went to GLAAD to ask if they could make the storyline an appropriate one. Schilling had his own reservations about how Mandy and Sonya might be positioned as heels in the match, but it ultimately didn’t go down as planned.
“To WWE’s credit, they went to GLAAD. Stephanie McMahon was on the phone with them. ‘Can we do this? Can we make this palatable and sensitive to the situation with queer people in America? Can we make this a good angle?’ The thing that I said was, ‘At WrestleMania, 60,000 people are going to be rooting for Asuka, and they’re supposed to be the babyfaces? They’re going to be booed out of the building and you’re going to have two women kissing in the middle of the ring and people booing because they love Asuka so much.’ People do love Asuka and every time WWE thinks they can beat her and ‘who cares,’ they forget people have a positive, intense relationship with her, even when they try to make her a heel, they root for her. Eventually, that storyline didn’t get done because they decided to put the belt on Charlotte.
“It could have turned out poorly even though the best intentions were there, and they did want to make a good storyline and Sonya and Mandy were involved and they were excited about doing it. At the end of the day, you have to do it right, and that would have been the wrong way to do it because you’re beating a babyface who people love, at WrestleMania, when there is so much complaint around how Asuka is losing.”
Charlotte won the SmackDown Women’s title from Asuka on the March 26 episode of SmackDown, just twelve days before WrestleMania 35 Asuka, Mandy and Sonya all competed in a Women’s Battle Royal on the WrestleMania 35 Kickoff Show.
