Toni Storm and Io Shirai faced off at the recent Evolution PPV event. This was the finals of the 2018 Mae Young Classic. Toni Storm went on to win the match and the tournament.
It turns out that these were not the original plans for both the final match and the tournament winner.
According to Dave Meltzer in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter (subscribe here), the original booking plan for the Mae Young Classic final match was Toni Storm vs Tegan Nox.
Tegan suffered a knee injury during her match in the quarterfinals. As a result, Rhea Ripley advanced in the tournament. Ripley and Shirai faced off in the semi-finals on very short notice. The late decision was made for Shirai to win and for her to move on to the finals to face Storm.
Not only was Tegan supposed to make the finals, but she was also supposed to win the tournament according to Meltzer.
This makes the injury to Nox feel even more heartbreaking.
Hopefully, Nox is able to come back at full strength from the injury. If this is accurate and she was planned to win the tournament, it shows you that Triple H is extremely high on her. She should be fine from that standpoint moving forward.
How would you have felt about Nox winning? Let us know in the comment section below.
On a related note, here are the highest-rated WWE Women’s matches of all time.