Typically, when a member of a tag team wrestles a singles champion at a “Premium Live Event,” their chances of securing the win are rather low. Sure, there have been plenty of champions who came from the world of tag team wrestling, with Shawn Michaels leaving Marty Jennetty behind to become an all-time great singles star and Jay Briscoe becoming the Ring of Honor World Championship despite being a tag team specialist during his lifetime, but few expected history to repeat itself at Backlash when Bianca Belair entered the ring opposite IYO SKY of Damage CTRL in the opening match.

With that being said, Paul “Triple H” Levesque booked this match to really mess with those expectations, as for much of the contest, “The Genius of the Skys” looked like the bigger star, with the Stardom standout working over Belair's arm, hitting incredible maneuvers, and seemingly having a counter for all of her foe's moves.

Heck, one could argue that had Bayley and Dakota Kai not walked out at the end of the match in an attempt to cheat their girl to a victory, one could argue that SKY would be the performer heading to SmackDown with the RAW Women's Championship, not “The EST of WWE.”

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Jey Uso with a text bubble reading "I got next!" next to Damian Priest with the RAW logo as the bakground.

Matty Breisch ·

Booker T with a text bubble reading "It’s a no-brainer" next to Jade Cargill with the AEW logo as the background.

Matty Breisch ·

Bayley next to the blacked-out silhouette of Trish Stratus with the WrestleMania 40 logo as the background.

Matty Breisch ·

… fortunately, Bayley and Kai did intervene, and as a result, Bianca Belair secured her 13th successful title defense of the RAW Women's Championship and will ultimately become the longest-reigning women's champion of the modern WWE era. That, unlike SKY's long-term spot in Damage, CTRL is all but set.