After slowly working her way into a featured spot on the SmackDown roster, beating Mia Yim in her debut match on the brand, Tiffany Stratton was presented with the next major challenge in her main roster run: qualifying for a spot on her first main roster Premium Live Event, the Elimination Chamber, in Perth, Australia.
For Stratton, this meant winning a match against Zelina Vega, the spunky leader of the LWO who gave Rhea Ripley a tough time at Backlash in front of her hometown crowd in Puerto Rico. Working a nearly double-digit match in the middle of a solid card, Vega looked like she had Stratton's number before Elektra Lopez and the rest of Legado Del Fantasma appeared in the crowd and gave the “Muscle Barbie” the opportunity she needed to secure the win, hitting a World's Prettiest Moonsault for the 1-2-3.
Discussing her big win in a special pre-Elimination Chamber video for WWE Digital, Stratton chastized anyone who didn't believe she would win her match, as she has far bigger aspirations than simply qualifying for a Premium Live Event.
“I mean, we all know that I was gonna beat Zelina Vega tonight, but now I move on to the Elimination Chamber in Perth, Australia, and I'm going to become the youngest-ever Elimination Chamber winner,” Tiffany Stratton told WWE digital. “And then I'm going to move on to WrestleMania, and whoever the champion is, I'm going to wrestle them and beat them, toodles.”
Vega, too, was interviewed for the video and reflected on taking the L in Utah, noting that she has a lot of thinking to do about how to eliminate her LDF problem.
“I almost won the match. Okay, I almost won that match. I have been trying and trying to get my hands on the title since Backlash, since Rhea at Backlash, and I was this close to getting a chance to go into Chamber to do exactly that,” Zelina Vega explained. “If it wasn't for Elektra putting herself in my business, I would have had that spot that would have been mine. I don't know how much I have to prove to people, how much more that I have to prove to people that I deserve this, that I deserve to be a champion, I deserve to go to WrestleMania. No, no, no, no, now I'm setting my sights on Electra, Santos is the one who's going to regret sticking her nose in my business. This is all your fault, Santos. Remember who I was before LWO. Remember why you came to me in the first place. Because I promise you, I'm gonna go right back to that.”
Whoa, talk about some deeply layered storytelling, as this match's outcome sent Stratton to Perth and prepared fans for an even better battle between Elektra Lopez and Vega down the line as part of the greater LWO-Legado Del Fantasma war. If WWE continues to book matches like this, with multi-layered storytelling across multiple angles, it will benefit every performer across the card, from Stratton to Vega and everyone in between.
Booker T has massive praise for Tiffany Stratton's run on SmackDown.
While some members of the WWE Universe are just now discovering the joy that is Tiffany Stratton, one member of the promotion's official payroll, a two-time Hall of Famer, to be more specific, has been singing her praises for a very long time.
Discussing Stratton's time on SmackDown now that she's officially graduated from his brand, NXT, Booker T celebrated how the former NXT Women's Champion has handled her new position, as she's been learning and performing at the highest level of professional wrestling while making it look effortless.
“She's really, really good, and she can handle that position… She's been ready for that position,” Booker T said via EWrestling News, “I think, for quite some time, but she's been very, very patient in her approach as far as jumping to the main roster. She's been trying to soak up every little bit of knowledge she possibly can before making that switch.”
A big supporter of Stratton since pretty much her very first match, Booker has helped to call many of the most important matches of her career thus far, from becoming NXT Women's Champion to losing it to Becky Lynch, and beyond. While King Booker will no longer be afforded that honor, with the dynamic duo of Corey Graves and Wade Barrett earning the honor moving forward, it's clear he'll continue to watch along like the rest of us, as when Stratton gets into the ring, impressive things always seem to happen.
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