A Shocking Detour in the Women's U.S. Championship Tournament

Last Friday, the road to crowning WWE's first-ever Women's United States Championship kicked off with the first bout in a 12-woman tournament, with the first round consisting of Triple Threat Matches. In the first match, Bayley defeated Candice LeRae and B-Fab to advance to the Semifinals, and regarding this week's SmackDown, the second Quarterfinal match pitted Bianca Belair (one half of the Women's Tag Team Champions), Blair Davenport, and Chelsea Green. Blair hasn't held a title in WWE yet, but Chelsea has been one half of the tag champs before. As for Bianca, well, she's done it all in quite a short time, and she enters this tournament just three wins away from accomplishing yet another first.

Bianca entered, then Blair, then Chelsea, and the bout was quite even throughout. We were treated to a moment where Blair was down and out, and Bianca and Chelsea fought each other for that pinfall, but neither would get it. After Blair kicked out, Bianca took out Chelsea, and it looked like Bianca would be on the verge of winning this thing.

Then this happened:

As the match progressed, we cut to a shocking sight: Jade Cargill--found brutally attacked. Knocked out, slightly bloodied, and a windshield smashed. Upon seeing this, Bianca ran right to the back to check on her Tag Team Championship partner, turning this Triple Threat into a one-on-one affair with Chelsea and Blair fighting it out. As we all expected, Chelsea delivered the Unprettier to Blair, and ended up with the victory to advance.

Chelsea Green is one of the reasons why many WWE fans were begging for midcard titles to be added to the Women's Division. Well, not just Chelsea. Mainly women like Chelsea who will most likely never see the main spotlight as top champions. WWE has their favorites when it comes to the top women's gold: Rhea, Liv, Bianca, and of course, the remaining Horsewomen. That leaves a lot of awesome women who deserve something, and while the tag titles are nice, they need more than that. Women like Michin, Chelsea, Elektra Lopez, and B-Fab, among many other women, definitely deserve something else to fight for. This is definitely true in the case of Chelsea Green, who has been in and out of WWE, but they are keeping her now, and she is definitely proving that she is a big time star in WWE's Women's Division.

So here is the updated bracket. With the win, Chelsea Green advances to the Semifinals, and the left side of the bracket has its Semifinal match: Bayley will face off against Chelsea Green. As I expected, the next Quarterfinal will take place on the next edition of SmackDown, which has already been taped ahead of time, while the fourth and final Quarterfinal match should air on December 6.

As for the next Quarterfinal match, well, we have a bit of a hiccup:

It was announced that the next Quarterfinal match was the originally made match between Jade Cargill, Michin, and Piper Niven. However, Jade is portrayed as not being cleared to compete in that tournament, so she'll be replaced in that match featuring Michin and Piper. It's quite interesting. Piper advancing could tease a possible clash in the Final between herself and her longtime partner, Chelsea Green. It should be interesting to see who replaces Jade in this match. I would think that Michin wins this, because, again, this title is made for women like her who are yearning for something for their hard work and for putting out great matches.

So from the looks of it, we should get the fourth and last Quarterfinal on December 6, the Semifinals on December 13, and then the Final will take place at the returning Saturday Night's Main Event. This tournament has been thrilling so far, I do hope that the winner is someone who hasn't had a proper spotlight before; that would be the ultimate way to promote that championship.