Last year, WWE Evolution exceeded already high expectations exponentially. Everyone expected for the first all women’s pay-per-view in WWE history to be a good one, but few expected it to be enough of an absolute banger for it to hold up as the best WWE PPV of 2018.
As a celebration of women’s wrestling within the WWE, Evolution proved to be an incredibly enjoyable and absolutely fun event for both hardcore viewers and casual fans. Many people enjoyed Evolution more than that year’s WrestleMania, which says a lot.
WWE have yet to announce that they will be running an Evolution 2 in 2019, but considering the rave reviews for last year’s Evolution event, surely WWE have to have plans in the cards for running another all women’s pay-per-view event. If not, then WWE would be foolish to not be considering a follow up to one of the biggest PPVs of the last year and arguably the last decade.
Several critics and fans alike are eagerly anticipating a sequel to WWE Evolution. In my case especially, I am anticipating the show so much that I compiled a slideshow showcasing my predictions from the show. I compiled an entire hypothetical card for Evolution 2 from the opening contest to the main event of the show. In my eyes, the most ideal card for the second Evolution event would be a celebration of women’s wrestling and its rich history that features the best that the division has to offer from the division’s past, present and future.
Hopefully, the card that I came up with accurately reflects that.
Team Besties vs. Laycool vs. Boss ‘N’ Hug vs IIconics – WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles
Last year, Evolution was all about not only showcasing the best that women’s wrestling has to offer, but also how much the division has evolved over the years. What better way to open the PPV’s sequel than with a Fatal Four Way Tag Team Championship match where each team represents a different era of women’s wrestling in WWE.
Of course, Lita and Trish Stratus (aka Team Besties) represent the Attitude Era. Meanwhile, Laycool could return to represent both the Ruthless Aggression Era and especially the Universe Era; better known as the PG Era. Sasha Banks and Bayley of the Boss ‘N’ Hug Connection, as modern day veterans in their own right, would represent the current era of women’s wrestling; the New Era. Lastly, Peyton Royce and Billie Kay of The IIconics would represent the new blood in the water. The next generation of women’s wrestling, if you will.
It does not even matter who walks in as the champion or who walks out of the match with the titles. It would just be a perfectly fitting way to kickoff a celebration of women’s wrestling by giving us something of a time machine view of the division’s past, present and future of the women’s EVOLUTION. See what I did there? WWE should totally do that.
Scary Sherri’s Sensational Invitational Battle Royal
Okay, we know this is just gonna be called a regular ole Women’s Battle Royal, but in a perfect world, it would be named after Sensational Sherri.
Anyone, there is not much booking or story that WWE have to do for this one; nothing more and nothing less than they did for last year’s Battle Royal. All they have to do is give us a fun little match featuring old and new faces from women’s division past, present and future. Again, like last year, make it a #1 Contender’s match for a Women’s Title of the winner’s choosing.
Last year’s match was insanely fun to watch and it was lovely to see so many old faces interact with more recent ones. The only thing WWE could do different if they wanted to is add some NXT and NXT UK faces into the frey. Last year, it was mostly main roster names and legends in the mix. Adding some NXT names can highlight that we are seeing the future that women’s wrestling can offer as well as highlight the feeling that literally anybody could possibly win this match.
Truth be told, while it would be most likely that a main roster name will ultimately be the winner, it probably should be an NXT or NXT UK star who should win that #1 contendership just as a way to get more eyes on WWE’s lesser known WWE Network shows (especially in the case of NXT UK, which is excellent and you should be watching right now if you’re not).
Kairi Sane vs. Asuka – SmackDown Women’s Championship
Kairi Sane has had quite the successful run on the NXT brand since joining in 2017. Since she first stepped inside of an NXT ring, Sane won the inaugural Mae Young Classic, she won the NXT Women’s Championship, competed at WrestleMania, won the hearts of millions around the world and ended 2018 as NXT’s Female Competitor of the Year and Overall Competitor of the Year. Needless to say, she’s had an amazing NXT run.
Considering everything that one half of the Sky Pirates has accomplished, it is about time that she gets called up to the main roster to kickstart the next chapter of her career. If her main roster run is anything like her NXT run, we should expect a quick rise to the top of her division. If she heads to SmackDown, we can see her winning the SmackDown Women’s Championship by time the summer rolls around.
If that is the case, we would love to see her interlocked in a feud with current champion, Asuka. If this does happen, we can see Asuka turning heel before their Evolution 2 match. It seems evident that WWE have no clue how to book Asuka as a champion these days – or book the SmackDown women’s division, but that’s another story for another day – and as with most cases, when WWE struggle trying to book somebody, they try to start fresh by giving them a character change; a heel turn.
The Sane vs. Asuka feud may start off as a babyface vs babyface altercation between two faces over mutual respect, but when things get personal following a heel turn, it could give fans an intense rematch for Evolution 2.
Bianca Belair vs Io Shirai – NXT Women’s Championship
Some readers may remember that last month when Io Shirai pinned Shayna Baszler in Six-Woman Tag competition, she made a stake for her NXT Women’s Championship. However, backstage after the match, Bianca Belair told Kairi Sane and Shirai that while she has no problem with either of them, no one should challenge Shayna for the title until Bianca got another shot.
This would lead to a one-on-one #1 contender’s match between Shirai and Belair that actually aired last Wednesday night. Unfortunately the match was cut short by an interfering Shayna Baszler who declared the match a no contest. However, the match was incredibly fun while it lasted and both women’s displayed some excellent chemistry. The fact that their NXT TV match ended without a decisive winner seems to suggest that WWE might see some more money in this match to put it on a bigger show. There’s no bigger show to put it on than Evolution 2.
Let’s fast forward in the future for a second. Let’s hypothetically say that Io Shirai wins the NXT Women’s Championship sometime in the future; perhaps at the next TakeOver during a Fatal Four Way (again, hypothetically). Let’s say that Bianca Belair is still rising through the ranks, proving herself as a young competitor and chasing the title. All of these puzzle pieces could culminate in a rematch of sorts between the two. For NXT to truly showcase the best that their division has to offer, there’s no better way to do so than allowing The EST of NXT and The Genius of the Sky pick up where they left off the other night.
Charlotte Flair vs. Shayna Baszler – Hardcore Match
After dominating the NXT women’s division for over a year as the yellow brand’s only two-time Women’s Champion, it seems like a natural next step for The Queen of Spades to get the big main roster call up sometime within the next year. Whenever WWE decides to pull the trigger on that notion is up to them, but when they do, we would like to predict that The Queen of Spades will have her sights set on the self-proclaimed Queen, Charlotte Flair.
Charlotte Flair and Shayna Baszler are arguably the strongest and the two hardest hitting athletes in their respective Four Horsewomen factions. We think that a full blown feud – yet alone a match – would make for a wholly exciting, intense encounter. We can see Shayna Baszler dominating her way through the main roster women’s division until faced with a big honcho – and likely her first real taste of competition – in Charlotte Flair.
If we are correct in our protection, we can see these two duking it out a few times, maybe trading some wins between each other along the way. After beating each other to a pulp in each of their matches, their one-on-one feud would have to culminate with a special stip attached: a Hardcore Match. If they didn’t hit each other hard enough before, they sure will once they find themselves surrounded by steel chairs and kendo sticks.
Tegan Nox vs. Rhea Ripley – Mae Young Classic 3 Finals
These last couple years have presented a whirlwind of emotion for Tegan Nox, especially in relation to the Mae Young Classic tournament. During the inaugural tournament two years ago, Nox was supposed to be a participant, but she injured her knee right before the big show. After being on the shelf for like a year, she returned for a solid showing in Mae Young Classic 2. Then, during the quarterfinals, her time would get cut short when she injured her other knee.
If you think that’s heartbreaking, just wait for the kicker: it has been heavily rumored that Nox was supposed to win that tournament. You feel that? That’s real heartbreak you just felt.
Judging from more recent tweets, Tegan Nox seems to be on the road to recovery. If she comes back in time to possibly take part in Mae Young Classic 3, we could get a satisfying tournament victory that would be three years in the making. The only thing that could make such a win even more satisfying is if in the finals, Nox were to defeat Rhea Ripley, who has been making fun of Nox’s injury on social media for the past year now and is a former NXT UK Women’s Champion.
Toni Storm vs. Viper vs. Jazzy Gabert vs. Kay Lee Ray – NXT UK Women’s Championship
Last year, NXT UK pretty much got shut out of WWE Evolution. Then-champion Rhea Ripley defended her title against Dakota Kai, but it was in a dark match before the show. It was a literal dark match, I must add. Not a Kickoff match that can be streamed for the WWE Network. An actual dark match that fans will probably never see unless they were in attendance that night.
Now that Toni Storm is the champion, assuming that she still holds that title in time for Evolution 2, then WWE would be smart to showcase her as the champion. It would be fitting to see Storm show up to Evolution 2 with gold around her waist a year after winning the Mae Young Classic at Evolution 2’s predecessor. In fact, it would be the very definition of … wait for it … EVOLUTION.
Anyway, more than just showcase the champion’s evolution, WWE would be smart to take the opportunity to showcase the NXT UK women’s division; not only for those not subscribed to the WWE Network, but for subscribers who may not have had the chance to check out the relatively new NXT UK yet.
The best way to show fans what they’re missing out on would be by showcasing the division’s star players. If we had to predict what the division would look like a few months down the line, a safe bet would be with Storm as the champion and new signees Viper, Jazzy Gabert and Kay Lee Ray at the forefront of potential challengers. Put them all in one match, let them kill it for a few minutes and then watch that Network subscriber count skyrocket within seconds.
Becky Lynch vs. Ronda Rousey – Raw Women’s Championship
Becky Lynch and Ronda Rousey have been gunning for each other’s throats ever since last fall. As of this writing, they will be 2/3 of a WrestleMania Triple Threat match with Charlotte Flair for the Raw Women’s Championship. With strong rumors circulating that the self-proclaimed Baddest Woman on the Planet will be taking a break after Mania, let’s hypothetically imagine that to be true. To boot, let’s assume that The Man will be walking out of Mania with the Women’s Championship.
Let’s also hypothetically assume that Lynch will have a long reign with the title while Rousey rests up. In the same regard, let’s assume that after Mania, Rousey will be out for the remainder of the spring and the entirety of the summer where she does not return until the very start of the fall. If this is true, this would mean that Rousey’s schedule would free up just in time for Evolution 2; if Evolution 2 does fall around the same time as Evolution fell last year. Again, this whole slideshow is full of hypotheticals so just run with it.
If all of these assumptions happen to fall into place, then Rousey would be coming back gunning to get her title back. There would be no better main event than the main event we missed out on at last year’s Survivor Series.
For a cherry on top, maybe certain Horsewomen make a run-in interference following a climactic Hardcore match, which in turn could tease a Horsewomen vs. Horsewomen match for Survivor Series.
It all sounds so crazy that it just might happen.