Who is the Woman to Beat Bianca Belair?

Bianca Belair is riding a title run that has lasted longer than a year, but many wonder who is the woman to take that title off her waist. 

Bianca Belair is going into her 13th Premium Live Event as Raw Women’s Champion. After running through the entire roster over the past year, fans are starting to wonder who is the woman to beat Belair.

Unfortunately, even with Belair’s immense talent, the EST might be the dullest champion on the roster. Her winning ways are already compared to John Cena’s, who was often criticized by fans for taking away championship opportunities from his colleagues. Now that she has secured her WrestleMania streak, WWE needs to find someone to dethrone her. While she has beaten almost everyone, a few options could still make sense. Below are the women that could feasibly take control of the Raw Women’s Championship and, of course, predictions as to who it will ultimately end up being.

Iyo Sky

Bianca’s current challenger, Iyo Sky, is the latest member of Damage CTRL to go for the gold after Bayley failed earlier this year. Sky is immensely talented and still pretty new on the WWE roster. Although Damage CTRL has been feuding with Bianca on and off since last summer, Sky has never had a shot at the title and only one single match with the EST in that time. This means that in a reign that has seen most of the roster fall short, Iyo and Bianca feel fresh.

The matchup between the two is likely to come at Backlash. While the freshness of the match and Sky’s considerable talent are positives, there is some reason to doubt that Iyo Sky is the woman to beat Belair. Unfortunately, that doubt is her fellow faction mates. Damage CTRL has been weak for months now, and the story heading into this match is that Bayley is at fault for hogging the spotlight. While a fun story could be that Iyo wins and Bayley gets jealous, they will likely fail again, vindicating Bayley and leading to a big blow-off match before Damage CTRL is split up in the draft.

Trish Stratus

She is not a nostalgia act or our childhood fantasy. Instead, Trish Stratus announced to the next generation of the WWE Universe who she is, the most important woman in WWE history. Her words may be overexaggerated, but there is some truth to Trish’s claim.

With her heel turn completed, she is on a collision course with Becky Lynch, the woman she took down on Raw. While it is hard to know precisely how long Startus will be back on WWE programming if she is really sticking around to SummerSlam and beyond, she makes a compelling case as the woman to beat Belair.

Bianca has run through the Women’s roster on Raw, but Trish hasn’t been on Raw. She recently returned for WrestleMania and has never had a match with Belair. Also, Bianca herself is still new. She has only been on the main roster for three years, so she isn’t really established enough to take a loss from just anyone. Having a random superstar surprise her after all this time and effort doesn’t help anyone involved.

Trish provides a solid transitional option, so a younger, less experienced talent can get a signature win and title reign without sacrificing an active talent primed for superstardom. Of course, Trish has got two feuds already in the fire, neither of which needs a title. How long she is willing to stay around is the most significant factor against her winning, as is the fact that while she is busy building to a title win, Bianca will still be looking for a challenger.

Liv Morgan

Liv Morgan deserved so much better than she was given as Smackdown women’s champion. Since dropping that title, she has slowly built herself back up. With excellent showings in the Royal Rumble, Elimination Chamber, and a tag team title win, she has gotten fans to reinvest all on her own. If WWE wants to try somebody new, Liv Morgan would be the best choice to beat Bianca Belair. She is still looking for a breakthrough moment and has all the pieces to carry the division in a new direction.

Liv’s progress since losing the Smackdown strap and her general talent and connection with fans makes her a compelling choice to win the title. However, there are a few reasons why she might not be the best woman to beat Bianca Belair. Most critically, she is currently WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion. WWE prefers to give their tag teams less exposure in singles action. Until she loses that title, she is likely not going to be competing with Belair. Also, she is currently on Smackdown.

Now, the draft could fix this issue in the coming weeks, but without Charlotte, they are desperately short on star power on Friday nights to compete with Rhea Ripley. Morgan is more needed to establish Rhea’s new reign rather than end Bianca’s established one.

Rhea Ripley

One of the more bizarre and controversial Raw after WrestleMania left fans baffled. It did, though, give some clues as to who WWE believes the woman to beat Bianca Belair is. Rhea Ripley squared up with Belair on that show, and it looked like the two were destined to face off.

Ripley has been one of the most impressive stars on the roster recently. She is the breakout performer of Judgment Day and has fans on Twitter fantasy-booking matches between her and almost everyone else on the roster. She is consistently portrayed as a dominant force and could credibly beat almost anyone on the roster.

The main issue with Ripley being the one to beat Bianca is timing. WWE has proven they are okay with dual champions. However, with the draft having just happened, immediately combining the divisions would be an odd choice. Also, the match between the two champions would be a massive bout. The earliest that unification match could happen is SummerSlam, if not WrestleMania 40. That is way too long to keep fans interested in Belair as champion, but it can still be done.

Asuka

Many fans thought heading into WrestleMania 39 that Asuka was the woman to beat Bianca Belair. She had just returned and built up a ton of momentum, even with a relatively boring build to their match. Unfortunately for those fans, she fell short against Belair and has been quiet since then, aside from her occasional tweets. However, even with that loss at WrestleMania, there is still time to give her that championship win. She can get her win back and freshen up both characters in the process.

Asuka is always a credible challenger and works well as a champion on either brand. She has built up her career as one of the most formidable competitors on the roster, which was not always easy given her booking at times. The main downside of giving Asuka the win is that she just had an opportunity and lost. The continuity of a decision like that is a little off, but it would not be the strangest on WWE programming this year.

#AndNew Raw Women’s Champion

As talented as the Women’s roster is on Raw, it feels like the title is stuck. Bianca is great and will likely win the Raw Women’s Championship several more times before she moves on from WWE. However, this current title run is well beyond its shelf life. If WWE were interested in giving fans what they want, then Asuka would be the best choice to defeat Belair. Asuka can get the title off of Bianca without it zapping her momentum, sets up a rubber match down the road, gives her new character some credibility, and can easily function as a transitional champion until a younger talent takes the reigns.