The Jan. 29 edition of SmackDown went out of its way to lay out WWE’s card for the company’s upcoming Elimination Chamber pay-per-view. In addition to announcing the show’s WWE Championship main event match-up, we also saw two WWE Superstars “declare” their spot in the Women’s Tag Team Championship Elimination Chamber match.
Halfway into the SmackDown show, Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville were interviewed by Kayla Braxton. Prior to spewing some tough words to advance her feud with Naomi, Mandy Rose announced that she and Deville will be inserting themselves into the Elimination Chamber match to crown the inaugural Women’s Tag Team Champions.
For a lot of viewers, it was confusing to see Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose simply declare their spot in the match rather than win a qualifying match. After all, that is exactly what they’re doing over on Raw.
To be fair, SmackDown does not have a big enough women’s roster to hold three qualifying tag team matches, whereas Raw has plenty of women to choose from. The best thing that the blue brand can do is simply announce their competitors for the match.
Although, SmackDown women’s tag teams receiving free entries into the Chamber should not sit too well with the women fighting for their spots on the red brand. Sasha Banks already seems to be expressing her displeasure for Rose and Deville’s declaration on Twitter.
Regardless of how they got into the match, Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville officially join the teams of Nia Jax and Tamina and The Riott Squad to battle for the Women’s Tag Team Championship inside of the unforgiving steel structure known as the Elimination Chamber.
The pay-per-view airs live on the WWE Network on Feb. 17. Until then, stay tuned to see which tag teams join the Elimination Chamber next.
