Banks / Lynch news
Although it was well known Lynch would be at Summerslam (as we broke she would be at the PPV several weeks ago), she was hidden all day in advance of her ring entrance in an attempt to prevent her return from leaking. The Carmella appearance was to swerve fans before unveiling Lynch.
The Banks issue led to Lynch returning weeks ahead of schedule as she was originally slated to return full-time in October.
The quick Lynch victory was designed to pop the fans who were expecting Banks vs. Bianca and instead give them the return of a major name. We are told it was 100% a Vince McMahon call and the title switch to Lynch was specifically designed to make her return even more spectacular. It should be noted that the quick nature of the match (27 seconds) was seen by a number of fans as taking the wind out of the sails of Bianca Belair, but we are told that even though some in the company expressed that concern beforehand, the idea was that the moment was about Lynch per Vince McMahon's vision for the PPV.
The current plan is for Lynch to be on the Smackdown brand going forward.
For those who have asked about Belair's push, we are told last night's PPV match was not an indication of Belair being taken down a notch. It was simply how WWE decided to react to the Sasha Banks situation and the need for a substitution on one of the biggest shows of the year.
For those wondering why WWE kept promoting Sasha Banks vs. Bianca Belair when they knew it wasn't going to happen, we are told that the decision was made to keep promoting the bout as a way to make the Lynch return a "bigger" moment, feeling it was a suitable substitution that would catch the fans by surprise.
I still think that advertising a major match, knowing it was never going to happen, was a really poor decision by Vince and Becky could still have been used and perhaps gained more interest by promoting it within those last 7 to 8 days.