Reginald stays the most important person in SmackDown’s Women’s division

WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship Match

Titleholders Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler have challenges coming up from Raw’s Lana & Naomi and NXT’s Raquel González & Dakota Kai. What’s one more?

The Road to Elimination Chamber

It all started with Nia’s hole.

Okay, maybe not. But I like to imagine it was Jax’s viral fame last week that caused her & her partner to decide it was a good idea to interrupt SmackDown Women’s champ Sasha Banks & Royal Rumble winner Bianca Belair while they were teasing a WrestleMania 37 clash...

Being humbled by The Boss and The EST motivated the champs to return to the blue brand as Bayley’s guest on the Feb. 19 edition of “Ding Dong, Hello!” It was easy enough to predict that would lead to some kind of a match. Turning it into a trios match was a little more surprising, but even considering the hints that had been planted about Carmella’s acrobatic sommelier switching allegiances to Sasha, I don’t think anyone predicted Reginald as Banks & Belair’s third.

We probably should have, though. It was Reggie who earned Mella her second shot at the Blueprint’s belt, after all. And he did it again, pinning Jax with a double drop kick assist from Bianca & Sasha and paving the way for the Tag title tilt on PPV tomorrow night (Sun., Feb. 21).

Carmella doesn’t like it, but who can blame Reggie for wanting to upgrade?

What’s at stake

The obvious question is whether WWE wants to set up one of their ‘Mania main events with a brief Championship run or not. Losing the belts will spur their feud. Does that happen here, or in a few weeks to the contenders from Raw or NXT?

More interesting is Reginald’s role, and I don’t mean that in a “why is the women’s division revolving around some guy?” way (although I don’t blame you if you’re asking that question).

Paul Heyman helped tease a less babyface Boss on the Feb. 13 Talking Smack. Snatching Carmella’s sidekick for her entourage would make the coming Banks/Belair program less good girl vs. good girl, and give The EST something else to overcome if WWE wants to make her moment in Raymond James Stadium an even bigger star-making one.

Is that where we’re headed? And how does it fit into Elimination Chamber’s WWE Women’s Tag Team championship match?

Find out Sun., Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. Eastern on WWE Network!