WWE: Bianca Belair on WrestleMania Main Event, NXT TakeOver Match Cut for Time, Updated SD Ratings

Bianca Belair Comments on Getting to Main Event WrestleMania with Sasha Banks

TMZ Sports held a recent interview with Bianca Belair and one of the topics discussed included her thoughts on getting to main event WrestleMania and making history in the process.

“It’s very important and I am just blessed and honored that I could be the person to be in this position with Sasha Banks and create this history and it is so important. I always say representation is not a request. Representation is requirement and WWE is a perfect example of how people should follow by propelling women and representing women and treating women in sports and in the world. It’s an amazing moment to stand in the ring with Sasha Banks and be the first time — it’s the first two African-American women have had a title match at WrestleMania and we’re main event. That just shows the significance of this and Sasha Banks has this amazing legacy and to be able to pass this down to me, accept me picking her to face for the SmackDown Women’s Championship so that we can create this history. I wanted to win this and I’m proud of this but this moment was more than just about me, it’s more than just about Sasha Banks, it’s more than just about us. It’s about women and Black women and two alpha women and representing and being role models. Like, my role models inspired me and they are the reason why I’m here today so, we had the opportunity to just keep inspiring other people and can you imagine how many other people we’ve inspired and how we’ve changed their lives and that’s what this is about. It’s just inspiring people and putting a positive message out there.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com

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NXT Women’s Title Match Cut for Time at TakeOver: Stand & Deliver

This past Wednesday’s Night 1 of NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver event featured a NXT Women’s Championship match of Raquel Gonzalez vs. Io Shirai, which was won by Gonzalez who became the new champion.

Fightful Select reported that NXT officials originally had scheduled for the NXT Women’s Championship to go longer in time than what was given at the event. It was reported that the reason for the change was due to a match earlier in the event went longer than scheduled causing NXT officials to make the decision to cut back on the time allowed for the NXT Women’s title match.

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Updated WWE Friday Night SmackDown Ratings

This past Friday’s episode of WWE Friday Night SmackDown drew a final viewership of 2,250,000 on FOX, according to Showbuzz Daily. This was up compared to the initial overnight number of 2,080,000 viewers on the network.