On today’s Busted Open Radio, hosts Dave LaGreca and Bully Ray provided a detailed, moment-by-moment breakdown of the controversial finish to the Women’s World Championship match between champion Tiffany Stratton, Nia Jax, and Jade Cargill from this past Friday’s SmackDown. Bully Ray explained his perspective on what the planned finish was supposed to be and where the execution went wrong, leading to a confusing sequence of events on live television.
The sequence in question began after Jade Cargill hit a Black Hole Slam on Nia Jax and went for the cover. According to Bully Ray, this is where the first error occurred. “You see Jade sit on Nia’s chest and hook both of her legs,” Bully began. “Nia is looking towards her left, and Nia is looking at Tiffany Stratton. Why is Nia looking at Tiffany Stratton? Because Nia knows that Tiffany is responsible for making the save. Nia realizes that Tiffany is not going to be there in time… Tiffany is definitively late, which puts Nia in a bad position where she has to kick out”.
Following Jax’s kickout, Stratton covered Jax. The referee, Daphne LaShawn, then made a swipe with her hand instead of completing a three-count. Bully explained the referee’s action. “The ref swiped on three because she clearly does not think that this is the finish,” he stated.
What followed was the most confusing part of the segment, where Nia Jax began a visible conversation with the referee in the middle of the ring. “What I don’t understand is why Nia decides to have a conversation with the referee,” Bully said. “Nia turns to her right and starts going, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The ref is looking at Nia trying to understand what the hell is going on… I don’t think I’ve ever seen blatant communication like I saw there”. Dave LaGreca added that from the camera angle, “Nia looks at the referee and you clearly hear her mouth the first two words are ‘what happened'”.
Bully Ray interpreted this exchange to mean that Jax knew what the original plan was and was confused as to why it didn’t happen. “The ‘what happened’ is telling me that Nia knows Tiffany is stealing the victory, thus not kicking out,” Bully explained.
Bully then detailed what he believes was the intended finish to the match. “What I think was supposed to happen was that Tiffany Stratton was supposed to steal the victory from Jade Cargill,” he said. “Jade hits the black hole, slam, one, two. Tiffany hits the basement, drop kick, the baseball side, drop kick, and then covers and gets the 123”.
Because Stratton was late with her dropkick, Jax had to kick out, which caused the referee to halt her count on the subsequent pinfall attempt. This led to the on-the-fly communication to get to a different finish. “It’s three different people all on three split second different pages,” Bully concluded, explaining the cascade of errors.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Busted Open Radio with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
