What Were The Original Plans For The Mae Young Classic?

You need a plan B. Over the last few weeks, WWE has presented the second annual Mae Young Classic. The all women’s tournament was a hit, with some great action among both familiar and new names. It’s hard to say who will become top stars and who won’t stick around, but Tegan Nox isn’t going anywhere due to a horrible knee injury. So what was planned before the injury took place?

According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the original plans for the Mae Young Classic called for Tegan Nox to defeat Toni Storm in the finals. However, Nox destroyed her knee in the quarterfinals against Rhea Ripley, which changed the entire plans. Instead, Storm went on to defeat Io Shirai in the tournament finals this past Sunday at Evolution. This is Nox’s second major knee injury, the first of which put her out of action for nearly a year.

We got something pretty good instead.

Io Shirai dropkicks Toni Storm from the top rope: WWE Evolution 2018 (WWE Network Exclusive)

Opinion: I’m not sure if I can imagine Nox winning the whole thing but she certainly would have gotten a deeper run than she wound up having. Storm is the kind of person who could be a major star right now while Nox seems to need a little more ring time to reach that level. The win also would have put her over Shirai, and I’m not sure WWE would have pulled that trigger.

Do you think Nox would have won? How big of a star can she be? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his Amazon author page with 28 wrestling books. His latest book is the the Complete 2003 Smackdown Reviews.

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