The botched finish to Tiffany Stratton's WWE Women's Championship title defense against Nia Jax and Jade Cargill has had the pro wrestling world talking for all the wrong reasons since the "WWE SmackDown" match aired. Despite the referee lifting her hand before connecting for the three count and Jax breaking character audibly, the match ultimately finished with Stratton getting the win, however, some like Dave Meltzer are still trying to sort out exactly what went wrong.
"This is the thing that's so interesting is that they've done this match at house shows; it's a practiced match and it's the same match that they've done," Meltzer claimed during an episode of "Wrestling Observer Radio," adding that the finish of the match was always the spot where the referee failed to connect with the three-count. "But that was pretty clearly what the finish was supposed to be and I didn't think it was anyone's fault on the finish, the ref just stopped counting!"
Following this, Bryan Alvarez recounted a theory that he heard about what might have gone wrong. "Maybe, Tiffany was supposed to break it up and immediately steal the pin, but because Nia kicked out, because Tiffany wasn't gonna be there on time, somebody at the back was like 'She can't just be pinned now, she just kicked out, so tell her to kick out,'" he claimed, noting that the referee likely didn't speak loud enough for Jax to hear the on-the-fly match change while Stratton seemed to freak out and had to be instructed how to finish the match.
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Wrestling Observer Radio" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
