WWE Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley seemed poised to be a giant a part of WWE SummerSlam, until a torn meniscus led to her being sidelined long enough that WWE decided to create an Interim Women’s Championship in a six woman ladder match on the PLE. Understandably, this led to several changes to the SummerSlam card, though perhaps greater than some think. Wrestlevotes Radio on Fightful reports that Ripley’s injury forced WWE to make several changes regarding each the WWE Women’s Championship scene and the WWE Women’s United States Championship.
The primary notable change was a match involving Jade Cargill and Charlotte Flair, which the report notes was presupposed to be a championship match. It just isn’t clarified whether Ripley would’ve defended the championship against each Cargill and Flair in a 3 way match, or if she was presupposed to drop the title to considered one of them to establish a Cargill-Flair singles match, and was hurt before she could accomplish that. Meanwhile, Women’s US Champion Tiffany Stratton was originally scheduled to defend her title in a singles match, as a way to give Stratton a giant showcase in her hometown of Minnesota. As an alternative, Rhea’s injury led to Stratton being inserted, alongside Cargill, into the ladder match to crown the Interim Women’s Champion.
Putting the Interim tag on the Women’s Championship would suggest that Ripley could be back earlier than later, though there remains to be no confirmation on when she’ll be able to transcend WWE being optimistic she could return in the autumn. While the potential was there for Ripley to work through the injury, there was said to be a “strong internal push” inside WWE for Ripley to take as much time as vital to recuperate and are available back healthy.. This was largely resulting from a priority that, had Ripley worked through the injury, she could’ve potentially aggravated it and wound up missing more time.