Bianca Belair has discussed when she found out she was set to face Becky Lynch at SummerSlam where she lost her SmackDown Women’s Title in 26 seconds.
Bianca Belair was of course set to defend her WWE SmackDown Women’s Championship at SummerSlam against Sasha Banks in a rematch of their WrestleMania 37 main event. Following Belair’s entrance to the ring, it was announced that Banks was not cleared to compete and Carmella would be her replacement.
Once the self-appointed most beautiful woman in WWE came to the ring, the crowd in Allegiant Stadium came unglued as Becky Lynch’s music hit signalling the return of The Man to a WWE ring. Lynch disposed of Carmella and challenged Belair to a title match then and there. The EST of WWE accepted but was defeated by Becky Lynch in just 26 seconds.
Speaking to Inside The Ropes’ own Kenny McIntosh ahead of WWE Live in Glasgow, Bianca Belair discussed her SummerSlam experience:
“I would say SummerSlam for me was a complete whirlwind. Actually, my whole entire title reign a little bit has been a whirlwind. It’s been a lot of things happening along the way. It’s just like so misfortunate, you know, with Bayley getting injured. And I want to face Bayley so bad in that I Quit match and then having to recover off of that and then face Carmella. And then to SummerSlam with Sasha not being able to compete and once again, Carmella stepping in the spot, which I have to give a shout out to Carmella because she’s kind of been the person that’s with me. She’s been the glue to hold this thing together.”
“Then all of a sudden now Becky Lynch coming out at SummerSlam. The whole entire day, it was a whirlwind, completely out of left field, not expecting it, and for all to just kind of crash and burn in twenty-six seconds was really tough. I feel like my title match that I want a do over. Like I said, I feel like it’s just been a compilation of a bunch of misfortunate things happening.”
While Belair admits that some fans may have feared such a quick loss could have spelled the end of her time on top, she says the adversity only makes her drive to succeed even stronger:
“But for me, I think I’ve been able to come out on top of it all by just recovering so quickly. And I think my journey, everything has been coming so quickly and I’ve just been capitalising off of it and rising to the occasion and continue to build my reputation as someone who is always dependable and shows up and shows out and puts on a great show and performs and you know, I have a reputation being great at what I do. But I think coming out of this, most people would see me getting beat in twenty-six seconds [and think] ‘oh no, it’s the end of her.’ But I think it’s kind of showing how much the fans are behind me, how much I really am the EST. I’m not going to give up and whenever I see an occasion keep going. So I think it’s a great story. Great feud with Becky and you know when and if – I will say when I get my title back – it’s going to be an even bigger moment for me.”
Bianca Belair then mentioned when she found out that she’d be facing Lynch at The Biggest Party Of The Summer and couldn’t overemphasise how late a call that was:
“It was pretty much very, very, very, very, very last minute. Pretty much when I was in the ring up – until the time that I went out [to the ring]. Very late call, very late moment, everything, all the emotions that you saw in my face during the match at SummerSlam, were real emotions, shock. Kind of just like, ‘Wow, this is happening. Ok, let’s go with it and just be great at what you do.’ So it was a very, very last minute call.”