Rhea Ripley appears to be the next WWE Champion to get a newly designed championship belt.
Just like Asuka was handed a new championship title on SmackDown this week, SmackDown Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley is expected to get a new title of her own. It’s unclear if that will happen this week or in the next few weeks, but Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp reports that a new belt is rumored to be on the way.
Sean Sapp reported on Fightful Select that Asuka was given a new championship as a means to “clean up the Smackdown/Raw Championship situation that was clouded due to the draft.” If that’s correct, it only makes sense that Ripley would also be getting a new title since she’s the SmackDown Women’s Champion on the Raw brand. Asuka’s new title is called the WWE Women’s Championship. Ripley might have something connected to Women’s World Champion or Women’s Universal Champion, but her belt will be redesigned and probably renamed.
As for what the design will be, it’s also unclear. Fightful explained, “They also said that they wanted Asuka’s title to resemble Reigns’ to help portray him in a uniform plane, as has been the case in recent years. We are told that Rhea Ripley’s championship will also receive some other type of adjustment, either in name or appearance. Could it be designed to look a lot like Seth Rollins’ new championship?
WWE is removing the brand association
The fact that WWE is getting rid of all ties to a specific brand makes a lot of sense, especially since the incumbents didn’t simply trade titles like the respective champions had in years past. It’s probably a win, even if the WWE Universe isn’t necessarily enamored with the idea that titles don’t have a unique feel and look like knockoffs of their male counterparts.
Whatever happens to Ripley’s title, there are bound to be fans who aren’t happy. She gets either an identical belt or a new one. If it’s the latter, fans will be asking why WWE didn’t trade Asuka’s belt.