While it’s part of this week’s SmackDown preview, this one certainly deserves it’s own page… Trish Stratus has been announced to appear on Tuesday’s broadcast. She will be joining Jerry Lawler in a special King’s Court interview segment.
While nothing has been confirmed, rumor and speculation even before this announcement was that she may end up in a match with Charlotte at SummerSlam. WWE’s traditional August megashow takes place in Trish’s hometown of Toronto this year. Last week, Charlotte stated that she would have a match at SummerSlam, though without naming an opponent. But she claimed that her win at SummerSlam would prove that she’s the greatest women’s wrestler of any generation.
This would be an historic return for Trish Stratus.
The former icon of the women’s division has appeared in competition in recent years, but never at this magnitude. Her last match was a ten woman tag team match which took place the night after WWE Evolution last year. Her last singles match was a farcical No DQ bout against Vickie Guerrero back in 2011. And to find her last singles PPV match, you’d have to go all the way back to her initial retirement from active competition, in which she defeated Lita at Unforgiven 2006.
Effectively speaking, Trish has never had such a high profile return match. Going up against Charlotte would be a dream match for many, myself included. Whether she can compete on her former level after all this time away from serious competition is anyone’s guess. But the surreality of her locking up with a modern day star of Charlotte’s caliber would be more than worth it. Not to mention how hot that Toronto crowd would be for their much beloved favorite daughter.
It’s never happened, though not for lack of trying.
A little known fact is that a similar comeback was originally planned to occur for NXT. In the initial Takeover: Toronto event in 2016, she was tentatively scheduled to face reigning NXT Women’s Champion Asuka. However, when she found that she was pregnant, those plans obviously had to be nixed. Mickie James ended up challenging for the title on the night instead. In a funny twist of fate, she impressed so much that she wound up being brought back full-time to the main roster.
Rather intriguing then, that this all occurs when Takeover – alongside SummerSlam – makes it’s return to Toronto in early August.
Whether a similar post-match return run could’ve ever been in the cards for Trish is hard to say, as is what the future might hold for her beyond a match with Charlotte. It’s not even been wholly confirmed that the bout will take place at all, but odds seem good that it will be announced this Tuesday.
That begs the question of who would win such a match…
WWE sure does love to put part-timers over. In this case however, I can’t imagine Charlotte wouldn’t be getting the duke, as they’ve always really been behind her and wanted her to be the poster child of the division. That said, if this is perhaps the start of something, it’d become a much more interesting question…
You can see a preview for the rest of SmackDown here.
