WWE News: Nikki Bella’s WWE Return Made A Huge Impact On WWE’s Creative Plans

At WWE Summerslam, Nikki Bella returned to WWE programming after roughly ten months recovering from a serious neck and spinal injury, which included major surgery. The rumors and reports ran for months that Nikki would have a chance to return by WWE Summerslam, but it wasn’t until she received good news in July that her WWE return became imminent.

During her return, she replaced Eva Marie as part of the team of Natalya and Alexa Bliss in a match against Becky Lynch, Carmella, and Naomi. At roughly the same time as Eva Marie was suspended from WWE for violating the WWE Wellness Policy, Nikki Bella was medically cleared to return to the ring after training at the WWE Performance Center for a few weeks.

Nikki’s addition to the match allowed her team to get the victory at WWE Summerslam. She also revealed and performed her new finisher the “TKO” on Carmella for the win because the “Rack Attack” was believed to be one of the main causes of her neck problems. Nikki Bella is back on WWE programming and has been “drafted” to the SmackDown brand, but the impact her return to WWE programming has made behind the scenes is a lot more important than most people originally believed.

Most people expected Nikki Bella to return to WWE and be featured on the SmackDown brand. There was a lot of speculation about that because John Cena is featured on SmackDown, so bringing Nikki to Tuesday nights made sense because of that, and due to how full Raw’s Women’s Division is, especially after Bayley’s official debut this past Monday night.

A recent report has confirmed that Nikki Bella was drafted to SmackDown partly because that is the brand that John Cena is currently on, but the deeper reason is that her experience and accolades are of better use to SmackDown‘s Women’s Division than they would be to Raw because the Women’s roster is full with so much talent already.

WWE’s goal of having Nikki Bella on SmackDown is to both bolster the roster and give it more legitimacy since she is officially the longest reigning Divas Champion in WWE history, which also makes her the most accomplished wrestler in the Women’s Division and on the entire roster. However, her emergence on SmackDown led to some bigger changes for the WWE product.

For example, Nikki Bella’s return at WWE Summerslam forced WWE officials to make some changes on the card at the last minute. It’s being said that her return was the biggest reason why the first match between Cesaro and Sheamus of their best of seven series was moved to the kickoff show. WWE officials felt it was more important to have Nikki’s return on the main card.

On the last edition of Monday Night Raw, Bayley finally debuted much to the delight of the WWE Universe and most people backstage, including Vince McMahon himself. However, she wasn’t originally intended to be featured on Raw. A lot of people argued she was a better fit to be the top face on SmackDown, but Nikki Bella being medically cleared early was one of the major factors that led WWE to put Bayley on Raw instead of SmackDown.

WWE also has big plans for Nikki Bella since SmackDown has introduced a new Women’s Championship to be decided at WWE Backlash in two weeks. It was originally reported that Eva Marie was the most likely candidate to become the first SmackDown Women’s Champion and Becky Lynch is probably the most popular choice among the WWE Universe. Despite those claims, the most likely candidate now seems to be Nikki Bella becoming the first SmackDown Women’s Champion at WWE Backlash.

There is a lot of speculation about Nikki Bella winning the championship, but the belief is her reign would be to establish the title and then drop it to the next woman. She was the longest reigning Divas Champion in WWE history, which makes her the most logical choice to get a new Women’s title off the ground for SmackDown. The greater question at the moment is her character.

At WWE Summerslam, she teamed and won a match with heels, but Carmella attacked her in what appeared to be a heel turn for her on the most recent edition of SmackDown. On paper, it seems that WWE is pushing Nikki Bella as a face. However, that isn’t confirmed as of this writing. The reason that matters is because her title reign is ultimately meant to get someone over, so her character’s motivations are going to lead to who defeats her for the Women’s title down the line.

If Nikki Bella is a face, Eva Marie winning the SmackDown Women’s Championship from her after her suspension is up would make a lot of sense. Becky Lynch would be a most logical and popular choice if Nikki Bella remains a heel on SmackDown after WWE Backlash. Even if Nikki Bella doesn’t win the championship, her involvement in SmackDown‘s Women’s Division is only going to help elevate it and provide a top WWE Superstar for the division to grow. She just needs to stay healthy and in the ring.

[Image via WWE.com]