The 2016-2017 period of SmackDown was delved into.
The latest episode of The Nikki & Brie Show with Nikki Garcia and Brie Garcia featured former SmackDown Women’s Champion Carmella. As the conversation moved along, they touched on some of the highlight moments of Carmella’s in-ring career.
Her 2017 Money in the Bank win was brought up and Carmella revealed that for the second match, originally, Becky Lynch was supposed to win. At the Money in the Bank pay-per-view, James Ellsworth pulled the briefcase down for Carmella in the first installation of the match for the women’s division.
The second go-round on SmackDown, Becky pulled Ellsworth off a ladder. Carmella would beat her down with a chair and went on to capture the briefcase again.
I mean, best moment was grabbing the Money in the Bank briefcase (in 2017) of course. Well actually, I didn’t grab it, James (Ellsworth) did and then threw it down to me and that to me was just — I knew fans were gonna be so upset about it, but I felt like that was great because everyone was gonna be talking about it and if it didn’t go like that, because I know originally, it was supposed to be Becky (Lynch). She was winning it the second time. That was the plan, so we had another match a week later and the plan was for Becky to win it. But, because I came out on the SmackDown after Money in the Bank and I cut a promo — I remember I opened SmackDown that night with a promo and we had physicality later in the night when Bryan (Danielson) was the G.M. and he was supposed to talk about how we’re having another match and the physicality was me on top. I was supposed to knock everyone out of the ring and because the promo was so good… that they changed all the physicality and so they changed it at the end to where Becky and Charlotte (Flair), I was on the down-and-out and they were up at the end of the night because I ended up winning it again the following week so I’m just so grateful it went the way it did.
Further speaking about the 2017 Money in the Bank event, the participants had a rehearsal the day prior but they did not know who was winning. Carmella found out she was getting the briefcase on show day in front of her colleagues. She explained why she did not know how to react.
Yes (I learned the day of Money in the Bank 2017 that I was winning the briefcase). I didn’t know if I should act excited, I didn’t want to make the other girls feel bad but I also didn’t wanna act ungrateful so I was just not quite sure. We had-had a rehearsal prior to that, I think the day before but we didn’t know what the ending would be so then we showed up that day and we’re kind of talking through things and it was like, ‘And Carmella’s gonna win’ and I’m like, ‘What?’ Like, oh my God. I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t even been on the main roster for a year yet. I was just freaking out and I just knew that no matter what, my name would go down in history if I did nothing else in my career.
Looking back at that 2016-2017 stretch, Carmella feels it was the best era for women on SmackDown. She added that she felt the ‘Carmella’ character was born after turning on Nikki to kick-start their program.
There was no better era I feel, for the women, on SmackDown because there were only six of us, and especially when you (Nikki Garcia) had debuted at SummerSlam and I remember so vividly like it was yesterday, we had that match on SummerSlam and then we had SmackDown. I remember it was in Connecticut, at Mohegan Sun and I remember Michael Hayes was like, ‘We’re gonna do a double-switcheroo tonight’ and I was like, ‘I don’t even know what that means,’ and he’s like, ‘We’re switching Nicole to babyface and you’re gonna be a heel’ and I was like, ‘Yes!’ I was so excited and when I turned on you in the ring that night, that just felt like Carmella was born and I’m just so grateful for you to give me that and you were so giving and just let me be me and it was just — I’m so grateful.
Elsewhere in the interview, Carmella opened up about her desire to return to the ring, but she’s dealing with an injury called drop foot that stems from childbirth. To read more, click here.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit The Nikki & Brie Show with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
