Backstage News On Changes Made To WWE Smackdown

There were changes made prior to WWE Smackdown airing on Friday night, which included putting Charlotte Flair in a match.

On last night’s WWE Smackdown from Orlando, due to a few different reasons. It doesn’t appear to be a case of Vince McMahon changing things, but that’s not known as of yet.

It was reported by Mike Johnson of PWInsider Elite that there were some changes made to Smackdown late in the day. The original plan was not to announce Asuka’s SummerSlam opponents – Bianca Belair and Charlotte Flair – in a post on social media, but that’s what they did hours before Smackdown.

According to the report, the match would be announced during an in-ring segment with WWE Official Adam Pearce.

Also, Charlotte Flair was going to be in a match on the show. They planned to have IYO SKY face Zelina. However, when the decision was made to change the promo segment, WWE decided to put Flair in the match against Sky.

As we saw on Smackdown, Charlotte Flair beat IYO SKY clean with a Natural Selection for the pinfall win. After the match, Asuka attacked Flair with a German Suplex, roundhouse kick and submission on the right arm.

While Asuka and Charlotte Flair were on the show, Bianca Belair was not.

In an update, PWInsider’s Mike Johnson also wrote that the “reason there were some changes to the scheduled plans tonight is that there were talents pulled for medical reasons.” As noted by Johnson, one story going around is that there were COVID positives or talents who were at least in direct contact with someone who tested positive. There were no names given about who was pulled from the show due to medical reasons.