WWE has announced the first match for next week’s episode of SmackDown.
Bianca Belair successfully retained her SmackDown Women’s Championship over Carmella on Friday’s SmackDown in Houston, Texas at the Toyota Center.
During today’s Talking Smack, Belair did a backstage promo about a Twitter post from Carmella, who noted that she only had 6 days to prepare for Belair.
Belair stated in her promo that since she’s a fighting champion then she’s down for a rematch next week so there wouldn’t be any excuses from the former SmackDown Women’s Champion. Thus, the match was made official. This is the only match confirmed for the show.
Originally, Belair was supposed to defend the title against Bayley at the Money in the Bank pay-per-view event. However, the match was nixed after Bayley suffered a torn ACL and had to have surgery that will keep her on the sidelines for at least 9 months.