New Champ Alert: New Title-Holder 'Crowned' On WWE Raw

Injury has sidelined one-half of tag champs, but this superstar stepped up Monday night.

by Scott Carlson
Chelsea Green
WWE.com

Last week, WWE announced that Sonya Deville suffered a severe ACL injury that would keep her out of action for several months, throwing the future of the Women's Tag Team Championship into question.

Monday, we got our answer, and it was a bit of a left turn.

Rather than vacating the titles, Chelsea Green gained a new co-champion when Piper Niven returned to claim a title belt as hers, declaring she was her new partner.

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Green was in Adam Pearce's office and resisting his calls to surrender the titles -- suggesting she be allowed to hold auditions for a new partner -- when Kayden Carter & Katana Chance walked in and staked a claim to the soon-to-be-vacated titles when Niven blindsided Katana and grabbed a title as her own. Chelsea briefly protested but quickly gave in and left with her new partner.

It's not entirely unprecedented for a tag champ to replace an injured partner. Stables that use the "Freebird Rule" do this often, but there have been other situations. In 2005, Jonathan Coachman subbed for an injured Eugene to team with William Regal to defend the World Tag Team Championship against La Resistance -- which they lost. (Regal would team with Tajiri a few weeks later to regain the tag titles.)

Niven last wrestled on Raw in April and hasn't had a match in more than six weeks. Her initial main roster run in 2021-22 was largely criticized for uneven booking and an inexplicable name change to "Doudrop." She disappeared from WWE programming for a few months before resurfacing at the 2023 Royal Rumble under the Piper Niven moniker. Still, she never really got a serious angle or storyline.

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Perhaps Piper will find more success as the muscle backing up Chelsea's incessant complaining. At the very least, it should be entertaining.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.