SmackDown Star Left Off WWE's Internal Lists For The Show
WWE aren't considering a veteran heel for episodes of SmackDown in the near future.
It could be a while before you see Natalya regularly on episodes of SmackDown again.
The veteran star did appear briefly on this week's episode, but it looks like WWE view NXT as her main destination for the time being. Why? Well, PWInsider's sources have the scoop. The website revealed that WWE currently has internal lists for the women that breaks the locker room down into heel and babyface categories.
Nattie isn't on either of them.
The SmackDown babyface side consists of Ronda Rousey, Sasha Banks, Naomi and Lacey Evans. On the heel side, Charlotte Flair, Shayna Baszler and Sonya Deville make up the numbers. There's no mention of Natalya, or even of other Friday night members like Aliyah, Shotzi or Xia Li.
Natalya is the most high profile omission though. She's been showing up on NXT 2.0 lately, and it seems that run could last a little while longer. In fairness, it's not like Nattie was doing much of note on SmackDown anyway - her thrown-together team with Baszler has been another miss.
Regardless, it is a shocker that she was missed off internal formats.