First finalists set for WWE Women’s Tag Team Tournament after major lineup change

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Bengaluru, August 23: WWE has been conducting the Women's Tag Team Championship Tournament over the past few weeks across Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown.

With all the roadblocks the tourney has experienced, the officials would be happy to say that they now have received the first finalists in Dakota Kai and IYO SKY.

In the opening match of this week’s Raw, these two new heel entrants on the roster defeated Alexa Bliss and Asuka to become the first finalist team of the ongoing Women’s Tag Team Championship Tournament.

They were originally scheduled to face the winner of the Gigi Dolin and Jacey Jayne vs. Raquel Rodriquez and Aliyah matchup but now they will face the winner of a Fatal-4-Way match set for this week's Smackdown after a major change was made to the tournament.

After former champions, Sasha Banks and Naomi walked out of Raw in May, leaving the titles vacant, WWE found it hard to insert enough teams in the tournament. They have to borrow an additional team of Nikkita Lyons and Zoey Stark from NXT to make things up.

Then on SmackDown, it was announced that the duo was pulled from the mix due to injuries. The latter one indeed picked up a legit injury following this past week's NXT Heatwave where she competed against NXT Women’s Champion Mandy Rose to come up short.

As for her partner Lyons, she was reportedly not allowed to enter Canadian territory for not injecting herself with the COVID-19 vaccine. These two were then replaced by another resident duo of NXT from the Toxic Attraction faction – Gigi Dolin and Jacy Jayne.

Dolin and Jayne debuted on SmackDown, last week and got the win over Sonya Deville and Natalya in the first-round match. They were scheduled to face Raquel Rodriquez and Aliyah on SmackDown this Friday, with the winners moving on to the tournament finale.

But going into last night's Raw, WWE confirmed that Gigi Dolin suffered an undisclosed injury and she won’t be able to participate in the match. After The Toxic Attraction’s forfeit, there will now be a Second Chance Fatal-4-Way Match on SmackDown.

The four teams who lost their first-round matches in the women’s tag team championship tournament will take part in this battle: WWE 24/7 Champion Dana Brooke and Tamina; Nikki A.S.H. and Doudrop; Xia Li and Shotzi; and Sonya Deville and Natalya.

The winner of the Fatal-4-Way will be declared as the second finalist who will compete against Dakota Kai and IYO SKY in the final match of the tournament to crown the new titleholders.

This final match was supposed to take place at the WWE Clash at the Castle Premium Live Event from the United Kingdom on September 3rd. However, that match has now been preponed to next week’s August 29 episode of Raw set from the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.