The supposed ‘curse’ of the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship seemingly continues unabated as it was announced during last night’s edition of RAW that Piper Niven is unable to compete. Niven is the third Women’s Tag Team Champion to be forced onto the sidelines during their reign this year after both Liv Morgan and Sonya Deville suffered injuries during their respective reigns with the belts in May and July.
Just 38 days after dethroning Becky Lynch and Lita (who was replaced in the bout by Trish Stratus following a backstage attack), Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez were forced to vacate the tag titles after the former suffered a shoulder injury. Liv returned just over a month later and managed to recapture the belts alongside Rodriguez from Ronda Rousey & Shayna Baszler at Money In the Bank, but lost them again just 16 days later to Chelsea Green and Sonya Deville.
Unfortunately, Green and Deville’s reign was also hampered by an injury early on. Nine days after winning the belts, Deville suffered a torn ACL during a tag match with Green against Charlotte Flair and Bianca Belair on SmackDown. Green’s partner ended up relinquishing her half of the title whilst Chelsea kept the other, leading to Niven taking the vacant belt a few weeks later and declaring herself Green’s co-champion.
Thankfully, however, a new report has noted that Niven’s absence is nowhere near as serious as Morgan’s nor Deville’s. Fightful Select reports that there are currently no plans behind the scenes for the company to relinquish the titles or find yet another new co-holder for Green. The Scottish star is said to simply be suffering from a short-term illness and is expected to return in a week or two, should her recovery go well.
In the wake of Niven being unable to compete on RAW, it was announced that Green would take on Raquel Rodriguez later in the show. The Women’s Tag Team Champion was unsuccessful in her singles endeavor, losing in just a minute and 40 seconds and maintaining her singles losing streak on the red brand at 0-5.