WWE creative took a page out of its own 2024 playbook at Crown Jewel and called it a surprise. Tiffany Stratton turned on Chelsea Green on Saturday in Riyadh, and it showed that creative apparently has no memory and needs a big change now.
Green had just beaten Liv Morgan and was in the ring talking about her 13 years as a backup before Morgan attacked her from behind. Stratton, who turned on Nia Jax in January 2025 to win the WWE Women’s Championship, came out for the save, faked a cash-in on Morgan and hit Green instead. Stratton cashed in, and Green lost the title to her now former friend.
In wrestling, turning on a partner has been around for years, and no one expects brand new ideas from people writing 52 weeks of TV a year. But the amount of 2024 that WWE brought back is scary.
Two years ago, Stratton’s friend was Jax, who had won the WWE Women’s title at SummerSlam and faced Morgan for the Women’s Crown Jewel Championship in Riyadh. That night, Stratton tried to cash in as well. In 2026, the friend was Green, who won the interim title at SummerSlam in August and faced Morgan for the same belt. Stratton again went after the WWE Women’s title with the briefcase.
It was the same with the teases, too. On Raw on October 14, 2024, Jax laid out Morgan, Stratton ran out with the briefcase and Dominik Mysterio pulled the champion out of the ring. On October 26, Green dropped Morgan with the Unprettier, Stratton hit the Prettiest Moonsault Ever and Dominik dragged Morgan away again.
Wrestling Noticias went through every women’s Money in the Bank cash-in in official records and coverage from the time, from Carmella in April 2018 to Saturday, and all nine ended with a new champion. Stratton is the only one who has cashed in on her partner at the time, and she has done it twice.
Most of the time, the cash-in comes on a champion worn down by a match, as it did in almost all nine, but creative has only used the betrayed friend angle with Stratton. The women’s briefcase has never failed, so the only question was how it would happen, and that’s exactly the part WWE has done before.
Before the show, one of the people on ESPN’s panel wrote that if the night didn’t end with Green winning and Stratton turning on her friend, they could retire him. That’s what happened, and it was that obvious.
The worst part is that Stratton herself promised something else. In September, she appeared on the Battleground Podcast and guaranteed that it would be different when she turned heel.
“It’s gonna be like me on steroids, […] it’s gonna be different,” Stratton said.
Despite all of that, we all know that wrestling does the same things over and over. Stratton needed a heel turn, so much so that she admitted in February that she felt “kind of stale” in her act. All of that is true, but none of it meant WWE had to bring back Morgan, Dominik and the 2024 Crown Jewel and waste Green’s popularity on a finish fans saw coming.