>>16434807it depends on whether you think they'll book face vs face for the 1v1s in this tournament or stick to heel vs face. i think it will be the latter, especially for the finals.
zelina and lyra are faces and were two of the early favorites to win, ivy is the heel but is so obviously just there to eat the pin - so there's a 99% chance a face will advance from this quarterfinal. so this tells us that in Q4, if they want to stick to face vs heel matches, alba is the most likely to advance because kairi and nattie are faces.
i think from the left side of the bracket, raquel is going to advance, then beat dakota. so a face from the right side is going to the finals, who i think will win the whole thing. and because of what i just mentioned, i think it'll be one of these two.
they've mentioned more than a handful of times that the men's IC title is the workrate title and they want this belt to mirror that. zelina is one of the best women the fed has on the stick but is not very good in the ring, lyra is the opposite, so if they want that mirroring to hold up, between the two i'd bet on lyra probably. plus, her coming in second to iyo in that battle royal in saudi is a fortuitous sign in her favor. there would also be a lot of contrast between her and chelsea, who i think is going to win the US belt, as champions - heel chelsea/face lyra, veteran chelsea/newcomer lyra, talker chelsea/worker lyra.
