WWE No Longer Views Jade Cargill On Same Level As Rhea Ripley

Jade Cargill’s WWE SummerSlam match against Tiffany Stratton was supposed to be a showdown between two rising forces in the women’s division. But according to Dave Meltzer, the way that match ended signals a much bigger shift in WWE’s outlook on Cargill’s future.

During Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer broke down Cargill’s loss to Stratton in under seven minutes, calling attention to how the company’s booking of her has changed drastically in just a few months.

“Even up to, I would say, two months, three months ago… I remember just having some messaging with someone very high up in WWE and talking about the top people in the future. One of the names that was on it was Jade. From the day Jade came in, Jade was not brought in to be a 50/50 wrestler. Jade was not brought in to be a mid-card wrestler. You could see the way she was brought in — she was brought in to be a superstar. And, you know, like when I was told the women’s future of the company, it was Rhea Ripley and Jade Cargill. So she lost tonight. She lost with a moonsault. Someone like that… it’s not the loss and it’s not the end of the world for her or anything like that. But the person who I was told about two months ago is not losing in whatever it was, seven minutes to a moonsault to Tiffany Stratton.”

Meltzer didn’t hold back on what this finish said about WWE’s current view of Cargill’s standing.

“You can tell — and everyone will deny this — but by how they booked it… I don’t think anyone is talking about her in the same light as Rhea Ripley today. And they were. When I saw that finish… they don’t see her as The Ultimate Warrior anymore, put it that way. And they did at first.”

Jade Cargill might have entered WWE with top-tier potential, but this match — and its abrupt ending — could mark a turning point. Whether she’ll claw her way back into that upper echelon remains to be seen, but WWE’s message at SummerSlam was loud and clear.