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WWE officially announced the following competitors for The Mae Young Classic tournament today:
*Third-generation star Tessa Blanchard, the daughter of Tully Blanchard and step-daughter of Magnum TA. She worked as a stunt double for the WWE Studios film "Fighting with my Family" and has made WWE NXT appearances in the past.
*The former Kimber Lee, Abbey Laith, currently under a WWE NXT deal.
*Judo Black Belt Taynara Conti, who is under a WWE NXT deal.
*Multi-time STARDOM champion Jazzy Gabert.
*Kavita Devi, a Great Khali trainee from India.
WWE confirmed NXT talent Lacey Evans, NXT talent Sarah Logan aka the former Crazy Mary Dobson, UK talent Toni Storm and lucha libre star Princesa Sugehit last week.
The tournament, named for the late Mae Young, is the company's latest endeavor at "superserving" their audience via the WWE Network, as they have described it, following the Cruiserweight Classic and the WWE UK Championship tournaments. WWE's plan is to film the 32-woman tournament on 7/13 and 7/14 at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida..
The WWE Network will debut a preview special for the tournament on 8/20 (likely following Summerslam) with the first round of the tournament being released via Video on Demand the final week of August as a way to let fans binge the "episodes." The second round will be released the first week in September, again via the VOD service.
Initially, the plan was to release them Summerslam week but the decision was made to hold off so that the women's tournament was not overshadowed by everything else WWE had scheduled for that week.
The current plan is to hold the finals live on Tuesday 9/12. Currently, the only WWE event scheduled that day is a taping in Las Vegas for the Smackdown brand, so it may be that the finals of the Mae Young Classic will air live on the Network from Las Vegas.
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