The matches you need to watch before the Empress of Tomorrow’s WWE TLC 2017 main roster debut.
In just a little over a week at the TLC pay-per-view, former NXT Women’s Champion Asuka will be debuting on the WWE main roster. For many wrestling fans, this is a Christmas-come-early situation, as the Empress of Tomorrow finally gets the opportunity to showcase her explosive style and dextrous submission expertise on the biggest stage in wrestling.
There are no two ways about it, this is a Big Deal™, a main roster call-up that many people have been waiting for with bated breath. You could even argue that Asuka’s debut is on hype levels as high as (maybe even higher than?) the Shield headlining the main event. After all, she put on consistently exciting, competitive, and entertaining fights regardless of who she faced in NXT. Not to mention that her undefeated streak is currently one of wrestling fandom’s most unironically cherished concepts.
So whether it’s to get pumped for TLC, to relive some incredible memories, or just to find out who the hell this Asuka person is (in case you’re some time-traveler from 1992 who is still trying to wrap his head around smartphones and beard wax), let’s take some time to exhibit why she is getting a main roster welcome fit for an “Empress”. Here are the five quintessential Asuka matches.
Most of these matches are on the Network, but one of them will require that you, um, get a little creative to find.
Credit: WWE.com
5. Asuka vs. Mickie James, NXT Takeover Toronto
Part of Asuka’s mystique is her personality. Sure, her work rate is top-notch and her athleticism is second-to-none, but if her personality were as hollow as an empty can of Pringles, a case could be made that she would not be in the position she is now.
This is why her match against Mickie James at Takeover Toronto is the perfect place to start. Don’t worry about not having any Asuka knowledge outside of hype packages. You don’t need previous knowledge of promos or backstage skits that may have been used to hype this fight. You can go into this match completely blind and, by the end, not only completely understand Asuka’s character, but become enamoured by it.
It may not be the most hard-hitting or stiffest match in Asuka’s logbook, but it’s remarkable as an in-ring psychology clinic paired up with some strong, skillful wrestling.
Showcasing her character, Asuka and James exchange mind games for the first third of the fight, really making each woman’s personalities shine in the process. Asuka is in top mischievous pixieish form, while James uses tactics that are clearly a wink to her psycho stalker days with Trish Stratus.
The pitch-perfect psychology of the fight shifts seamlessly into a fantastic, competitive finale as Asuka does everything she can to keep James down.
Credit: WWE.com
4. Asuka vs. Emma, NXT Takeover London
Let’s just get this out of the way: Emma is being fed to Asuka at TLC. Asuka will be going over in grand style. There is no conceivably sane booking logic where she does not win. It’s in the bag, it’s safe money, it’s a lock – no, it’s the lockiest lock of all the match locks at the pay-per-view.
In the current context of the Raw women’s division, Asuka vs. Emma at TLC will essentially be a glorified squash. Asuka needs to arrive strong to carry her NXT mystique over into the main roster, and Emma’s current booking makes her as much of a threat as a chicken bacon ranch pizza does to North Korea.
But head back Takeover London only a short two years ago, and I wouldn’t even dare provide such a one-sided, cut-and-dry analysis of a match between these two ladies.
This match took place early in Asuka’s NXT career when she was being pushed as a fast-rising star, while Emma was already established as one of WWE’s best women’s wrestlers. Flanked by Dana Brooke, Emma was to give Asuka her most difficult challenge in NXT yet. It’s a great match with an absolutely amazing final third. The legend of Asuka would take flight here.
Credit: WWE.com
3. Asuka vs. Bayley II, NXT Takeover Brooklyn II
Their first encounter at Takeover Austin was fantastic. It was also significant since it was the starting point of Asuka’s championship run. However, the second match between Asuka and Bayley is arguably superior in every way.
The scuttlebutt had been doing the rounds: Bayley’s time in NXT was done and this was likely her last match before heading to Raw. Nobody really expected her to win. But that didn’t keep the underlying story of this match to be told to perfection: Bayley back in her ultra-babyface underdog role, queen Asuka confident and bumptious… even the most cynical smart fan was made a believer, that maybe, just maybe, Bayley wasn’t really leaving and was about to be crowned champion again.
In the end, Asuka retained with a spectacularly brutal fight that highlighted her capacity to hang as a heel just enough to make sure Bayley got the emotional send-off she deserved. But she didn’t overdo it to the point of actually turning heel and heading over to the dark side.
Oh, and be forewarned, there’s a nasty side-effect to re-watching this match. It will force you to remember how crazy over Bayley was in NXT and how bungled her main roster call-up was. So yeah, be warned.
2. Asuka vs. Syuri, REINA Final Stage 2014
Hey, kid, you want to read the least controversial statement ever made in a wrestling-related article?
Asuka is a stiff worker.
It doesn’t take a man of science to recognize this. Even if you have trouble telling the difference between “ice cream” and “frozen dairy dessert” I’m quite confident you wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of one of Asuka’s work kicks. The evidence is clear as day throughout her NXT tenure as her matches are peppered with cracking strikes and sturdy submission work. Of course, this hard-hitting style from her time training and working in Japan, the land that sometimes forgets that wrestling is a work.
If we go back to when she was known as Kana, there are many, many exhibitions of Asuka’s unrelenting style, but one particularly stands out. That time she faced Joshi Puroresu REINA’s women’s champion Syuri in a 21-minute war. I don’t think there is another match on this list that not only showcases Asuka’s brutality but her technical versatility as much as this one.
It starts off as a solid, frantic mat match rife with twisting submissions and teeth grinding stretches, and evolves into an explosive, hard-hitting encounter that is equal parts gorgeous and vicious. Get ready for some stiff, nose wrinkling strikes. Also screaming. Lots of screaming.
Credit: WWE.com
1. Asuka vs. Ember Moon, NXT Takeover Brooklyn III
For the latter part of 2016, the question on everyone’s mind was, who would be able to defeat Asuka? This continued into 2017 as she kept steamrolling the competition. Then we started hearing rumblings that Asuka’s call-up to the main roster was imminent, which set off a supernova of speculation, as the wrestling world became confronted with the concept that Asuka losing a match is a palpable reality.
Ember Moon was booked as a credible contender to win the NXT Women’s Championship and end Asuka’s winning streak. All signs pointed to this match at Takeover Brooklyn III to be Asuka’s first loss since being signed by WWE.
Spoiler alert: BWAHAHAHA NO.
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That’s not to say that Moon didn’t do everything she could to put Asuka away. Moon pulled out everything in her red-eyed, werewolf, howl-at-the-moon arsenal, but Asuka truly seemed to always be one step ahead. Moon even hit her strongly-booked Eclipse finisher on the champion, but Asuka kicked out. You read that right: Asuka kicked out of a top rope corkscrew stunner, for the love of all that’s sweet and pure. Everyone in the arena lost their minds. I lost my mind. The legend was cemented: Asuka cannot be stopped.
Asuka’s NXT swan song was an aggressive an unrelenting fight, with the Empress walking away undisputed, undefeated, and unconquered.