WWE Elimination Chamber 2018: Nia Jax Needs To Feel Monstrous

At WWE Elimination Chamber 2018, Nia Jax will have a golden opportunity to face the undefeated Asuka, but the match is more than just about a chance at partaking in a Triple Threat match for the Raw Women’s Championship at WrestleMania. It’s about Nia reminding everyone that she’s one of the WWE’s most fearsome competitors.

The WWE’s announce team liked to remind the fans that Nia Jax is the most dominant female in WWE, but that narrative has been slightly tweaked ever since Asuka was called up to the main roster. Whereas Jax has never won a title in WWE and suffered the second-most losses of any wrestler last year, Asuka has never lost and helped make the NXT Women’s Title one of the most prestigious championships in all of wrestling.

Nia and Asuka have faced off before. Not only did Asuka defeat Nia in an NXT Women’s Championship match at NXT TakeOver: The End, but they also fought on an episode of Raw last month. In that match, Asuka won, but it came via a referee stoppage. She never pinned or submitted Jax, whereas she conclusively defeated both Bayley and Sasha Banks on television since winning the Women’s Royal Rumble.

At WWE Elimination Chamber 2018, Asuka will face Jax, and this is a huge match for Nia. If she wins, she will be inserted into the match for the Raw Women’s Championship at WrestleMania, though the competitors involved in that match are unclear. Asuka, remember, can choose to  challenge either the Raw or SmackDown Women’s Champions following her Rumble victory. Nia’s opportunity, however, is only for the Raw Women’s Championship, though it seems like Kurt Angle implied that Asuka is also planning on challenging for the title on Raw.

Meanwhile, the future of the Raw Women’s Championship is up in the air, because the current champion, Alexa Bliss, must defend her title in an Elimination Chamber match. Bliss could easily retain, but fans are speculating that Sasha Banks – or even Bayley – could steal the title off of a wrestler who hasn’t defended her championship in months.

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Because it’s so difficult to predict who is in the title picture at WrestleMania, it’s fair to wonder if the WWE has no interest in making Jax vs. Asuka unpredictable. Nobody expects Asuka’s streak to end to Jax, especially since it’s early in Asuka’s run on the main roster.

After all, she just won the Royal Rumble, and it would seem like the streak needs to be built up much more before it ends. That ending should come at a pay per view like SummerSlam or WrestleMania, perhaps even in the main event.

Anyway, I can’t seem to think of anyone who believes Nia has a great chance at defeating Asuka. There is speculation that Jax vs. Bliss could be a title match at WrestleMania, but there are other, better ways to set up that match than by having Jax defeat Asuka at the Elimination Chamber.

Even so, there’s a big issue here, and that’s how the WWE portrays Jax. She should be a monster and has consistently improved as a wrestler over the past year, yet the wins and losses just don’t add up. There’s no shame in losing to Asuka, so taking another loss at the Elimination Chamber isn’t problematic.

What’s important, however, is how she loses. The referee stoppage on Raw was a great way to end the match, and Jax and Asuka put on an excellent bout that served as a teaser for this upcoming match at the Elimination Chamber.

However, the WWE can’t pull off a ref stoppage or something of that nature again. In this match, Asuka will have to definitively defeat Jax via either pinfall or submission.

Since Asuka has already defeated Jax multiple times (on the main roster and in NXT), it’s hard to buy into Nia as being the woman to end the WWE’s most prolific undefeated streak. But the WWE has to be careful to make sure Nia builds momentum in defeat, and that’s much more difficult.

When Asuka and Nia faced off on Raw, Nia was portrayed as being equal to Asuka, even holding an advantage in some respects due to her size and strength. That needs to continue at the Elimination Chamber. Beyond that, Jax needs to be extremely difficult to put away, causing Asuka to become visibly frustrated. Asuka needs to exhaust all of her resources into putting away Jax, which should help build up Nia’s dominance as a formidable foe who cannot be defeated easily. This will, in turn, build up Asuka as a babyface to the main roster crowd.

Following the match, a destructive tantrum from Jax could work. I mean, it seems too predictable and possibly a little simplistic, and I’d prefer to have Jax’s dominance showcased in the ring. So basically, Jax takes so much out of Asuka that she herself is also burned out, therefore she doesn’t even have enough energy to throw a “tantrum” after leaving it all in the ring against WWE’s most strongly-booked wrestler.

Either way, this is the WWE’s biggest opportunity to showcase Jax, and it’s critical that they make the most of it, even if the ultimate conclusion is a loss for Nia. Even predictable matches can serve a key purpose, be entertaining, and build up both competitors. Nia needs to be billed as a serious threat going forward. She still needs to win a title, which means she still needs to be displayed as a serious threat to win a title.

Next: The Top 10 Greatest Moments In Elimination Chamber History

Furthermore, so many matchups between women have been exhausted in WWE due to the smaller women’s divisions, making it all the more important for all of the women to be booked appropriately. In Nia’s case, the word “appropriate” is equivalent to the word “monstrous”, because that’s exactly what she’s supposed to be.