How WWE Booking Can Still Save Asuka After Extreme Rules

Asuka made her official WWE debut as a part of the Raw brand, debuting at TLC 2017. After winning the inaugural Women’s Royal Rumble Match and challenging then SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte at WrestleMania, Asuka made her SmackDown debut, and things went a little downhill from there.

If you’re like me, and during WWE’s Extreme Rules pay-per-view you watched Asuka lose to Carmella after a shove into a shark cage and a quick pin, you’re undoubtedly asking yourself – how did we ever get here?

Booking Asuka on the WWE roster as a whole was destined to be a difficult task from the beginning. Carrying an undefeated streak in NXT seems much simpler a task for a performer like Asuka, who in 2017 and at 36 years-old had much more experience than most of the women in the NXT locker room.

That being said, knowing that the cards may have been stacked against them, SmackDown thus far has proven they were certainly not ready for Asuka.

Let’s backtrack to WrestleMania 34. Asuka loses her winning streak to Charlotte Flair in a match that I’d go out on a limb and say most people didn’t expect her to lose. While she lost gracefully to a worthy opponent, she and WWE are now faced with the challenge of telling a story that reassured viewers that Asuka is still strong and didn’t make her look completely impotent.

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Instead, they dressed James Ellsworth in Asuka’s ring gear, and Asuka lost a second time to an opponent I’d go out on a limb and say people really didn’t expect her to lose.

So, to recap, we have a unbeatable giant who loses a championship match unexpectedly, and then loses another championship match in ridiculous fashion.

Does this story sound familiar?

Enter a solution to the question, “how do we solve the problem of Asuka?” That solution is to take Asuka off SmackDown, which has let her down exorbitantly, put her on Raw, and introduce her to another performer who could probably empathize with her story.

Enter Ronda Rousey.

Now, if I would have been in charge of WWE booking, Asuka would have ideally lost her undefeated streak in a championship match against Ronda Rousey at Wrestlemania 35. Asuka would have played the role of the heel with the inflated ego who thought she was untouchable, constantly reminding Ronda that she’d lost her undefeated streak, and that now she was nothing. Ronda would have plaid the David to Asuka’s Goliath, ready to prove she was worthy enough to lead the division, and Ronda would have won at Wrestlemania, redeeming herself as a champion.

That obviously can’t happen anymore, but still, Ronda has the potential to be the catalyst of Asuka’s revival.

Send Asuka to Raw, and have her strike up a friendly relationship with Ronda. They’ll have a lot common. There’s been talk of perhaps entering a women’s tag team division into WWE; I would even go as far as to say Asuka and Ronda could gel quiet nicely there.

Turn one of them heel. With all the attention WWE is currently putting into Ronda, I’m sure it’d likely be Asuka turning with Ronda playing the role of a Sami Zayn, totally blindsided by the betrayal of a good friend.

Then, give them a match at WrestleMania 35.

Next: Extreme Rules Grades And Analysis

Fantasy booking aside, WWE and we as an audience have spent the entirety of Asuka’s WWE career convinced that no one was ready for her, and now that that storyline is over, WWE no longer remembers that Asuka is indeed a performer you need to be worthy of facing.

A lengthy program with Ronda Rousey could serve to remind us all that even though Asuka can be beaten, she isn’t any less than the champion she’s already proven herself to be.