The REAL Reason Charlotte Flair Just Won The SmackDown Women’s Title
And the REAL Reason the Empress will survive Tomorrow.
What the f*ck?
Last night, in an unannounced match, Charlotte Flair dethroned the poor, downtrodden Asuka to capture the SmackDown Women’s Championship…less than a fortnight removed from challenging for the RAW Women’s Championship…in a match that, at time of writing, won’t see the SmackDown Women’s Championship defended—nor unified.
There is a lot to parse here, for this, on the surface, is a decision as mystifying as it is pointless as it is counterproductive.
What’s striking here, also, is the sheer quality of the match. Charlotte Flair and Asuka crafted what was easily the best TV offering of the year. Wrestled with creativity and viciousness, with a masterful grasp of pacing and escalation, by the finishing sequence, the two women were screaming, howling, in one another’s pained faces. They each built to and invoked a primal fighting spirit to put over the importance of the occasion, and it was reassuring.
On principle, it should matter that WWE neglects to tell stories with no logic nor consistency. In execution, it doesn’t. Nobody remembered that Asuka wasn’t ready for herself, cosplayed by James Ellsworth, in the early summer of 2018, when she ended that year having won the blow-away awesome TLC main event. WWE’s rampant, impulsive booking has reached a strange turning point: so long as you don’t apply and project the old rules, the new world of WWE’s insanely talented roster offers a mea culpa.
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