10 Booking Steps To End Asuka’s Undefeated Streak In WWE
9. Meanwhile, That Same Night
On the same pay-per-view, Alexa Bliss loses the RAW Women's Championship.
As an opponent for Asuka, she is both uninspiring - WWE, in peak WWE fashion, already booked that match on the January 1 RAW - and inapt. She in no way measures up to the measuring stick. Moreover, the nature of this loss could yield three storylines beyond the title picture, as opposed to the usual none. It would be a first that WWE couldn't even drill into our heads with the subtlety of a Black and Decker.
Nia Jax emerges from her pod as the #3 entrant, immediately allying with Bliss to establish the classic heel-heavy psychology. It is essential, for the purposes of the long-term arc, for Bayley to fall victim to this two-woman power trip. The audience needs a reason to give some semblance of a sh*t about her, and Bayley herself requires character motivation for the events that follow. As the field and plot thicken, Jax suddenly catches a rope-running Bliss, from out of nowhere, flattening her with a pop-up Samoan drop. Bliss, not the greatest mechanically, would doubtlessly sell this betrayal brilliantly. Sasha Banks opportunistically eliminates Jax with a Meteora from atop a pod - before emerging victorious by, in a callback to their seminal NXT rivalry, storyline injuring Bayley's hand en route to a submission win.
Asuka is faced with a fresh challenger: The Boss feels brand new, having stumbled through a nothing face run.
Bayley, haunted by her past, is given a reason to actually exist: revenge.
Jax, having finally snapped at Alexa's constant manipulation, is intent on destroying the devil on her shoulder.