10 Booking Steps To End Asuka’s Undefeated Streak In WWE
2. The First-Ever Women's TLC Match
Heel Bayley is a force; imagine the sheer babyface fire, passion and will she imposed in 2015 reoriented to savagery. It's this Bayley who headlines with Asuka the first-ever women's TLC match - one which, given the intense blood feud stakes, WWE is finally unable to promote with the usual hysterical hucksterism. It sells itself. They absolutely cannot high five each other.
The match itself, near enough guaranteed to reach minor classic territory, is elevated by the game-changing storyline and the sheer emotional involvement of the audience. Babyface Bayley restored the purity of the do-gooder; heel Bayley, betraying that spirit and Asuka alike, is, once more, an all too elusive character: a heel brilliant at playing heel, who nonetheless does not draw detached admiration for it. People loathe her. People are compelled to see Asuka smash her through tables with German suplexes and launch herself at Bayley with a chair-assisted hip attack.
Bayley wins, and wins cleanly. The full dramatic weight of that first loss must crush Asuka, and create a platform for character development. Otherwise, it means nothing - just a loss in a vacuum for the sake of shock value.
Asuka must not be defined by the streak nor its conclusion. The character requires redemption.