5 Ups 8 Downs From WWE Raw (Oct 19)

4. About How You’d Expect It

Asuka Lana
WWE.com

Admit it: After Lana earned a Raw Women’s Championship match last week, you weren’t worried that she’d win the title, but that WWE would somehow force Asuka to make her look like a serious contender and have a drawn-out match.

Thankfully, the match was little more than a squash for the Empress of Tomorrow, as she walked Lana through a brief match in which the Ravishing Russian landed a few kicks, got a couple of rollup attempts and traded forearms before tapping out to the Asuka Lock.

Lana lucked into a title shot and lasted a couple of minutes before she was obliterated, which is about how things should have gone. Aside from one near-fall, she never was in a position to win the title.

And then she went through the announce table again, which is a gripe for another day as WWE’s self-indulgent inside joke continues.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.