6 Ups And 4 Downs From WWE Night Of Champions 2023

by Scott Carlson

1. Timing Is Everything

Asuka Bianca Belair
WWE.com

Let’s face it: Bianca Belair has been wonderful as Raw Women’s Champion, but she had to be on borrowed time after nearly 14 months on top.

You could start to hear it with crowds at the last two PLEs, with fans openly cheering for her heel challengers rather than the babyface Bianca. It was only a matter of time before fans turned on Belair and her title reign, and she became the female John Cena. Getting the title off her and maybe allowing her to refresh a bit might help avoid that outcome for one of the company’s best assets.

The beneficiary of this situation Saturday was Asuka, a newly minted heel who very clearly embraced the cheating aspect of being a villain at Night of Champions. In addition to repeatedly pulling on Belair’s braid, Asuka tried to mist the champion during a corner tussle, but missed.

That didn’t discourage her though. Asuka further channeled the Great Muta and misted her taped fingers, then used them to manually blind Bianca, allowing her to kick the champ’s lights out. Just like that, we have a new champion.

Time will tell if this was a smart move, but there definitely was a danger to waiting too long to pull the trigger and fans start turning on Belair, so it’s understandable why they went this route.

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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.