7 Ups And 5 Downs From WWE Raw (Dec 16)

3. Asuka Versus Becky, Yes Please

Asuka Deonna Purrazzo
WWE.com

Ready for a strange-but-true factoid? Becky Lynch has never defeated Asuka in a televised match. Not in a singles bout, not in a triple threat, not in a tag team contest, not in the Royal Rumble, not even in a Survivor Series elimination match.

So when Becky Lynch launched into a promo Monday night about how she’d been shuttled into the tag team division away from a singles clash with Asuka, it rang true. Sure, it’s a bit convenient to blame “the powers that be” for protecting their “golden goose,” but if you’re going to retcon circumstances and it’s going to lead to Asuka versus Lynch for the Raw Women’s Championship, you can do way worse.

The only downside to all of this is that Asuka and Kairi Sane had not been booked really strongly in recent weeks, with Charlotte Flair single-handedly dishing out punishment to both WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions.

But Asuka’s decisive victory over Deonna Purrazzo, with the Empress of Tomorrow screaming angrily throughout the match, certainly helped things along.

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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.