8 Match Star Ratings For WWE Royal Rumble 2020
2. Becky Lynch Vs. Asuka - RAW Women's Championship Match
This felt flat for a long old time, through its placement on the card, only-solid build, whatever: there was little in the way of graduating intensity nor the big fight feel that elevated last year's original.
A good, almost old-fashioned WWE match in that the bumps mostly served the methodically-paced story, the most frightening was very effective. Asuka took an absolutely wicked face-first bump from the apron to ringside, but per the wider storyline, Becky Lynch had to reach these lengths to put the Empress away. Asuka had been built as a killer who had her number. This wasn't gratuitous; it was necessary.
They got there in the end, and that's the lede here; this was a very polished worker's match boasting a fabulous finish at which the whole thing peaked consistently with the thrust of the storyline. Proper babyface catharsis fused with idiosyncratically wonderful pro wrestling theatre, the sight of Asuka's mist spraying impotently into the ether paid off her heel work and Becky's ring general intelligence with gorgeous GIF material.
The match was forgettable, the finish exciting, memorable and effective; this is what they talk about when they talk about "learning how to work".
Star Rating: ★★★½