8 Things WWE Got Wrong At TLC 2017

8. Asuka's Less Than Dominant Debut

Asuka Emma
WWE.com

Asuka made her long awaited main roster debut at TLC, defeating Emma with the Asuka Lock in the opening match of the main card. Asuka winning this bout was the no-brainer of no-brainers. The 'Empress of Tomorrow' wasn’t going to run through the NXT women’s division with flair only to fall at the first hurdle on the main roster.

The former NXT Women’s Champion was built as a truly dominant force, a mystique that WWE soon damaged by having her go almost 10 competitive minutes with Emma. Emma deserves better than she has been given by WWE over the last couple of years, but her role in this match was to get smashed and to get smashed quickly.

Imagine Goldberg returning to WWE in 2016, only to go a mildly competitive nine minutes with R-Truth in his pay-per-view debut. Or someone of the stature of Kenny Omega signing with the company, before winning his first big show match after eight tough minutes against Tye Dillinger.

Asuka is far from ruined after this, but WWE made a hash of what should have been an open goal. To put it in perspective, Enzo Amore was able to defeat the Cruiserweight Champion Kalisto in less time.

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Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.