On SmackDown Live Tuesday night, Charlotte Flair defeated Asuka to become the new SmackDown women’s champion.
The change was described to POST Wrestling as a “last minute curveball” that adds the SmackDown women’s title to the main event of WrestleMania with Raw women’s champion Ronda Rousey and Becky Lynch.
Asuka had been scheduled to defend the title at WrestleMania against the winner of a previously announced fatal four-way match between Mandy Rose, Sonya Deville, Naomi, and Carmella. The fatal four-way was scrapped from SmackDown.
They promoted Charlotte Flair as an “eight-time women’s champion”, which included her reigns as Raw, SmackDown and Diva’s champion since 2015.
It’s funny how they keep stacking the deck to fit their own desires. Becky vs. Ronda wasn’t good enough. Let’s toss in Charlotte. Eh, still not good enough. Last minute change; we should bury Asuka at the last minute so it’s Becky vs. Ronda (champion) vs. Charlotte (champion) instead. That’ll make the match bigger! It has credibility now because two of the competitors have belts.
So dumb, why did they have Becky tap out to Asuka at Royal Rumble? So she could defend the belt one more time against Mandy Rose? Then lose clean to Charlotte in 5 minutes? They have continued to botch this build from day one. If you wanted to go this way there were 2 ways to do it.
1.) Have Charlotte be the one who faced Asuka at the Rumble and Beat her there, then Becky wins the Rumble and Challanges both Ronda and Charlotte having unfinished business with both.
2.) Have Becky best Asuka and the Charlotte does the above challenge both.
Both get you the triple threat in a way more acceptable way, and skipped the whole stupid injury suspension angle.
Or of course you could have done Becky v Ronda 1 on 1 and Charlotte v Asuka 1 on 1 but hey what do I know.
I think this kills Asuka as a credible top level player, she cannot beat Charlotte, but it also makes Becky look weak, having lost to Asuka.
The whole womens title match for Mania has been bullshit,that beat the clock rubbish from Monday made zero sense,why couldnt have been whoever gets the best time gets a Smackdown title shot?
Instead we get Charlotte handed a shot for reasons.
I feel bad for asuka, until last night, she thought she would get to defend the title at mania and then you learn that your dropping the belt instead and might get stuck on the kickoff in the battle royal.
As far as the charlotte win, unless that means that both title are on the line, this was a stupid move by WWE because it made no sense to give the title to charlotte if she not defending it at mania.
It seems that WWE’s version of a “slow build” is to do the same “cram as much story into this TV time as possible” as usual, only spread out over eight weeks instead of four.
I am curious where they’re going with this, but my initial feeling is that 12 days out — and less than two days after making a huge deal about what your main event will be — would be a puzzling time to make a drastic change.
I definitely think both titles are not on the line and this is just so when Becky beats Ronda at WM, all the four horsewomen can hold up titles at the end of Mania. #WMMOMENT. God Michael Cole is gonna be soooo grating after the main event.
Well I will say this…“Anatomy of a Dish/Match gone Wrong”. As a Chef/Booker when I come up with an idea for a Main Course/Event it all starts with a good ingredient/wrestler. I think about how I can elevate/push that ingredient/wrestler to a point where It will truly shine/payoff in the end. I think of a good contrast/ringstyle of flavor/movesets that will showcase its strength. What particular seasoning/promos will work well enough to compliment/frustrate the main star of the dish/match. Take pork belly/Becky Lynch for example. This is a solid ingredient/wrestler that through time can be forgotten about until the right chef/booker comes along and gives it, it’s due attention/push. With the right garnish/writers this once amazing ingredient/wrestler can be the talk of the town. Where it can go wrong, is when you begin to add too many supporting ingredients/authority figures to help its flavor/skills in its journey to main course/event. Sometimes a Chefs/bookers anticipation/ego can get the better of them. You see the finished main course/event in your head, just something is still missing. Does it need a little pepper/adversity? Would it work better if it was pounded/injured? How about bringing in another ingredient/wrestler so it can really shine/steal on the plate/stage? What about acid/Charlotte? Will that help the dish/event? Then you can sprinkle in some truffle/Mcmahon, just to give the guest/fans something to ponder while they lose their anticipation/patience for the next bite/twist. Before long you have gotten so far away from the original concept/fight that you don’t recognize your Pork Belly/Becky Lynch anymore. Over seasoned/booked. Too many Ingredients/Titles on 1 plate/ring and you have ruined a true classic/Wrestlemania.
Listening to the feedback on RASD and seeing so many say this crushes Asuka. Do people remember who low she was just 6 months after winning the Royal Rumble? She was losing to James Elsworth. Honestly, she’ll be fine. She can go in-ring and remains one of the best talents on the female roster; all it takes is booking her in a great program with one of the top stars and she’s back as credible because she’s head and shoulders above most the female talent.
It’s the best thing they could have done for her actually. If she went on in hour 1 of the show (or worse - pre-show), and wrestled a match that was meaningless against sloppy in-ring talent, would that have been much better? She can come back fired up after the Mania program ends and go after the women in that match with vengeance. Got no problem with this. Actually think I predicted there would be no other singles women’s match a few weeks back. Glad to see that happen.
I don’t think my plans of it being Asuka v. Baszler is going to happen…
I’m not a fan of the build for any of the matches going into WrestleMania. They’ve overdone 3 of the 4 big matches and barely done anything interesting with the other (universal title match). Then there’s over ten other matches on top.
The build has been bad overall but I’m still expecting Orton/Styles & Lesnar/Rollins to be great matches with Bryan/Kofi being a great story and the women’s title(s?) match finally just happening. Hoping they release the whole match order with these 4 matches ending the show so I can save myself at least 5 hours. 5 hours.
But now she is 100% going to be on the preshow, in a meaningless battle royal, with even more sloppy talent than a singles match and probably not even win that match.
I have no probably with Charlotte winning the title. My issue is just Vince McMahon waking up one day and deciding less than 2 weeks before the show, that this needed to happen.
It pretty much prove how the women’s revolution is a joke. If you’re not part of Charlotte click, you won’t get pushed unless you can bring them mainstream attention like ronda does. This as been going on for years now. Charlotte or one of her friends gets all the big matches and the rest are just forgotten or just given short meaningless matches like they did back during the diva era.
