WWE lets down its women’s division.
The group, which has been one of the company’s biggest strengths for the past five years, is beginning to fall victim to dubious discussions, less convincingly creative and the lack of new major events. Although the problems have plagued the SmackDown women’s series less recently, it can be argued that the talented artists in the section are not being used as well as they might appear.
Let’s start with Asuka. She has not defended her Raw women’s championship since November 23 against Lana, a victory by disqualification. Her most recent clean wins as Raw women’s champion came when she submitted Zelina Vega – who has since been released by WWE – on 20 September 2020 at Clash of Champions and the following evening on “Monday Night Raw”. Asuka’s last singles victory came on December 7 against Shayna Baszler on Raw and is 1-5-2 so far in 2021.
Since then, Asuka has been played in the women’s team championship. First with Lana before finally collaborating with Charlotte to win the belt of Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax – only to lose it a little over a month later as the fourth wheel in a story between Charlotte, Ric Flair and Lacey Evans.
Asuka was supposed to put her Raw women’s title at stake against Evans in the Elimination Chamber, but the match was scrapped with Evans pregnant in real life. Evans won the title by winning Charlotte a match again as part of a larger storyline involving her in a relationship with Ric Flair with some sexual tone.
The whole corner was more about the strained relationship between the Flairs than about Evans. It also means that the creative for the original title contest at Elimination Chamber had little to do with Asuka unless it would make a corner with her and Flair. No replacement opponent was found for her that night. Asuka is one of WWE’s best artists and a standout during the pandemic. She was not treated that way recently.
It makes you wonder if WWE is just buying time for WrestleMania 37 for a match between Asuka and Flair. Maybe the new mom Becky Lynch is back on Raw the next night to start a program with the winner. Things seem to be going that way as Flair looked disgusting and dismissive after beating Asuka wrongly and costing them a game against Baszler and Jax on Raw last week.
The lack of new challengers also makes it even more important that WWE meets Rhea Ripley, who has all the tools to be a light star. Ripley, who was announced to Raw, must win and keep winning until she is ready for a title.
The situation around Asuka is in line with the issue facing the women’s signs department. The titles are mostly used to keep single stars at the highest level on TV if they do not appear in the main photo. Although there were exceptions – the IIconics (Billie Kay and Peyton Royce), Nikki Cross and Kairi Sane – but the former singles champions or main competitors Asuka, Flair, Baszler, Jax, Bayley, Sasha Banks and Alexa Bliss played the lead roles. tag belts.
While it’s easy to understand that you want to keep stars on television, it should be used to enhance other talents or create storylines specific to the tag section. We just went through a very good team breakdown story with Banks and Bayley. It should take a while before we see it again. Instead, we also see WrestleMania opponents, Bianca Belair and Banks, cooperate and lose at the extinction chamber. (On a side note, WWE did not even take the time to mention on SmackDown that Belair could also select NXT women’s champion Io Shirai.)
Banks, who must look strongly like WrestleMania, took a pen at the elimination room after Carmella’s sommelier, Reginald, tried to help. At worst, it could play out at SmackDown with the pay-per-view game going to a real team in the division.
Why not give the improved Ruby Riott and Liv Morgan a spin with belts or Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke after all these years? Lana has had three different partners in recent months, from Natalya to Asuka, so far a good relationship with Naomi. Why do they not give them a well-deserved moment in the sun? Natalya does so much to help the other women wrestlers. Use real life and give her a protégé with whom she tries to take care of the belt. It could be what they’re doing with Tamina or having a monster heel ready for Banks or Belair.
Jax and Baszler are such dominant forces, that WWE can try to put together an undercover story for one of these teams that is already so positioned. By beating Naomi and Lana, Lana’s story arc would be completed, but the best chance of it possibly passed.
All of this shows a disturbing pattern that WWE is not putting its talented women in the best position to succeed. This is something that could be largely rectified by WrestleMania if WWE is indeed just offering its time. But from now on, WWE will abandon its women’s division.