Why Asuka Is Joining Raw Instead Of SmackDown Live

For those wondering what WWE would be doing with Asuka when she makes her main roster jump one big question was answered last night. She will be on Monday Night Raw.

While Raw might be the bigger show, that wasn’t the primary reason why WWE ended up placing The Empress Of Tomorrow on Monday nights. Dave Meltzer went into why WWE made this decision on a recent episode of Wrestling Observer Radio.

“They debated both brands and the deal is apparently that when you look at the roster on both brands they felt that the depth on Raw was not as strong — and it’s not if you really look at the depth on each brand. So they felt she was better off on Raw.”

“I wish she was on SmackDown because there would be more good matches for her there but that’s actually the reason she’s on Raw. Because she already has — SmackDown’s women are all kind of pushed or could be kind of pushed. Whereas Raw only has — just the fact that Emma is in the four-way and they don’t have any plans for Emma whatsoever. So you really only have Sasha Banks who they pretty much destroyed, Bayley who’s hurt, and then you have Nia Jax and Alexa Bliss and that’s it.”

But in the end, no matter how happy you should be to see Asuka on Raw, there still has to be some cautiousness there anytime an NXT favorite is making their main roster debut.

“On the SmackDown side, you have a lot more,” Meltzer concluded. “So they sent Asuka to the weaker side as far as that went. So, there ya go. We’ll see how it goes, who knows? You see Jason Jordan and you remember Jason Jordan and Chad Gable were like can’t miss and they missed? So who knows?”

If you use the quotes in this article please credit Wrestling Observer Radio with a H/T to Still Real To Us for the transcription