Original Plans To Determine Asuka’s Opponent At TLC

Asuka is coming to Raw and anyone who has seen The Empress Of Tomorrow apply her craft in the past has to be excited to watch the former NXT Women’s Champion continue her punishing ways. But nothing is set in stone in WWE and that was even more evident on this week’s episode of Raw.

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports there were a few changes to the match to determine who would get the honor of being the first woman to be kicked in the head really hard by Asuka. It’s odd to me so many women would want to get in line to face someone like Asuka but to each their own.

WWE apparently had an issue booking a match on Raw to pick an opponent for The Empress Of Tomorrow. Dave Meltzer reports the plan was always to have Emma face Asuka due to their history in the ring together. After all, Emma knows how to take a kick to the head from Asuka.

The first idea was to have Emma, Sasha Banks, and Nia Jax face-off against each other in a triple threat match. Then the plans were switched up to Bayley, Sasha Banks, and Dana Brooke vs Nia Jax, Alicia Fox, and Emma in a six-woman tag match.

However, Nia Jax was taken out of the picture entirely after WWE decided since Jax lost via disqualification to Mickie James the previous week when Alexa Bliss jumped in the interrupt the match they didn’t want Nia Jax suffering any more losses on television right now. WWE wants to keep Nia Jax looking as strong as possible because the eventual big feud is still Alexa Bliss vs Nia Jax according to WWE higher-ups.

It looks like plans were changing all over the place on Monday night in Indianapolis as WWE crafted a Raw to strategically wrap around the reformation of The Shield and a new Cruiserweight Champion (although that plan was also a last minute alteration).