Women’s TLC: Where are Becky, Charlotte and Asuka Going?

Don’t get me wrong. WWE TLC has a lot of interesting matches going for it. AJ Styles trying to regain the WWE Championship from Daniel Bryan has a lot of intrigue. Seth Rollins & Dean Ambrose colliding in a TLC match with the Intercontinental Championship on the line certainly could main event any arena in the country. Nia Jax trying to wrest the Raw Women’s Championship from Ronda Rousey could be cool as well. Not to mention the SmackDown Tag Team Championship Triple Threat, Randy Orton & Rey Mysterio in a Chairs Match, or the idea of Natalya going through a table with her father’s image on it.

Or the WWE Cruiserweight Championship rematch between Buddy Murphy & Cedric Alexander! Have I covered everything yet? Probably not, these shows are way too long. Amything I left out, I assume isn’t too terribly important, or involves Baron Corbin & will be useful as a sleep aid.

The match I’m most interested in, and one that I think has a lot of your interest as well, involves the SmackDown Women’s Championship. Becky Lynch (as long as she’s medically cleared) will be defending against two of the most dominant women in WWE history. We all know Charlotte Flair’s history. She’s won more championships than almost anybody. Asuka has the longest undefeated streak in WWE women’s history. (Let’s be honest, they booked Moolah as little as possible.)

It’ll be a match with tables, ladders & chairs. The first women’s TLC match. It’ll be making history, and there’s a lot on the line for everybody involved.

Is Asuka Finally Ready?

For months, the question was asked if anybody was ready for Asuka. As it turned out, Asuka wasn’t ready to be Women’s Champion. Her rise to the top of WWE was halted with a loss to Charlotte at WrestleMania, and a move to SmackDown resulted in a bit of a slump for the Empress of Tomorrow.

If this week’s episode of SmackDown Live was any indication, Asuka’s slump has been busted.

The most impressive part of Asuka’s beatdown of Flair & Lynch after the match was the fact that the crowd was behind her. Sure, we all love women that go ballistic on their opponents, but not so long ago there was the thought that Becky was the next Stone Cold. The crowd loved The Man like no other, and surely wouldn’t take kindly to her being on the business end of an assault from anybody. Asuka seems to be an exception to that rule.

Perhaps the months spent out of the spotlight have helped Asuka’s standing with the WWE Universe. Our main complaint with Charlotte over the years has been the fact she’s typically at the top of the division and almost always wins. Surely a woman with an unbeaten streak spanning multiple years in NXT & on Raw would face similar problems while trying to connect with an audience.

Asuka has the most to gain & the most to lose on Sunday night. If she wins, she finally attains her destiny of being one of WWE’s top women Superstars. If she loses, she likely sinks back into the pack of SmackDown women contenders, all of whom have positive qualities but have problems getting on TV on a regular basis.

Charlotte is supposed to win these matches

For Charlotte Flair, Sunday night is all about doing what she typically does.

Well, wait a minute. It’s been a hot minute since we’ve seen Charlotte Flair win the big matches. Yeah, she got that win at SummerSlam that sent Becky Lynch down the road she’s on now, but since then she’s hit a bit of a downward spiral. She lost the first Last Woman Standing match at WWE Evolution, a match that you would have assumed she would win because she’s Charlotte Flair. She then lost to Ronda Rousey at Survivor Series, though in fairness she lost due to kicking too much ass. Then she lost to Asuka on this week’s episode of SmackDown in similar fashion.

Charlotte Flair is in a rare position in her career. She’s been coming up short in big situations, and it’s mostly her own fault. She’s been in her own head ever since Becky had enough of her foolishness. Honestly, 2018 has mostly gone downhill for Charlotte since she lost the SmackDown Women’s Championship for the first time, to Carmella. SummerSlam was Flair’s one shining moment, and even that was ruined with the whole Becky turning on her thing.

I said earlier that the WWE Universe has had a tough time getting behind Charlotte because she’s been too successful. 2018 hasn’t completely erased that perception, but it’s tough to argue that Flair has had a great year. TLC is a chance for her to rectify that. If she doesn’t, she’ll just have to hope that 2019 is her year. Just like we all hope for ourselves every single year.

I feel that Charlotte has more obstacles to overcome before reclaiming her throne, and I think that makes her more interesting going forward.

It’s tough being The Man

Nobody ever said that being The Man was easy. Ric Flair made it look that way for years, but he sweated, bled & paid the price as much as anybody of his generation. He stayed on top of the heap because he earned his spot.

Now it’s time for Becky Lynch to earn her spot. As hard as it is to get to the top, it’s even harder to stay there. You have to keep proving yourself to the fans, the office & everybody else every single night. If you slip up & have one bad night, somebody will be right there to take advantage.

The biggest obstacle to Lynch staying on top of SmackDown is her health. That’s not the only obstacle though. There’s this school of thought I’ve repeatedly seen out there that the “money” isn’t in Becky vs. Charlotte or Becky vs. Ronda. Some people think that the real issue that people want to see Becky Lynch settle is with Raw Superstar Nia Jax. Forget about that whole thing with SmackDown’s best taking on Raw’s best, or that personal issue that some consider one of the best feuds of 2018. Those aren’t important to these folks. What’s important is the fact that Nia stiffed Becky during a brouhaha on Raw prior to Survivor Series, and gave her a concussion.

Some people think that Nia should be rewarded for being bad at her job. To be fair, it’s a mindset that’s been common in pro wrestling since the beginning. If somebody gets injured due to the sloppiness of another worker, the natural idea is to exploit it for a feud. Right after the incident went down, Nia received a ton of heat from fans online, and more importantly, in arenas. She was the most hated person at Survivor Series by a pretty wide margin. With that in mind, it made sense to push her more. If a wrestler can get a reaction from a crowd, and can get people to buy tickets, we can ignore the fact that they suck at most parts of the job.

The problem is that nobody in WWE is selling tickets right now, and Nia’s heel heat is dying off by the week. Her ineffectiveness in the ring & on the microphone has been found out. WWE’s fanbase is “smarter” than its ever been, and Becky Lynch fans know that if they give Nia Jax a tremendous heel reaction, the office will think that a Becky/Nia feud is an excellent idea. Becky’s fans don’t want to see that. They want her against Golden Girl Ronda, or finally finishing off Golden Girl Charlotte. These would be better matches built up with better promos.

If Becky loses on Sunday night, the most likely scenario leads her towards trying to get something out of Nia Jax. The one good thing about that: If she can do it, it proves that she really is The Man.

Who wins?

I think the most likely scenario is that Asuka wins. She needs this victory to get to the next level. The best place for Becky & Charlotte right now is probably off in the wilderness, fighting to get back to the top. Ideally, for one or both of them, it will culminate at WrestleMania. If I had the booking pencil in my hand, I’d have Ronda Rousey vs. the Royal Rumble-winning Becky Lynch for the Raw Women’s Championship, and Asuka defending the SmackDown Women’s Championship against Charlotte Flair in a WrestleMania re-match. There would be a Women’s Tag Team Championship tournament final there as well to give the likes of Sasha Banks & Bayley something important to do.

I’m not a writer for WWE, and that’s probably a great thing for them. So expect none of that stuff to actually happen. I do believe that Asuka wins at TLC purely because I can’t think of other relevant stuff for her to do if she doesn’t. Charlotte & Becky have tons of things to do.