4 compelling reasons why Paige should face Asuka at WrestleMania 34
The women's divisions on both RAW and SmackDown got a major shot in the arm last week as we saw five unexpected NXT call-ups and most prominently of all, the triumphant return of Paige. Making a huge splash, Paige and her rookie allies, Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville, flattened most of RAW's women's division, including its champion, Alexa Bliss.
Notably absent from the beatdown was Asuka, the sole survivor for RAW's women's team at Survivor Series the night before.
Thus, the seeds of a potential mega match for WWE's women's division were sown. Speculation ramped up further when the two exchanged shots across the bow on Twitter yesterday.
If WWE is serious about a "women's revolution" being something beyond a talking point, the company must set up this match. Paige should capture the RAW Women's Championship from Alexa Bliss sometime soon, with Asuka emerging as the #1 contender somewhere on the Road to WrestleMania.
There are many reasons why this should be the marquee women's feud heading into the biggest show of the year, both for the quality of the card and for the progress of women's wrestling as a whole.
#1 It would avoid the meaningless cluster
Both women's divisions have long been plagued with meaningless multi-women programs, where everyone feels like an interchangeable cog on the wheel of 50/50 booking. This year has stood out in particular for this lazy booking, but you need to look no further than WrestleMania itself for a notable example of a long-running trend.
There has been no women's singles match at a WrestleMania since 2007 when Ashley faced Melina, and even that one only lasted about 3.5 minutes. As a result, no one has been made to feel big on WWE's biggest stage for 10 years.
While things were headed in the right direction with the highly praised triple threat match between Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks, and Becky Lynch at last year's big show, this year's edition regressed back into meaningless clusters with a fatal 4-way for the RAW Women's Championship and a truly terrible 6-pack challenge for its SmackDown counterpart. No one really mattered in either match. That's been the rule for far too long.
In contrast, a match between Paige and Asuka would stand out instantly, even more so because of the backstory going into it.