Jordan Huie of the Overtimer here for the next phase of tonight’s preview of WWE Raw. Rather than the usual method of previewing the segments we expect, condensed so as to pack them together in one article, I’m taking a deeper dive into the major matches and angles for tonight’s WWE Raw. I’ve already covered Humberto Carrillo’ vying for AJ Styles’ WWE United States Championship. So let’s take a look at the other match that’s currently on deck for tonight.
This one is to be expected after what went down at WWE Survivor Series last night. In a women’s 5-on-5-on-5 that was fairly bereft with foul play, the most blatant came when Asuka spat mist in the face of her own partner on Team Raw, Charlotte Flair.
As a result, Asuka and Charlotte Flair will now be squaring off tonight on Monday Night Raw.
There’s a lot of history here to say the very least. Last year, Charlotte became the first woman under the WWE banner to pin Asuka, ending an undefeated streak that actually surpassed the legendary streak of Goldberg in pure numbers. (And without lying about it like WCW did with his streak at that!)
As far as more recent history goes, Charlotte has been going after the Kabuki Warrior’s WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships. She and Natalya defeated them in non-title competition, which somehow led to Charlotte and Becky challenging for the gold shortly thereafter, a match which saw Asuka pin the Raw Women’s Champion!
Asuka has since avenged her loss to Natalya, and has put herself into some pretty big standing in the singles division. With her pinning Becky in mind, Asuka is penciled in to challenge her before too long. In fact that was rumored to be the match before this even occured. That being the case, it’d make very little sense for Asuka to drop this match here tonight.
But then again, it is Charlotte Flair.
Charlotte has, for most of her tenure, been one of the most protected and consistently pushed competitors in the game. It’s never a particularly crazy happenstance for Charlotte to pull out a victory, even if it seems to conflict with the current direction.
But to me, this is an obvious stepping stone for Asuka. Charlotte is the biggest obstacle standing between her and Becky. I’d suspect that she takes her down tonight, en route to trying to make a double champion out of herself.
