The magnitude of the moment isn’t lost on Asuka.
After winning a Money in the Bank ladder match a little more than three months ago, she was given the Raw women’s championship by the ultra-popular Becky Lynch who was stepping away from WWE to have a baby. Asuka said she was “surprised” when Lynch relinquished the belt and shared her pregnancy news, calling it an “incredible moment.”
She, however, fully understood its deeper meaning.
“I accepted it with the responsibility of getting ready to take over that Raw women’s title,” Asuka said through a translator in a phone interview.
Since then, a lot has changed for the 38-year-old from Osaka, Japan. She went from being in the Kabuki Warriors tag team with Kairi Sane that began as heels to now becoming the top babyface singles star in the WWE women’s division.
It’s led her to a chance to join Lynch as a rare double singles champion in the company. Asuka, who debuted on the main roster in October 2017, will make her SummerSlam debut (Sunday, 7 p.m., WWE Network) this year and can leave Orlando’s Amway Center with plenty of gold. Asuka will first face Bayley for the SmackDown women’s championship and later in the night take on Sasha Banks for the Raw title.
This version of Asuka isn’t the same as the one who left NXT undefeated, had a WrestleMania moment in 2018 with Charlotte Flair and gave Becky Lynch a memorable feud. The current incarnation of her character is one she says is “50/50” like the real person behind it. The biggest similarity being they are both “bossy.”
This Asuka has connected with the audience on a different level as she continues to add layers beyond being a great in-ring worker. She can be as fun-loving as she is serious. She has gone beyond short, simple promos by using her facial expressions, inflection and energy to get across her feelings and intent across to viewers while using two languages.
“It’s just show-me kind of stuff — Japanese, English,” she said. “I don’t think about it, just talk.”
Asuka is now just as quick to use the heelish green poison mist as she is to start doing a happy dance on top of the announce table — a move that happened spontaneously.
“Don’t think about it,” Asuka said. “Just dance. I’ve asked myself where this dance came from.”
Her current feud saw Banks unfairly take the Raw women’s championship from her when Bayley put on a referee’s shirt at the Extreme Rules pay-per-view to deliver the 1-2-3. She then officially lost the belt by count-out on “Monday Night Raw” when she left the ring to help Sane, who was being attacked by Bayley backstage. Asuka did pay Banks a compliment, saying she continues to “update” her in-ring repertoire.
“Sasha is a great athlete,” she said “I’ve had many matches with her and every single match her technique is changed or switched. Always a surprise for me.”
The on-screen attack on Sane ended her time in WWE. It was a way to write her off the show, because she chose to return home to Japan and not re-up with the company. She and Asuka were the WWE women’s tag team champions before losing the belts to Banks and Bayley. Asuka and Sane shared a noticeable chemistry on camera and a bond behind the scenes as well.
Asuka called teaming up with her as “so powerful and so helpful.” She said their different styles — Sane is more of a high-flyer with a touch of finesse and Asuka a hard-hitting striker and submission specialist — provided the ingredients for excellent matches.
“I’m still looking for her backstage, where Kairi is,” Asuka said. “I’m just really sad at this moment.”
The in-character anger she showed to Sane’s exit led her to teasing on social media the possibility of using the darker, full face-paint, evil-clown-like persona she had while wrestling in Japan. It’s something WWE is open to her doing in the right situation.
“If the time comes, I can show it,” she said.
The break up of the Kabuki Warriors doesn’t necessarily mean her time in the tag team division is over. Asuka teamed with rival Shayna Baszler on this week’s Raw, beating Banks and Bayley even when Nia Jax returned to go after her Baszler. Asuka is interested in having Baszler in her corner again and making a run at the belts.
“I think we will be the tag-team champions,” she said. “I teamed up with Shayna Baszler and I felt very comfortable with her.”
Asuka also has an interest in having a match with current NXT women’s champion Io Shirai. It would be a clash of the two of the top women’s wrestlers to come out of Japan and two of the best in the world right night. It’s a dream match for many fans and one Asuka believes will happen. Asuka, Shirai and Shirai’s older sister Mio were once a trio in Japan.
“I can’t wait for an opportunity with her,” she said.
Asuka’s greatest rival in WWE, however, has been Flair, who ended her record 914-day winning streak at WrestleMania 34. That match was rated 4 stars out of five in the Wrestling Observer. Their latest clash in June drew 3.75 stars. Asuka can’t fully explain their in-ring chemistry, but believes it’s rooted in the fact “we respect each other.”
Outside the ring, Asuka is an avid video game lover. The former writer for Xbox Magazine owns more than 5,000 mostly retro games and has her own YouTube channel, KanaChanTV. She finds gaming as a great way to decompress. With things busy now, she gets in about two hours a day.
“When I’m wrestling and nervous, feeling the pressure I feel it, but when playing video games everything feels comfortable like a calm down,” Asuka said.
Emotions will likely be running high for her Sunday at SummerSlam featuring WWE’s new ThunderDome concept — which will include virtual fans on LED boards. The setting is something Asuka believes is a “new challenge for us” to entertain the audience with.
Two victories there puts her at the very top of WWE’s women’s division for the first time in her career, further validating the job she’s done since taking the babyface torch from Lynch in May.
“First of all, the responsibility of being a double champion,” Asuka said when asked what winning both belts would mean. “It’s an honor to be a double champion in WWE.”