WINC Watchlist: Asuka's Greatest Matches

Throughout the 21st century, few women have achieved more in the wrestling business than Asuka. "The Empress of Tomorrow" has been a trailblazer in the same way that the legends of the Joshi scene that came before her were, to the point that when she signed with WWE in the summer of 2015, it was the first time the company had acquired a female Japanese talent since Bull Nakano over 20 years earlier. It's safe to say that WWE's investment has paid off as Asuka has essentially done everything there is to do in the company. WWE named her one of the five best women's wrestlers in company history back in 2021, having become both a Triple Crown and Grand Slam Champion, the first-ever women's Royal Rumble winner, and winning both a Money in the Bank Ladder Match and an Elimination Chamber match as well.

Throughout International Women's Month, we here at Wrestling Inc. have celebrated the greatest matches in the careers of some of the industry's best and brightest. However, we decided to keep Asuka's list for the day after International Women's Month ended for a very specific reason. On April 1, 2016, Asuka's reign of dominance as the WWE NXT Women's Champion began when she defeated Bayley at NXT TakeOver: Dallas, meaning that it has been a full decade since the era of Asuka officially commenced in WWE, and she absolutely deserves to have some of her best matches highlighted.

Asuka has been wrestling for over 20 years at the time of writing, which has made keeping this list down to five matches insanely difficult. With that in mind, much like our IYO SKY watchlist, some honorable mentions have to be given their flowers. Anytime Asuka got in the ring with Sara Del Rey, whether that be in CHIKARA or in SHIMMER, it was always a blast. She had a great match with Sasha Banks the night after the 2018 Royal Rumble (a match Asuka won and was close to making this list as well), and during her time in Japan, Asuka went to war with the likes of Syuri, Kyoko Kimura, and Hikaru Shida. However, the honorary sixth place on this list has to go to the bout where she teamed up with Pro Wrestling NOAH legend Naomichi Marufuji to take on the dream team of Meiko Satomura and Minoru Suzuki in her very own promotion, Kana Pro.

With all of that finally out of the way, let's take a trip through the career of "The Empress of Tomorrow" and give you our picks for the greatest matches in Asuka's career.

To be honest, Meiko Satomura has featured so many times in these watchlists that she probably should have gotten a list herself. But considering how many people had some of their best matches with her in Japan, it's easier to focus on everyone else and have Satomura pop in for her mandatory spotlight.

However, this isn't a Satomura watchlist, it's an Asuka watchlist, and before there was Asuka, there was Kana. A large reason why WWE ended up becoming so interested in "The Empress of Tomorrow" was thanks to her work in Japan, and while working as Kana, she was a menace to society and everyone she got in the ring with, especially veterans and legends. Kana and Satomura had faced off once before in Kana Pro, with Satomura getting the victory in Kana's own promotion, but could lightning strike twice for the legend as she would have to face off with Kana again, this time at a show produced by the Triple Tails stable, which comprised of Kana, Io Shirai, and Io's sister Mio.

This match has a real teacher vs. student vibe to it, as did most Satomura matches throughout the 2010s, but in this instance, Satomura was a stern but fair teacher who was tasked with forcing a lesson upon the ungrateful student in Kana. Kana even kicks Satomura's hand out of the way when going for a pre-match handshake, but she is taught a valuable lesson in respect when an early exchange doesn't go her way and she gets caught in an Arm Bar that leaves her in serious pain on the outside. The referee and the young lions at ringside check on her, but Satomura decides to punish her for her disrespect and goes after Kana, only to have the situation reversed back on to her as the referee has to check on Satomura after Kana gives her a stiff Roundhouse Kick to the side of the head.

You're going to hear this a lot in this list, but it was stiff, and I mean very stiff. All of the kicks in this match are so hard that if you got hit with one of them, you would probably forget your own birthday. it doesn't reach the point where you think that they are genuinely shooting on each other, primarily because the Osaka crowd are borderline silent throughout the whole thing (maybe they were just in awe of what they were seeing), but it does reach a point where you have to imagine the two women had a word on how stiff they could be with each other.

In the end, this back-and-forth war goes to Kana, who chokes Satomura out cold to the surprise of everyone in attendance. This was a real joy to watch, and even this far back you can see just how fully formed Kana/Asuka truly was. These two never had a bad match, this is just my personal choice.

Matches like this make my job more difficult than they should be. I was always taught that if you can't express how you feel without swearing, then you aren't expressing yourself properly, something I now believe to be a load of nonsense because this, this match right here, Kana vs. Arisa Nakajima, was f****** awesome.

JWP, short for the Japanese Women's Pro-Wrestling Project, was a promotion born out of the success of All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling in the 1990s. However, it was also a promotion that took advantage of AJW's strict rules regarding its performers, such as the "three no's" of no drinking, no smoking, and no boys to maintain a clean-cut image, and the main rule JWP and other promotions like them benefited from, AJW wanting its roster to retire by the age of 25. That rule seems ludicrous by today's standards, but JWP gave Joshi stars who weren't ready to hang up their boots a home, and by 2013, JWP had survived the dark ages of Joshi wrestling, and AJW had been dead for over eight years.

The ace of the promotion was Arisa Nakajima, who had spent basically her entire career with JWP after signing with the promotion just a few months after her in-ring debut. She would achieve basically everything there is to achieve in JWP by 2013, but she would encounter a freelancer who had her number, Kana. During one of her many JWP appearances, Kana captured the JWP Openweight Championship from Nakajima. In response, Nakajima became a lot more serious and brooding, and eventually she was granted a chance to get her title back from Kana at JWP's last major show of 2013.

Kana wastes no time in sneaking up behind Nakajima at the start, hitting her with a German Suplex and spraying her with purple mist, and before you know it, we have a dogfight on our hands. The first third of the match is spent in the crowd as both women beat enough tar out of each other that they could resurface a road. Chairs are thrown, crowd members are pushed, the signs telling the fans where to sit are almost knocked off the wall. Even if things are nailed down, Kana and Nakajima would find a way to throw it at each other.

Then the action gets to the ring and it's nearly 20 minutes of two warriors struggling to keep it together. They secure submissions but can't hold them, throw strikes that don't drop their opponents, and headbutt each other to the point where Katsuyori Shibata's ears started perking up. In the end, it's Nakajima who just about keeps Kana down after a bridging German Suplex, barely beating the 30 minute time limit, and winning back her JWP Openweight Championship in the process. Like a lot of Joshi matches from this time, it isn't easy to find, but seek it out regardless because it is a sight to behold.

Intergender wrestling is a tricky subject, especially in the modern era, because you don't exactly know where people stand on it. For some fans, the idea of actually wanting to see a man beat up a woman (even in kayfabe) is in poor taste and has no place in wrestling or any form of entertainment, while others enjoy the idea of the ladies being able to mix it up with their male counterparts and getting the better of them, and if they end up taking a beating, then it's their own fault.

It's not seen as much in companies like WWE outside of very specific occasions like a Royal Rumble match, and AEW have leaned more into intergender wrestling over the past year with Willow Nightingale and Marina Shafir being involved in Anarchy in the Arena and "Timeless" Toni Storm being the reason that Wheeler Yuta has a bald head. However, intergender wrestling is commonplace on the independent circuit and in countries like Japan, and in 2014, Kana was involved in one of the best mixed tag team matches you will see anywhere.

Held at an event organized by none other than the future AEW Women's World Champion Hikaru Shida, Kana teamed up with her long-time friend and a future AEW Men's World Champion Kenny Omega to take on the team of Shida and former ECW World Heavyweight Champion and chair shot enthusiast Masato Tanaka. The best way to describe this match is it's like watching a dysfunctional family therapy session. You've got the Kana and Omega, the no-nonsense mother and the eccentric and cocky son, playing the foil to Shida, the valiant daughter whose idea this whole thing was, and Tanaka playing the role of the dad who is happy to go along with everything but would rather be in front of the TV or reading a newspaper if it was down to him.

This results in a thoroughly entertaining match that is as hard-hitting as it is hilarious. Kana and Shida have fantastic chemistry together, Omega moves like a man who has never heard of the word "diverticulitis," and Tanaka, a man who took some of the most hellacious chair shots in wrestling history during his ECW and FMW days, is in the best shape of his life and looks like he's having a blast. Omega gets his entire a** out at one point which backfires as Kana tastes his cheeks (yes, really), Shida convinces Tanaka to use his a** as a weapon at one point, Omega and Tanaka give each other wedgies, but trust me, there is more to this match than just a**-related offense. Kana gets the win with the hold would become known as the Asuka Lock on Shida in a match that is a boatload of fun. Also, God bless Kenny Omega who traveled to the United States immediately after this match to compete in PWG's Battle of Los Angeles tournament the very next day.

We mentioned earlier that this watchlist is being released on the tenth anniversary of when Asuka won the WWE NXT Women's Championship, a title she would hold for a total 510 days (though WWE recognize the reign as 522 days in length) and only be beaten by the one thing that can creep up on a wrestler at any moment, even when they are at the peak of their powers, the injury bug. Asuka was forced to vacate the title and after she did, she was moved to the WWE main roster, leaving her as the only undefeated NXT Women's Champion in history.

Out of all of the matches she had in her title reign, it's actually her final defense that stands above them all as the best. Ember Moon, now known as Athena in AEW and Ring of Honor, was already well known before she got to WWE, but it was her in-ring ability that got her a title shot at NXT TakeOver: Orlando against Asuka. Moon arguably could have won that match as she was ready to hit Asuka with The Eclipse, but Asuka, knowing what was coming, pushed the referee into the ropes, kicked Moon in the head, and retained her title. Did Moon have Asuka's number for once?

The answer to that question was sort of answered at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn III when Moon got her rematch. In the lead-up to the match, Asuka had injured Moon's shoulder to the point where Moon was out of action for some time, and wasn't even at 100% going into this match. Asuka knew about this from the start and at the first sign of trouble, Asuka threw Moon into the steel steps and began working over the challenger's arm. That was the story of this match, grind Moon's arm into a fine mist so that there is absolutely no way she can hit the one move that the champion knows might actually put her away.

Moon rallies a comeback, proving that there is strength in her arm yet, and in the final stretch of the match, Moon did it, she hit The Eclipse...for a two count. Asuka kicked out of the seemingly unbeatable finishing move of Ember Moon. She shot the queen in the head and it didn't even fracture her skull. It's unclear whether Moon's arm was weakened to the point where The Eclipse wasn't hit with the same impact as usual, or if Asuka was simply that unstoppable that she could kick out of a move that destructive, but regardless, Moon was figuratively after that near fall. Asuka would get the win a few minutes later with the Asuka Lock, but the match was won when Asuka got her shoulder up.

We didn't know it at the time, but we had just seen the curtain fall on one of the greatest title reigns in WWE history, and Asuka rounded it off with one of the best women's matches in WWE history to go along with it. 

To finish off this watchlist, who doesn't love a good old fashioned car crash of a match?

The final WWE pay-per-view of 2018 was headlined by a Triple Threat TLC Match for the WWE SmackDown Women's Championship, where Becky Lynch would defend her title against both Charlotte Flair and Asuka. The feud going into this match was really about Lynch and Flair as Lynch had recently become "The Man" after having her face accidentally broken by Nia Jax, and Flair was chosen to face Ronda Rousey at WWE Survivor Series 2018 in her place. Lynch and Flair had been at each other's throats throughout the final months of 2018 and a TLC Match was booked between the two women for the event of the same name. However, the rest of the "WWE SmackDown" roster were like "Hang on a second, what about us?" That resulted in a battle royal where the winner would be added to the TLC main event, and as we know by now, that match was won by Asuka.

Due to the fact that the bulk of the story leading up to the event was about Lynch and Flair, Asuka was allowed to roam free and be the wildcard in this match, and she embraced that role like an old friend. She powerbombed Flair through a table in the corner, she threw Lynch onto a ladder, she was able to withstand an onslaught of kendo stick shots to absolutely cane the life out of Lynch on the outside, and as always, her strikes were magnificent. Outside of taking some chair shots and kendo stick shots to the back, the biggest bump Asuka actually took in this match was being speared through the barricade by Flair, which looked incredibly rough considering the barricade didn't completely break, meaning Asuka just got squashed by Flair's body weight. 

Speaking of being crushed by someone's body weight, this match also includes the single worst bump that Flair has taken in her entire career. That being the Lynch's Leg Drop off a ladder through the German announce table that Asuka was able avoid, but Flair had nowhere to go. It wasn't even a Leg Drop in the end, it was more of a Butt Drop as Lynch's rear end landed right on Flair's mid-section, and because the table didn't initially break, there were actually two bumps in this spot as she also had to hit the floor as well.

The Rousey interference at the end is one some fans could have done without, but I can excuse it as it leads to Asuka, the wildcard in this whole thing, actually winning the match, and surviving a truly painful looking match. The quality of the bout and the surprising finish makes this one of the most entertaining women's matches in recent memory, and certainly one of the best of Flair's, Lynch's, and Asuka's careers.