Bully Ray Speculates On Asuka Going Part-Time In WWE

It's true what she says: "No one is ready for Asuka." But certainly, no one was ready to see her final curtain call as a full-time in-ring competitor at WWE Backlash earlier this month. No one was more fired up by Asuka's farewell than Bully Ray, who reactively asked the powers that be in the WWE, "How do you f*** that up?" On "Busted Open Radio," Ray highly praised who he called the "Female Great Muta," while surmising why "The Empress of Tomorrow" is changing her status to part-time.

"My point is: I'm not quite too sure about the personal reasons back home or the personal reasons...I don't think she was happy with Kairi [Sane] being let go, and I think she was tired of being background noise," the WWE Hall of Famer speculated. "There's so much of her story [that] was not told, and they never truly, truly gave you the version of Asuka that Asuka could have been. It was okay to get the Three Faces of Foley, but we couldn't get the multiple personalities of Asuka...But we couldn't get something that was so successful in Japan and give it some WWE life and modernize it. Asuka should have been special. Special for a long time. I don't care if she would have had a translator, a manager, spoken broken English, anything. The woman wrestled like a million dollars and she looked like a million dollars."

Hoping to clear any doubts of uncertainty, Asuka recently addressed where her future stands with the company, stating that she is still with the Stamford-based promotion; however, her appearances will be rare from now on. As previously reported, the second-ever Women's Grand Slam Champion had requested time off for personal reasons, yet her request was put in before her Kabuki Warriors tag team partner was released last month.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Busted Open Radio" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.