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Asuka has reigned as the Raw Women's champion for the better part of 2020 and yet couldn't feel more like an afterthought at the moment with the way she's been booked. Although she and Lana will get their shot at the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship at TLC in two weeks, WWE's main goal should be making The Empress of Tomorrow a bigger priority on Monday nights.
Of course, the non-title win she and Lana scored over current champs Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler on Monday's Raw paled in comparison to everything else that went down this week, specifically on AEW Dynamite.
The heavily-hyped show was nothing short of newsworthy as Sting shockingly debuted and Kenny Omega claimed the AEW World Championship. On top of all that, IMPACT Wrestling executive Don Callis announced at the end of the episode that Omega will appearing on IMPACT next week to explain his actions, seemingly signaling a potential partnership between the two promotions.
Earlier this week, two former IMPACT talent Dezmond Xavier and Zachary Wentz officially signed with WWE and will report to the Performance Center immediately. Between them and the returning Grizzled Young Veterans, the future looks bright for NXT's depleted tag team division.
SmackDown's tag team scene received a nice boost this week as well with Steve Cutler and Wesley Blake returning following a long hiatus as King Corbin's new henchmen. It's a role they could find far more success in than if they were still referring to themselves as The Forgotten Sons.
This installment of Quick Takes will tackle the bigger picture of Sting's AEW arrival, what could and should become of the AEW and IMPACT alliance, Forgotten Sons resurfacing on SmackDown, and more.
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Asuka originally had the Raw Women's Championship bestowed upon her by former champion Becky Lynch in May when The Man announced her pregnancy. She went on to have a fairly strong title reign as she was booked to beat Nia Jax, Charlotte Flair and Bayley in clean fashion.
Since regaining the gold from Sasha Banks at SummerSlam, however, Asuka has hardly felt like the top star that she is. Her television time has been drastically curtailed and she hasn't had much direction as champion outside of the occasional title defense.
In fact, her championship run has been completely overshadowed by the story WWE has been trying to tell with Lana in recent months. That would almost be understandable if Lana's babyface rise was compelling, but it's actually been done more to hinder the talented women's division than help it.
Despite successfully teaming with Lana twice to defeat the duo of Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler on Raw, she wasn't the focal point on either occasion. Worse yet, her Raw Women's Championship won't be on the line at TLC this month and hasn't been defended on pay-per-view since September's Clash of Champions event.
Putting the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship back on Asuka at this point would be a mistake. Rather, she must distance herself from Lana as soon as TLC is over and re-establish herself as a one-woman wrecking crew by brutally attacking her.
With Kairi Sane gone from WWE, Asuka should be flying solo and not have allies. She has a ready-made feud waiting for her following TLC with Baszler, so hopefully WWE goes in that direction with her heading into the Royal Rumble. That would also be the perfect time to transition into an Asuka-Ronda Rousey rivalry, but that's assuming Rousey will be ready to return by then.
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Prior to Friday's SmackDown, The Forgotten Sons hadn't been seen on WWE TV since May's Money in the Bank pay-per-view. They received a somewhat substantial push from the get-go on the main roster, but per Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful, a questionably-timed tweet—and the subsequent backlash that stemmed from it—put out by Jaxson Ryker in early June was what led to them being abruptly removed from TV.
It was a no-brainer for WWE to sideline Ryker in an attempt to calm the controversy, but Forgotten Sons' other two members, Wesley Blake and Steve Cutler, didn't deserve to be punished. Nothing was stopping WWE from continuing to feature Blake and Cutler as a tag team on SmackDown, but the company apparently didn't feel the act was complete without Ryker.
Six months later, Blake and Cutler finally find themselves back on SmackDown as the new henchmen for King Corbin. Looking almost unrecognizable with their hoods up and facial hair shaved, they aided the 2019 King of the Ring to victory in a match against Murphy on Friday night.
Although Forgotten Sons were never a particularly exciting stable, WWE desperately needs teams right now and having the duo of Cutler and Blake back on TV can't be considered anything but a positive for that reason alone. A series of matches with Murphy and the Mysterio family would be a logical next step in the story.
Corbin has done some of his best work while flanked by others and Blake and Cutler are a perfect fit for that role. The rivalry likely won't light the world on fire, but Corbin's latest alliance will force him to freshen up his king character that has been stagnant for some time now.
Blake, Cutler and Corbin will be better off from becoming a unit and should go a lot further than Forgotten Sons ever did with Ryker.
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With social media being as prevalent as it is this day and age, it's virtually impossible for wrestling to produce genuine surprises anymore. That's what made Sting's AEW debut on Dynamite this week exceptionally special.
As incredible as Edge's Royal Rumble return was back in January, it had been rumored for months that he was training to get back in the ring. Almost everything in WWE is spoiled in advance because of how big the company is, but AEW managing to keep Sting's signing under wraps until he walked through the curtain was truly sensational.
It's breathtaking moments such as Sting's arrival that remind viewers what made them fans of the business in the first place. Fans long for surprises of that caliber, which are far and few between in wrestling nowadays.
Regardless of what Sting does in AEW going forward and if he'll ever wrestle again, his debut will not be soon forgotten. It was the definition of must-see and gave viewers an incentive to want to tune in next week to see what will happen next.
To the company's credit, AEW has done a superb job since its launch of delivering satisfying surprises that give Dynamite an unpredictable feel. Raw and SmackDown have featured their fair share of shockers over the years, but both would benefit from breaking away from their usual formulas more often like Dynamite did this past week.
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Of the five TakeOver specials NXT has had in 2020, the NXT Tag Team Championship has been defended on only one of them. Since The Broserweights beat Undisputed Era for the tag titles at TakeOver: Portland in February, the tag team division hasn't been well-represented on the TakeOver stage whatsoever this year.
That trend will continue with TakeOver: WarGames on Sunday night when current champs Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch compete in the men's WarGames main event. If tag team wrestling was a bigger priority to the brand or if there were more teams around to fight for the belts, then it wouldn't be as much of an issue.
NXT had only a handful of teams around for most of 2020, but with Grizzled Young Veterans recently returning and The Rascalz getting signed to deals, things appear to be looking up for the desolate division.
Grizzled Young Veterans are former NXT UK Tag Team champions and have proved in the past that they can work well with just about anyone. As for the newly-acquired likes of Dezmond Xavier and Zachary Wentz, they were never able to capture gold in IMPACT, but they were an exciting staple of the promotion's tag team scene for over two years.
That's in addition to Indus Sher (managed by Malcolm Bivens), Imperium, Lorcan and Burch, Undisputed Era, Breezango, Legado del Fantasma, Ever-Rise, and the dynamic duo of Drake Maverick and Killian Dain. It isn't exactly what it was a few years ago, but it's a step in the right direction and indicates NXT's tag team problem is in the process of being addressed.
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Although Kenny Omega was widely expected to walk out of Wednesday's AEW Dynamite as the new AEW World champion, no one could have expected the epic announcement that closed out the show: Omega will appear on IMPACT! Wrestling next Tuesday with Don Callis to discuss his polarizing title win.
The AEW commentators have openly acknowledged before that Callis a top executive for the promotion, but Omega taking the title to their flagship show is completely different. Nothing is official as of now, but if this more than a one-off, then this development could lead to some sort of working relationship between AEW and IMPACT.
Of course, IMPACT has more to gain from the alliance than AEW does because of how much bigger AEW's platform is on TNT. However, the same can be said about the NWA, and that hasn't stopped AEW from referencing them on Dynamite and using one of their top stars Thunder Rosa in a prominent role.
An IMPACT invasion is unnecessary, but trading talent back and forth on occasion would be huge for both companies. For example, AEW has a significantly weaker women's division than IMPACT, so bringing in some of their female faces such as Jordynne Grace or Tenille Dashwood for a few matches wouldn't be such a bad thing.
Plus, fans can be treated to various matches that otherwise wouldn't be possible, including The Young Bucks vs. The Good Brothers and FTR vs. The North. The only downside is that AEW already has plenty of people who aren't doing anything meaningful and using IMPACT wrestlers would worsen that problem.
AEW is in a pretty great spot as it currently stands, but establishing working relationships with multiple companies including IMPACT, NWA and eventually New Japan Pro-Wrestling is helpful to everyone and is especially exciting for fans.
Graham Mirmina, aka Graham "GSM" Matthews, has specialized in sports and entertainment writing since 2010. Visit his website, WrestleRant, and subscribe to his YouTube channel for more wrestling-related content.
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December 06, 2020 at 08:00PM
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Quick Takes on Asuka the Afterthought, AEW and IMPACT Crossover, Sting, and More - Bleacher Report
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