Well, Sasha Banks is now officially the Raw Women's Champion after defeating Asuka via countout last night. How did the Empress of Tomorrow allow such a thing to happen? Ughhhhhhh.
Per Stephanie McMahon, the winner of the match could be decided by DQ, someone else getting involved, or countout, so while Bayley couldn't directly interfere, she could try to force Asuka to abandon the match by attacking her friend and tag-team partner Kairi Sane.
It's a solid enough premise and a good way to beat Asuka without having her pinned or submitted, but, as with most things WWE, the execution let it down.
The match itself was very good up to a point, but the finish was even worse than Bayley putting on the ref's jersey and counting the pin. This time, Asuka had The Boss at her mercy in the Asuka Lock when we saw the SmackDown Women's Champion beating down Sane on the screen. Bay laid in a few kicks, and banged her head on the steel shutter a few times, and we were expected to believe that this would be enough for Asuka - who only needed to cinch in her submission hold a little more to win the match - to sacrifice her title to save her friend... who wasn't really in much danger in the first place.
They could have at least had Bayley threaten to crack her damn head open with a steel chair or break a limb - something, anything to make us buy into this nonsense a bit more.
Anyway, we can't be mad at Sasha and Bayley holding all the gold; it's just a shame Asuka's run had to be cut short to accomplish it.
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