Asuka won the 2020 WWE Women's Money in the Bank Briefcase in entertaining fashion this week. She kicked off the match by wiping out her competition with a dive off a second-floor balcony, earning herself a relatively straight shot to the roof of WWE Headquarters with the help of a quiet elevator ride (and without the help of a very confused janitor, who couldn't understand her request for directions in increasingly-frantic Japanese). Once at the top, Asuka fought off Nia Jax, Lacey Evans, and, somewhat confusingly, Baron Corbin, to unhook the briefcase and earn herself a title shot against a champion of her choice any time, any place, within the next calendar year.
Of course, WWE has already spoiled Asuka's presumptive cash-in target, as it began advertising Becky Lynch to confront the Money in the Bank winner on Raw several days before the Money in the Bank PPV was even held. While that ad also seemingly spoiled the fact that the Women's Money in the Bank winner would be one of Raw's three representatives, Asuka had been considered one of the longshots to walk away holding the briefcase, placing lower in the betting odds than both Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax. While Asuka might have been an underdog walking into Money in the Bank, WWE's decision to give The Empress of Tomorrow the victory seems to be an acknowledgement that it had already blown her booking several months ago, and desperately needed a "do-over" to fix its own unforced booking error.
Asuka feuded with Lynch over the Raw Women's Championship back in January and February, with their first title match taking place at the 2020 Royal Rumble. Going into that match, Asuka had never lost cleanly to Lynch in the ring, making her one of the few women's stars Lynch had never been able to defeat. Despite being booked strongly and nearly taking The Man down, Asuka suffered her first loss in the rivalry after Becky successfully managed to counter the dreaded green mist. Asuka demanded -- and received-- a title rematch in the following weeks on Raw, which Becky again won cleanly, eliminating any storyline justifications for Asuka to challenge for the title a third time.
At the time, many in the WWE universe viewed it a mistake to put Becky over Asuka not just once, but twice, and in such a decisive manner. Becky had already been holding on to the Raw Women's Championship for nearly a year at that point, and it had long since grown stale after lackluster feuds with Lacey Evans, Natalya, and Sasha Banks. Much of the heat that Becky had built up going into her main event match at WrestleMania 35 had long since dissipated, and WWE had seemingly booked itself into a corner by portraying Lynch as so strong that she'd already defeated (or feuded with) just about every credible women's challenger left. Asuka appeared to be the "Get Out of Becky Free" card that WWE needed to safely move the title off of Lynch, especially given her historical role as the one woman Becky just couldn't take down.
Putting Asuka over at the Royal Rumble seemed like the perfect way to freshen up the championship scene and get Lynch her heat back by putting her in the position where she's always worked best -- chasing the title. Instead, Lynch got not just one clean win, but two, wiping out Asuka's status as the one star Lynch couldn't figure out -- and taking yet another credible challenger to her title off the board.
WWE then pivoted to the one other big name left that Lynch had never beaten -- Shayna Baszler -- then repeated the same booking errors it did with Asuka all over again. After booking Shayna to look dominant in both her Royal Rumble and Elimination Chamber matches, WWE gave Baszler her long awaited match with Becky at WrestleMania 36 -- and put Becky over cleanly. While there were rumors that WWE had Becky beat Shayna without hitting a finisher in order to make the win look fluky and justify continuing the feud, it was still a clean win for Becky without interference or disqualification, and since then there's been no signs that the Becky-Shayna feud is set to resume any time soon.
WWE should have pulled the trigger on Asuka at the Royal Rumble, and then compounded its error by not pulling the trigger on Shayna at WrestleMania. Becky's title run was stale at the Rumble, staler still at 'Mania, and hasn't grown any fresher in the month since. Once Shayna lost, WWE had written itself into a corner that it couldn't escape without either using the Money in the Bank briefcase or breaking the bank to lure Ronda Rousey back for a match, since it had portrayed Becky Lynch as both too powerful to lose AND put her over every single woman on the roster who could have believably taken her down.
While Shayna can --and still should -- be the next big star in the women's division, Asuka is the right choice to menace Becky with the Money in the Bank briefcase in the here and now. To be frank, WWE has so bungled Shayna's transition onto the main roster that it needs time to build her back up before launching her into another high level feud. As for Asuka, she's proven to be a main event level star before, and her heel antics over the past few months have proven that she can get herself over in the empty arena era -- in fact, her heel run has been so well-received, she very well may be already more popular than Becky Lynch already.
While it's always possible WWE will still find a way to mess this up by having Asuka blow her cash-in attempt, it seems likely Asuka will soon be holding up the Raw Women's Title that she should have won several months ago. That win would make her only the second women's grand slam champion after Bayley and be the icing on the cake of her already-illustrious career -- now WWE just has to make it happen.