Amid a fair amount of initial uncertainty, my favorite wrestler of all time stepped away from wrestling a few months ago after reconciling with and passing the torch to her longtime rival.
Given her apparent hiatus and uncertain status I had started working on this post featuring some personal memories of her impressive career thus far, and even though some time has passed I’d still like to share it along with a summary of what happened recently, the clarification update Asuka herself shared in the aftermath, and her current public status.
The World Famous Kana, who would later become the Empress of Tomorrow Asuka, was one of my primary gateways into joshi wrestling. She and the other joshi wrestlers I saw in the Shimmer Women Athletes promotion created a whole new section of my wrestling fandom and led to trips to Japan, following numerous companies, and so on.
Kana was already several years into her career when she came to Shimmer and impressed right away with her combination of incredible aura and superb ringwork. Her first Shimmer weekend included a highly anticipated an excellent match against Sara Del Rey. She instantly became my favorite wrestler and the highlight of any show she was on.
My first opportunity to see Kana wrestle live (and meet her) was at Shimmer’s show during WrestleMania weekend in NJ in 2013. I subsequently started going to Shimmer weekends 2014 and saw her wrestle there several times.
Kana’s time in Shimmer provided some of my overall favorite matches, including an incredible battle against Ayako Hamada from Shimmer 50 (available on Shimmer’s YouTube) and a Shimmer Championship match against Cheerleader Melissa from Shimmer 67 I was lucky enough to see live (also available on Shimmer’s YouTube).
Kana went to WWE and became Asuka a few months before my first trip to Japan, so I never ended up getting to see her wrestle live over there. I did however catch some of her NXT appearances in NYC.
Asuka became a centerpiece in NXT and established an undefeated streak that continued into her main roster run. She vacated the NXT Women’s Title when she left as she was still the undefeated champion at the time.
I wrote a spotlight called NXT Step for a Legend about her signing and a pair of follow ups over the next couple years about her time in NXT. .
Asuka’s amassed a long list of incredible accomplishments during her time in WWE. She is the first ever Women’s Royal Rumble winner, a multi-time Women’s Champion, a multi-time tag team champion with several partners, and has won other major special attraction matches like Money in the Bank and Elimination Chamber.
Her on and off tag team with Kairi Sane as the Kabuki Warriors and her past with Iyo Sky led to them all becoming the core of a group called Damage Control for a while. The group quietly dissolved while some of them were out injured and things were tentative between Asuka and Iyo when the former returned. Tensions rose as Asuka took issue with Iyo’s other alliances leading to a heated feud with Kairi stuck in the middle but supporting Asuka as her senior despite being treated harshly.
Asuka’s heel work during the feud was pitch perfect. She leaned completely into the role of disingenuous manipulator while doing everything with such style she was absolutely captivating to watch. Alongside Iyo’s great work as a straightforward well meaning babyface and Kairi’s incredible mannerisms and ability to convey distress and emotional turmoil it combined to one of the most captivating angles in recent memory.
Fans were expecting the feud to culminate in a singles match at Wrestlemania with Kairi caught in between and months worth of fallout afterwards.
Instead none of the three had matches at Wrestlemania and Kairi was inexplicably released shortly after as part of a bunch of roster cuts. The timing was mind boggling, and while the big match between Asuka and Iyo was announced for Backlash on May 9 the build up was quite awkward as announcers tried to reframe a feud completely built and focused around Iyo not liking Asuka’s treatment of Kairi without ever saying the name Kairi Sane.
Still Asuka and Iyo did an impressive job within the constraints and anticipation was still pretty high for their showdown.
The match was excellent and emotional. Iyo overcame her tormentor and former friend and beat Asuka rather decisively. The match could’ve gone either way but I personally expected Asuka to win because I thought this was the start of more. Instead in a surprising development Asuka and Iyo completely reconciled after the match with a hug and tearful words.
The post match segment felt like a farewell, which was reinforced by several coworkers wishing Asuka well on social media afterwards. The next night on RAW Asuka ran into Iyo while rolling her bag towards the exit. She said she had been looking for someone to take over her position, and that it was Iyo. Then Iyo said goodbye and waved as Asuka left the building.
And that’s all anyone knew when I originally started writing this. Asuka appeared to be going on hiatus and stepping away from wrestling, but no one knew if it was a permanent retirement, if she was simply leaving WWE, etc. There was a fair bit of speculation but nothing concrete and a good number of fans were just curious and wishing Asuka well in whatever came next.
Two weeks later Asuka released a statement on her YouTube channel KanaChanTV. She acknowledged the rumors and stated that she approached WWE about a personal matter. She said she’s still at the top of her game, is still WWE, and might pop up when people least expect it. She encourages fans to cherish those glimpses of her if and when she does as they will be rare.
She also however said she will be active on KanaChanTV and social media to maintain connection with the fans. KanaChanTV has always been a great collection of videos from her on a variety of things.
Since that update her videos have primarily focused on her new puppy Big Body Boss, her home arcade, and video game streams (Asuka is an avid gamer and formerly worked in video game journalism and other video game related jobs). The videos are a lot of fun and it’s nice that she won’t be completely out of the public eye.
I hope everything is going well for Asuka during her hiatus, however long it lasts and whatever form it takes. I’m thrilled that she’s not completely done and intends to continue to be involved with wrestling in some capacity in the future, and I encourage everyone to follow and enjoy her KanaChanTV content in the meantime.
Thanks to everyone who’s given this a read. Derailments of Thought currently updates sporadically as I am able.
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Derailments of Thought 