Asuka’s Possible Goodbye at WWE Backlash Was the Perfect Reminder That the Empress of Tomorrow Did Everything Her Way

Asuka has not officially announced her retirement, and WWE has not confirmed that last night at Backlash was the end. But after her emotional match with IYO SKY, the post-match hug, the wave to the crowd, the reaction from fans, and the way wrestlers like Big E, Bayley, Charlotte Flair and Natalya responded online, it absolutely felt like WWE may have given us a farewell scene for one of the greatest women’s wrestlers to ever step inside a ring. Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio reported that he was told Asuka is “semi-retired,” while also noting that people were wishing her goodbye backstage. Even with the exact meaning of that still unclear, the feeling coming out of Backlash was impossible to ignore.

And if this really was the final curtain, then there is only one thing left to say:

Thank you, Asuka.

Thank you to the Empress of Tomorrow, the woman who walked into WWE with color, chaos, danger, charisma, violence, humor, mystery and greatness all wrapped into one. Thank you to the woman who came from Osaka, Japan, reinvented herself more than once, carried the soul of joshi wrestling into the biggest wrestling company in the world, and did it without ever watering herself down. Thank you to the woman who made screaming in Japanese feel more powerful than any scripted promo, who made face paint feel like war paint, who made the mist feel like a final warning, and who made her opponents look like they were walking into a storm they could not survive.

Before she was Asuka, she was Kana. Before she was the Empress of Tomorrow, she was a young wrestler trying to carve out her name in Japan. Kanako Urai debuted in 2004 under the ring name Kana, after training in a style rooted in shoot wrestling, submissions, strikes and realism. Her early journey was not smooth or easy. She stepped away from wrestling in 2006 because of chronic nephritis, opened her own graphic design agency during her time away, then returned in 2007 and rebuilt herself across the Japanese independent scene.

That part of her story matters because Asuka never felt manufactured. She felt created by survival. She came through AtoZ, NEO, Ice Ribbon, JWP, Pro Wrestling WAVE, SMASH, REINA and more, developing into one of the most unique wrestlers of her generation. She won titles like the JWP Openweight Championship, SMASH Diva Championship, NEO Tag Team Championship, REINA World Women’s Championship and WAVE Tag Team Championship, but more importantly, she became a wrestler with a completely different aura. She could be funny, unhinged, cruel, technical, theatrical and terrifying — sometimes in the same match.

Then came one of the most important pieces of the story WWE leaned into with Asuka, IYO SKY and Kairi Sane.

Before WWE turned them into a main-roster drama, there was history. Real history. Kana, Io Shirai and Mio Shirai formed Triple Tails in 2010, a Japanese women’s wrestling unit built around three performers who were ahead of their time in different ways. Io eventually left the group in 2011, while Kana and Mio continued as Triple Tails.S.

That is why the Asuka, IYO and Kairi story had so much emotional weight. This was not just WWE putting three Japanese stars together and hoping fans would care. This was a story about legacy, betrayal, pride, old wounds, mentorship, disappointment and the complicated reality of women who knew each other long before the bright lights of WWE. Asuka and IYO did not need to over-explain it. Their bodies told it. Their strikes told it. Their facial expressions told it. Their silence told it.

Kairi Sane’s absence from the final chapter made the story feel incomplete, especially because fans were chanting for her during the match and because she had been positioned as such a central part of the tension. That was frustrating from a creative standpoint because the story was clearly bigger than two people. But at the same time, the match still worked because Asuka and IYO carried years of history into every exchange.

Last night at Backlash, Asuka wrestled IYO like a mentor who was angry that her student became great enough to stand across from her. She attacked with strikes, submissions and the kind of nasty edge that made Asuka special in the first place. IYO survived the Asuka Lock, avoided the poison mist after blocking it near the commentary table, then hit the German suplex and moonsault to win. After the match, the hate faded. The disappointment faded. The story ended with respect, an emotional hug and the crowd understanding they may have just watched something bigger than a match.

That is the beauty of Asuka’s career. She could make victory feel like dominance, but she could also make defeat feel meaningful.

Her WWE run started in NXT in 2015, and from the moment she arrived, she felt different from everybody else. She was not just another signing. She was a warning shot. WWE presented her like an attraction, and she backed it up every time the bell rang. She won the NXT Women’s Championship in 2016 and held it until 2017, with WWE’s own title history listing her reign from April 1, 2016 to September 6, 2017 at 522 days.

That NXT run is still one of the greatest championship reigns WWE has ever booked. Asuka did not just beat people. She swallowed an entire division. Bayley, Ember Moon, Nikki Cross, Ruby Riott, Mickie James, Peyton Royce, Billie Kay — everybody came to the mountain, and nobody knocked her off. She left NXT unbeaten, undefeated in spirit, and untouched in a way very few wrestlers ever get to be.

Then came the main roster.

Asuka won the first-ever women’s Royal Rumble in 2018, a history-making moment that should always be treated as one of the pillars of the Women’s Evolution. The streak eventually ended against Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania, and yes, WWE could have done more with the fallout. But the streak itself remains legendary. It made Asuka feel mythical.

And the accomplishments kept stacking up.

Asuka became a multiple-time women’s world champion. She became a SmackDown Women’s Champion. She became a Raw Women’s Champion. She became WWE Women’s Champion. She became a WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion with Kairi Sane, Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss. She won Money in the Bank. She won Elimination Chamber. She became a Women’s Triple Crown Champion and a Women’s Grand Slam Champion. WWE’s own profile recognizes her as a three-time WWE Women’s Champion, Raw Women’s Champion, SmackDown Women’s Champion, five-time WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion, 2020 Women’s Money in the Bank winner, first-ever Women’s Royal Rumble winner, NXT Women’s Champion and Mixed Match Challenge winner.

That is not just a great résumé. That is a Hall of Fame résumé with no debate.

But Asuka’s greatness was never just about championships.

It was the Kabuki Warriors with Kairi Sane. It was the chemistry with IYO SKY. It was the pandemic-era work where she became one of WWE’s most valuable performers because she could create energy in empty buildings when almost nobody else could. It was her comedy with The New Day. It was her screaming, dancing, mocking, laughing and kicking people’s heads off. It was the way she could be ridiculous one second and deadly the next. It was the way she brought personality to every entrance, every backstage segment, every tag match, every title match and every feud.

Outside of wrestling, Asuka was just as fascinating. She was a graphic designer, worked on Nintendo DS graphics, wrote about gaming, ran a design office, operated a beauty salon and later launched KanaChanTV, her YouTube channel. That is what made her feel even more special. She was not only a wrestler. She was an artist, gamer, creator, businesswoman and performer who understood presentation better than almost anyone. Her look was never random. Her colors were never random. Her masks, makeup and energy all felt like extensions of someone who knew how to build an image and make it impossible to ignore.

That is why Asuka connected even when WWE did not always give her perfect creative. She did not need perfect booking to be memorable. She turned everything into something. She could lose a match and still leave with her aura. She could be placed in a tag team and make it feel important. She could cut a promo most American fans did not fully understand word-for-word and still get the exact emotion across.

That is greatness.

If last night was truly the end, Asuka went out the right way: against IYO SKY, another generational Japanese star, in a match built on respect, history and pain. She did not go out as an afterthought. She did not go out cold. She went out as the bridge between eras — from Kana in Japan, to NXT’s undefeated destroyer, to WWE’s history-making Empress, to the mentor whose influence helped make IYO’s rise feel even deeper.

Asuka’s legacy is not complicated. She is one of the greatest women’s wrestlers ever. She is one of the greatest Japanese wrestlers to ever succeed in WWE. She is one of the most important international stars in company history. She helped change what WWE women’s wrestling could look like, sound like and feel like.

Whether this is goodbye, semi-retirement, or just the end of one chapter, Asuka has earned every flower she is getting.

Thank you, Asuka.

Thank you, Kana.

Thank you to the Empress of Tomorrow — for the kicks, the mist, the masks, the chaos, the championships, the history, the artistry, the laughter, the fear, the color, the greatness and the reminder that nobody had to understand every word you said to understand exactly who you were.

You were different.

You were unforgettable.

You did it your way.

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