WWE Fastlane 2019 review: Highlights, takeaways and projections

SmackDown Women’s Championship Match

Asuka (c) vs. Mandy Rose

It’s unfortunate that with the women’s division likely to headline WrestleMania for the first time in history that the matches at Fastlane were subpar, starting with the SmackDown Women’s Championship Match. Asuka successfully defended her title against Mandy Rose, who was getting her first one-on-one shot at singles gold.

Let’s not pretend that Rose is the best wrestler in the women’s division. She’s not bad, but she’s still learning and certainly isn’t on the same level as Asuka and it showed. The champ had to take her game down a notch to make this look competitive and the match as a whole suffered. There were some sloppy moments, including the ending, when it looked like even the referee almost forgot what was supposed to happen.

Sonya DeVille had flipped up the ring skirt to grab a kendo stick from under the ring and it stayed that way. Next thing we see is Rose getting thrown into the ropes on that side, trip over said ring skirt and then take a kick. The referee counts to three and we’re outta there. It really looked like the referee was going to throw the ring skirt back down out of habit but then realized his mistake just as Rose was hitting the ropes. That could’ve been disastrous. Either way, Asuka is still the SmackDown Women’s Champion.

What’s next: DeVille attempted to apologize following the match but Rose was having none of it. This team is likely going to split up before or during the Superstar Shakeup post-WrestleMania. Rose has been getting an awful lot of attention in storylines recently, stories that really haven’t included DeVille. Creative is looking to make Rose a singles star and that’s why this played out like it did. As for Asuka, she’s going to need a new contender for WrestleMania. Is this the reason we’ve been seeing Lacey Evans so much?