Asuka, fresh off her return from a knee injury that had her on the shelf for over a year, is headed to the Queen of the Ring final at Night of Champions in Saudi Arabia after defeating Alexa Bliss in the first match of "WWE SmackDown" on Friday. Asuka will face the winner of Jade Cargill versus Roxanne Perez, a match set for "WWE Raw" on Monday. "The Empress of Tomorrow" scored the first victory of her return on Monday when she defeated Stephanie Vaquer, Raquel Rodriguez, and Ivy Nile to advance to face Bliss.
The women were evenly matched to start off the bout, but at one point, Bliss dodged a rollup into a Sister Abigail attempt, but Asuka countered into a rollup attempt of her own. Bliss dodged a missile dropkick and hit a DDT to Asuka, who kicked out again. Bliss went to the top rope to attempt the Twisted Bliss, but thought better of it and went to confront Asuka, who was playing possum and got Bliss into an armbar.
They continued to battle until Bliss went up for another Twisted Bliss, but Asuka got her knees up. She hit the Empress Impact hip attack and pinned Bliss for the victory to get one step closer to a championship opportunity at SummerSlam if she wins the Queen of the Ring tournament.
