Charlotte Retains Title at Fastlane and Asuka Issues Her Challenge

As if there was any doubt, Charlotte Flair retained her SmackDown women’s title on Sunday night at WWE Fastlane.

WWE has done an amicable job in establishing Ruby Riott as a real threat to the title in the brief amount of time she has been up from NXT, but there was no foreseeable way that Flair would be losing the title a month before WrestleMania. Even so, Riott has been cemented as a talent that can be involved in the title picture moving forward.

The rest of the Riott Squad (Liv Morgan and Sarah Logan) were on the outside to start the match, obviously, but Charlotte came out all on her own. It didn’t take long though for Charlotte’s sidekicks, Naomi and Becky Lynch, to make their way down to ringside once the Squad threatened interference.

Even so, Riott received a good amount of the offense early on in the match. A surprising amount, really, dominating Charlotte for several minutes. It was a good way to keep her look strong on her way to the eventual and obvious loss.

Eventually both the Riott Squad and Naomi/Becky were banished from ringside and Charlotte won the match via the Figure Eight.

The real story was what happened after the match, as Asuka’s theme came on during Charlotte’s victory celebration and the women’s Royal Rumble winner made her way down to the ring.

The fans went crazy for the Asuka/Charlotte face-off, easily the loudest they had been since the opener between Rusev and Nakamura on Sunday night. Asuka pointed at the WrestleMania sign, making their WrestleMania bout official.