Asuka immediately made her mark in NXT with an impressive undefeated streak which continued when she arrived on the main roster. However, in a bizarre creative decision on WWE's part, that ended at WrestleMania 34 when SmackDown Women's Champion Charlotte Flair defeated Asuka to retain her title.
Undefeated streaks in pro wrestling do need to eventually end, of course, and Asuka's wrapped up after a whopping 914 days.
Someone who isn't happy about the length of the Japanese pro wrestler's winning streak is WCW icon Bill Goldberg. Asked on Tim Green's Nothing Left Unsaid podcast whether he believes WWE directed any hostility towards him before he signed with them, Golberg argued that WWE tried to tarnish his image by having "some Japanese girl" beat his streak.
"Well, a girl beat my winning streak," he said. "Asuka is her name, some Japanese girl, and they touted her as being the one to have the longest winning streak, and it just so happened that that culminated when I got there."
"And then it just so happened that every single wrestler uses the spear in their moves, right? Ironic that that happened when I got there. So that's how they do [it]."
There's been some backlash aimed at Goldberg for the way he talks about Asuka here and it's hard to imagine the WWE Hall of Famer even crossed the company's mind while booking the Empress of Tomorrow's 173-0 win streak.
Goldberg struggled to perform at a high level during his final run with WWE and recently shared some of the resentment he holds towards Vince McMahon in regards to never receiving a proper retirement match.
"Vince is like Dana White. He's the big boss and he makes everything happen, and in all honesty, he gave me the opportunity to put my wife and son on the front row and gave me the ability to perform again in front of them. So, I owe him everything, until we went to Saudi Arabia and he asked me to put Roman Reigns over, and I had COVID."
"I remember calling him from my house and said, 'Listen, here is the deal. I'll do it if you give me a retirement match.' I did what he asked. As a performer, I was 56 years old. As a human being, you're conscientious about how you look in a bathing suit, especially two months prior to being in that bathing suit, you couldn't work out because you had COVID."
"I put myself in a horribly shitty situation to get what I wanted to, but to satiate him and give him what he wanted. Problem is, he never held up his bargain. Vince is a piece of shit as far as I'm concerned."
Check out Goldberg's comments about Asuka in the X post below.