During a recent episode of the “Busted Open Radio” podcast, Bully Ray spoke about Asuka stepping away from wrestling after her emotional “farewell” following a loss to IYO SKY at WWE Backlash 2026 earlier this month. In the course of the discussion, Bully Ray shared his thoughts on the situation and speculated on what could have led to Asuka making the choice to step away from the ring.
You possibly can take a look at some highlights from the podcast below:
On why Asuka is taking time away from WWE: “My point is: I’m not quite too sure concerning the personal reasons back home or the non-public reasons…I don’t think she was comfortable with Kairi [Sane] being let go, and I believe she was bored with being background noise. There’s a lot of her story [that] was not told, they usually never truly, truly gave you the version of Asuka that Asuka might have been. It was okay to get the Three Faces of Foley, but we couldn’t get the multiple personalities of Asuka…”
On how she ‘must have been special’: “But we couldn’t get something that was so successful in Japan and provides it some WWE life and modernize it. Asuka must have been special. Special for a very long time. I don’t care if she would have had a translator, a manager, spoken broken English, anything. The lady wrestled like one million dollars, and he or she looked like one million dollars.”
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