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Tonight on Monday Night RAW it was announced that next week's edition will feature a RAW Women's Championship match.
Current RAW Women's Champion Asuka will defend the title against six-time former WWE Women's Champion Mickie James.
Mickie James has recently returned to WWE television on RAW after being out with a knee injury for over a year. Mickie James underwent surgery to correct her knee injury, the first time that she has been forced to undergo surgery in her professional wrestling career.
This is not the first time that Asuka has defended a Women's Championship against Mickie James in WWE. Asuka faced off against Mickie James at NXT TakeOver: Toronto in 2016 for the NXT Women's Championship.
However, on that occasion, Asuka was able to defeat Mickie James to retain the NXT Women's Championship.
Partners tonight, opponents next week on RAW
Before their RAW Women's Championship match next week, Asuka and Mickie James had to be tag team partners tonight on Monday Night RAW.
Asuka and James teamed up to face off against the new tag team of Natalya and Lana during this week's episode. Lana and Natalya have been thorns in the side of Mickie James ever since she returned to Monday Night RAW several weeks ago.
There were early signs of distention between Asuka and Mickie James after several blind tags between the future RAW Women's Championship opponents. This distraction allowed Natalya and Lana attempted to work over Mickie James during the match. However, James was able to make the tag to her partner Asuka for the hot comeback.
In the closing moments of the match, Mickie James went to the top rope to do a move off the top rope. But, Asuka tagged herself into the match. Asuka then applied the Asuka lock to Lana. Mickie James then stopped Natalya from breaking up the hold, causing Lana to tap out to Asuka for the victory.
Who do you think will leave Monday Night RAW next week as the RAW Women's Champion?
