Kairi Sane & Asuka have a new name (SPOILER)

At the SmackDown (not so) LIVE taping this afternoon in London’s O2 Arena, the promised tag team match between Paige’s old Absolution teammates Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville and her new charges Asuka & Kairi Sane went down as planned.

That’s not the newsworthy part, though. The big news is that Paige’s new team has a new name.

The Kabuki Warriors.

Initial reaction seems to mostly be jokes about how by next week they’ll be called The Kabuki Experience. With a little time to let this set in, and a refresher on what kabuki is in Japanese culture (generally, it’s often translated as ”the art of singing and dancing”), I think there’s a decent chance this does end up being changed in the not-too-distant future.

While there’s an argument to be made the name honors The Great Kabuki of NWA/JCP fame and the theatrical elements of both Asuka & Kairi’s gimmicks, the accusations this is just another example of WWE employing lazy stereotypes and being casually racist probably make the name more trouble than its worth.

We’ll see. In the meantime, they also apparently took the easy way out with their entrance music, mashing together their individual themes instead of creating a new one.

React away.