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Welcome to this week’s NXT Redux! Billie Kay and Peyton Royce continue to run over the division this week. However, Liv Morgan is out to even the odds against them.
Meanwhile NXT Women’s Champion Asuka has reached an impressive milestone, she remains undefeated for a year. A decorated legendary competitor who has won championships all over the world steps up to put the Empress of Tomorrow in her place!
Let’s jump into the action as Aliyah takes on Billie.
Aliyah makes her entrance first. As she makes her way to the ring commentary notes that the upcoming NXT TakeOver is in Aliyah’s hometown and she’s looking to make it onto the card in some fashion. It would be a big deal for her to compete in the event.
Billie then makes her way to the ring accompanied by Peyton. The match starts off with Billie going right after Aliyah with hard fists and kicks. Aliyah fires back with a jawbreaker and attempts a wheelbarrow maneuver but Billie counters it by slamming her into the ropes and into the mat. She slaps Aliyah and taunts her.
Aliyah hits Billie repeatedly, tosses her with a snapmare and grounds her with a low blockbuster. Aliyah throws Billie into the corner where she hits her with an axe kick and then a step up enzuigiri.
Billie comes back at Aliyah with a big punch. As they continue to fight Liv runs in and attacks Peyton. Billie rushes to her aid to stop it, allowing Aliyah to capitalize on the distraction for a quick roll up.
After the match all four women start fighting. It isn’t long before Billie and Peyton lay both of them out.
Later on Asuka faces indy talent Thea Trinidad. Let’s watch.
Thea waits in the ring as Asuka makes her entrance. Commentary notes that her undefeated streak has reached its one year anniversary. Thea looks for an opening on Asuka they both start matching kicks. Asuka taunts her and then catches her with a hip attack. Thea starts pounding away at Asuka.
Asuka shouts, “OK!” signaling to Thea things are about to get nasty. She hits Thea and Thea gets thrown in the corner. Before Asuka can connect with her Thea boots her. Asuka grabs her by the ankle for the ankle lock. She then rolls through a German Suplex into a fujiwara armbar. Thea, completely trapped,has no choice but to tap.
After the match Commissioner William Regal comes out and congratulates Asuka on her win and undefeated streak. He then says he’s been scouring the globe for suitable competitors to face her and has found someone special she’d like her to meet.
Suddenly the tron goes on and we see a woman turned away from the camera. She says it’s been a while since she stepped in a WWE ring but, “I’m back!” It’s Mickie James!
Mickie says that everyone is saying Asuka has beaten everyone, well Asuka hasn’t faced Mickie James and until she’s beaten her, Asuka hasn’t beaten anyone. Mickie says she’s faced the greatest champions of all time that laid the foundations for women’s revolution. She tells them to call the UN because this will be an international incident.
A match between the two is set for TakeOver: Toronto!
Thoughts: I want to start out with the Mickie James announcement. I was incredibly skeptical about this set up. I believe it makes the rest of the competition in NXT look really bad and NXT should have been preparing the women’s division for Asuka much sooner than they have been.
However, after seeing this segment, I’m now much more hyped for the match up. Asuka’s super human booking has overstayed its welcome and since NXT has backed itself into a corner, moving forward with this approach and having a legendary decorated champion come to humble Asuka is a refreshing new angle to continue building the complex Asuka character. Mickie should take Asuka to her ultimate limit.
This is good for several reasons, we’ll finally get a well booked, competitive match up that draws everyone in and we’ll get some much needed story progression in Asuka’s reign.
I’m not sure if this is a one off for Mickie and if it is, I’m hoping there will be consequences and repercussions after the match at TakeOver. If the match is good but Mickie loses and we go back to square one where Asuka is still an overpowered champion, I’ll be pissed. I don’t hate Asuka, on the contrary, I think she’s an incredible talent, it’s her booking I hate.
Another benefit of this set up is now there’s some time to build up other women as future contenders.
The short match between Aliyah and Billie was good and the duo is just beginning to create the foundation for strong characters and stories outside the title picture. Aliyah continues to impress me because she’s always pulling something new out whenever she’s in the ring and Billie is very effective at being vicious. I absolutely love the pairing of Billie and Peyton and hope they continue to dominate.
Aliyah’s character alignment confuses me though and I’m hoping they expand upon this angle. She was a heel against Liv a few weeks ago but worked faceish here. I’d like to see them build up a future reluctant partnership between Aliyah and Liv since now they both have a common enemy. Once Aliyah’s character and motivations get fleshed out, I can see her being someone to keep an eye on as the division continues to flourish.
Liv making the distraction as revenge against what Billie and Peyton did to her last week was good face work. I’m hoping to see more of her character work because she still needs it. This feud is great for all four of them because it’ll build them up at once. NXT still has a track record of making talent look good even in defeat so whoever wins the war, won’t be down for long.
What did you think of this week’s episode? What would you like to see next? Sound off in the comments below
