Reina Gonzalez VS Nicole Savoy
Up next, the tough Queen of Suplexes Nicole Savoy battles the second generation wrestler Reina Gonzalez for the penultimate place in the second round!
Nicole offers her hand, but Reina refuses to shake her hand at the start of the match. Compared to the other matches, this one is a little less even from the start as Reina is physically much bigger than Nicole. It’s still not going to stop Nicole, who continues to go for headlocks and tries to take on the stronger opponent head to head. After two running shoulder block attempts, Nicole runs again but hits a hurricanrana to finally get some offence!
But… it’s shortlived, as Reina is back on her feet and drags Nicole back down to the mat by her hair. From then on, most of the match is Reina using her power advantage on Nicole – powering her down with a sidewalk slam and trying to break her with a reverse Boston crab. Reina hoists Nicole into the fireman’s carry position, but before she can hit any move, Nicole manages to lock one of Reina’s arms. She manages to tilt Reina’s balance to get her to drop to the mat, which gets her to properly cinch in a cross armbar. It’s a battle to get Reina to release her arm, but eventually she taps out! Nicole Savoy advances and will be taking on the winner of this episode’s first match, Candice LeRae!
After the match, Reina is definitely not happy, saying that it was just one second that made the difference and this won’t be the last of her. But psst… Reina you weren’t pinned, you tapped out…
Her opponent, Nicole Savoy is feeling the damage after that battle but she’s confident knowing that she’s beaten Candice LeRae in the past and has the size and power advantage over her.
Thoughts: This match just felt weird to me, the story telling was all the way off and I just don’t think these were the right opponents for each other. I was personally intrigued by Nicole Savoy because she reminds me a lot of Jazz and as a ‘Golden Era’ fan, that’s definitely a void that we have within the division at the moment. However, seeing her look weak and work the ‘smaller’ character really didn’t feel right – and you really felt it during the match. This was only emphasized by Reina’s inexperience. After seeing the likes of Sage Beckett, Jazzy Gabert and Piper Niven all take the ‘big girl powerhouse’ role, I think we can agree that Reina has a lot of work to catch up to them.
Moving forward, we should have a good set-up for the next match with the plucky underdog Candice LeRae taking on Nicole Savoy. Hopefully this match will bring out the tougher side of Nicole and we can finally see these suplexes that we saw none of in this first round match. She’s caught my attention so far, so I’m intrigued to see her progression.
Click to the next page for the final match of the first round!
