Hello, and welcome to this week’s NXT Redux. This go around we have some triple threat action to determine a shocking number one contender for Sasha’s wonderful title, most likely aiming for a shot at the next TakeOver special.
In addition, Devin Taylor chats with Dana Brooke and we get a second backstage segment featuring a fun imitation made possible by the Boss.
With that being said, let’s get started.
We head out to the arena as Bayley makes her twirly entrance to the delight of everyone at Full Sail and those watching at home. JoJo provides the intros, before in comes our second competitor, Becky Lynch. Becky looks radiant, as her feud with Corey Graves continues to my delight. Now arrives the third potential contender as Charlotte struts down, flips forward, and split slides inside. The bell sounds as we get things underway with a strong “Becky” chant. Both Charlotte and Bayley start going after Becky, but Lynch fights them off briefly. Charlotte scores a takedown for a clos count, as Bayley hits a nice elbow/clothesline combo.
They exchange one-upping each other until Becky gets rolled outside and Charlotte goes after Bayley. The fans now convert to Bayley chants, but Charlotte scores a chop, followed by another and then a snapmare into a knee drop. Charlotte now with the figure-4-head-lock, this time with multiple flips and a kip up. Becky returns to the fray and drops Charlotte with a nice suplex, then turning her attention to Bayley as we head to commercial.
Upon a return, Becky continues the assault on Bayley, hitting her patented series of leg drops for a two count. Lynch now with a knee submission, but Bayley counters into a roll up for a near fall. Becky now hits a dragon screw and knocks Charlotte back inside, then turning into a drop toe hold by Bayley as she fires up (on one knee), and tries for her corner comeback. Becky gets a roll up, then countered into her awesome submission. Charlotte hits the Natural Selection on Becky while she has Bayley in a submission, but Bayley breaks the pin up.
Charlotte now has Bayley up top and goes for a superplex, but Becky throws her off and tries for the move herself. Bayley blocks though, as Charlotte runs forward and grabs Becky in a powerbomb position as Bayley leaps off the top with a sick spinning elbow. Bayley with a set of hugplexes, but Charlotte breaks the pin attempt on Becky and locks the Figure-4 in on Bayley. She tries not to tap, eventually grabbing the ropes. Charlotte locks it back on again in the center of the ring, bridging up into the figure-8. Becky slowly crawls over and covers Bayley for the win as Charlotte’s vision was distracted.
Backstage, we see Devin Taylor standing by with Dana Brooke. She tries to offer some congrats on the successful debut, but Dana cuts her off and says that it was a rebirth of the women’s division. It’s molded in the shape of the most beautiful, defiant, strong Diva… Dana Brooke. This is Dana’s playground, and play time is over.
Backstage again, but this time we spot Sasha Banks approaching Becky Lynch. She sarcastically congratulates Becky on the win, but puts her in check that she has no shot at winning the title. Becky says silver’s not really Sasha’s color, and it looks discoostin on her (that of which Sasha proceeds to mock). She feels the title will look better around her waist, as Sasha claims that she made Becky Lynch. Lynch laughs it off and says that it’s untrue because she made herself. She’s kind of a big deal, but Sasha says the only big deal around here is the champion. Becky is about to recognize who the boss is around here.
Thoughts: The match was absolutely fantastic, and I thought all three women performed equally well (which is pretty obvious from the get-go that they would). The finish in particular was probably the most genius thing I’ve seen in a while, and I love that they put a spin on how to end a triple threat since I feel like a lot of multi-woman matches tend to go in the route of someone hits their finish and the heel throws them outside to score the win themselves. This felt modern and less archaic to me, which was very much appreciated.
Speaking of modern, I thought their change-up of the tower of doom spot was also brilliant, and definitely the highlight of the night. That was a common theme I had with the match to be honest, I just loved seeing how these women were able to take spots we’ve seen done to death (they still work though, it just feels kind of obvious in the set-up where they’re heading) and turn them into something different, and something way more impressive.
Becky scoring the win makes perfect sense. I’ve said a million times how I want Bayley to win the title off Sasha, but I want that down the road. Putting Bayley into a feud with Emma to keep her on screen while Sasha feuds with Becky (someone new to the title scene but also someone who has a built-in story with Banks) is absolutely perfect. I really hope both of those feuds get to be featured on the next TakeOver because it genuinely feels like the next step in Diva dominance that these live specials should put forth is having two women’s matches, and each with a great storyline behind it.
Dana’s promo was okay, but I still feel unfair judging her this early in the game considering how far so many of these Divas come from their early days on the show. Her accent is very thick, however, we’ve seen Becky Lynch improve leaps and bounds with an even thicker one so I think she can get there. She’s obviously still learning and I feel like some of the parts are there and it’s just going to take some time for her to work on fixing up some that aren’t. There were areas of the promo I thought were fine, but I’d like to see her be a bit more serious like I mentioned last week. Being that this is the last week of those two month old shows, I’m excited to see what kind of growth she’s experienced in the coming weeks.
That’s it for now, catch you again for the next episode.
