What’s up Diva fans and welcome to this week’s NXT Redux. It’s been a long nine days having not spoken to you all yet I’m back and what a way to return. The torch is being well and truly passed as NXT Women’s Champion Paige has had the championship stripped from her by NXT General Manager JBL. However, she is in action tonight before a tournament begins to find her successor as NXT Women’s Champion.
SPOILER ALERT!
Paige is Emma‘s mystery partner tonight as the friends/foes team up against Charlotte and Sasha Banks, the BFFs. Some contradictory editing of commentary makes things a little dodgy to understand yet I’m sure we’ll all get through it. God damn for taping so many shows so far in advance.
TO THE VIDEO!
Out first this week, and still with Summer‘s head on a stick, it’s a friction-filled Charlotte and Sasha Banks. Both of them have a bit of frosty knickers and there’s definitely tension between them yet at least they’ll be happy knowing their opponents aren’t exactly best buddies either! Emma and her bubbles are out next and.. HALLELUJAH! Santino is nowhere in sight.
Praise Neysus!
After a commercial and some dodgy editing, the match has more or less started and Paige is on the apron randomly. I guess WWE didn’t want to show her enter the ring with the NXT Women’s Championship (which she now chronologically doesn’t hold) and without the WWE Divas Championship (which she does hold), yet the new commentator dude referred to her as the NXT Women’s Champion once during the match as WWE clearly forgot to edit that part out of the old commentary despite adding a whole lot of new commentary. Confused? So am I! Even though WWE had to edit that entrance out, doing so and ruining the low-key surprise of who Emma’s mystery partner was quite lame. Why not just air the segment of Paige stripped of the championship after this match to avoid all the re-edits and new commentary? Seems like a whole load of mess for nothing if you ask me!
The match starts with Emma dancing around and not paying full attention, which allows Sasha to yank her hair and slam her into the turnbuckle. After some taunting from ‘The Boss’, Emma reverses an Irish Whip and hits a hip toss. She’s clearly paying full attention now as she doesn’t miss Charlotte’s blind tag and elbows her in the bracket before sending Sasha into her stomach. Emma then hits a monkey flip on Charlotte before getting a one count. Emma then tags in the woman whose photograph I often sing Michael Jackson’s hit ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’ to, Paige.
Here come’s the dodgy commentary. “And in comes the NXT Women’s Champion” is followed by “Well guys, do you agree with the decision to strip Paige of the NXT Women’s Championship?” Say what now? We have a bit of a mess on our hands here! After a double suplex and a pin attempt, the woman I will refer to as ‘Hell in Boots’ to avoid getting lost in the abundance of titles she has held gets tripped by Charlotte before getting locked in a heel hook. Paige uses her impressive leg strength to burst out of it and Charlotte goes flying! Paige then rallies some elbows into Charlotte’s mush and just like her dad, she falls to the ground about 10 seconds too late. Hilarious!
Following a hairmare, Emma gets tagged in, yet Charlotte immediately gets the better of her adversary with an elbow to the jaw. Charlotte mocks Paige (it was a pretty good impression might I add) before Emma rebounds with another monkey flip. Luckily for Charlotte, she’s more elastic than a rubber band, lands on her feet. Sasha blindly tags herself in, allowing for ‘The Flair’ to distract Emma. These two are quite cohesive for a unit who aren’t getting on!
Sasha takes Emma down with a Lou Thesz Press before getting her banshee on, beating Emma’s head like crazy into the mat. After working over Emma with stomps and taunting, Charlotte gets back into the mix. After a double beat head and a pin attempt, the ‘Dirtiest Diva in the Game’ lives up to her name by choking Emma out on the ropes. Charlotte then uses her long frame to suck the life out of Emma with a nice figure-four neck lock. Woo! Emma isn’t woo-ing, she’s aah-ing in pain, and she does so for quite a lengthy time as she’s unable to make a tag to Paige. After some really rough commentary surrounding Charlotte’s submission, Emma bridges up and pins Charlotte for two in order to break the hold. Charlotte misses a big elbow drop following this, allowing Emma to tag in a very fresh Paige!
Paige rampages into Sasha and decks her with a series of clotheslines and as Sasha has been a total pushover in recent weeks, Paige thinks that is enough before locking in the Scorpion Cross Lock. Charlotte however, takes charge and cripples Paige with a brutal dropkick into her left knee. Charlotte then disposes of Emma, tags back in the ring and hits her finisher on Paige for the three count! “Charlotte just pinned the WWE Divas Champion!”
Thoughts: Well, this week’s NXT looked fine on paper, and then Paige WWE debuted on the main roster. I’m totally glad that happened and WWE could have easily sorted it out. However, they for whatever reason decided to do it this way. It’s not even like WWE had to acknowledge Paige’s relinquishment of the belt on TV before spoilers for the next set of tapings came out. They could have easily just posted a message on screen like they once did when Cesaro lost the US Title yet was seen with it on NXT afterwards saying that at the time of taping, Paige was still NXT Women’s Champion. WWE could have also just not posted the video exclusively on their website days before NXT aired and saved the first showing of Paige and JBL’s chat for the show. I just really found all of the dodgy editing annoying and unneeded. It ruined the surprise of Paige being Emma’s partner. It did give Charlotte a major rub by saying that she had defeated the WWE Divas Champion, yet beating the NXT Women’s Champion would have been a big enough rub.
Onto the match now before I get a headache, this was in my opinion Charlotte’s best match to date. She looked comfortable in the heel role and her athleticism shone. Her homage to her Dad by falling over coupled with the figure four necklock where both nice throwbacks to the past and a cool twist on her Dad’s classic move so I for one enjoyed both parts. Her selling is also fantastic; the way she sold Paige’s leg strength was phenomenal. I’m still not keen on her finisher though. Like the Rear View, that needs switching up and kept as a signature.
And with that, stay tuned, Jack will be back!
