Howdy ho faithful following, and welcome to this week’s wonderful recap of all things Diva on NXT.
If you’ll recall, we had a short, forgettable little match at Takeover last week. Just kidding, of course we had one of the best matches this year as Charlotte successfully defended her Women’s Title against Sasha Banks. This week though, both of those Divas are off. Instead, the focus ends up on their right hand women, with Bayley going one on one against Becky Lynch.
In addition, we get some managerial action as Carmella struts her stuff alongside Enzo and Big Cass for their tag team match against The Ascension. Can she guide them to an upset? Or will the destructive duo they’re up against continue their path of dominance on the way up to the main roster?
There’s only uno way to find out, so let us begin!
First up, we get a recap of the TakeOver pre-show where Becky Lynch assaulted Bayley from behind. From there, we’re backstage. BECKY IS GOING TO SPEAK?! I haven’t prepared myself for this moment. For half a year, all we’ve had to go by with a talking Becky Lynch is the word discoostin. I need to take a moment to get ready for this glorious, glorious day.
Ahem, okay I’m good. Now back to the video… we see everybody’s favorite upcoming Bachelor contestant, Devin Taylor, standing by and asking for a moment of Becky’s time. Becky doesn’t seem to want to speak (Becky, no! This is your chance. Seize it!), but Devin completely no sells it in the best possible way. You guys, this is why I love Devin Taylor. Someone doesn’t want to give this modern day Barbara Walters their time? She. Doesn’t. Care. You will answer her questions and you will answer them until she’s damn well ready to move on. Inspiration of Broadcast Journalism.
She mentions the pre-show attack and wants to know about the change of attitude. Becky, in that thick, wonderful Irish accent, replies that the only thing around here to change is her ability to see what’s in front of her. Sasha Banks opened her eyes to what it takes in order to move upwards in this company. Before Banks, she was in a stagnant role, putting on great matches… but ultimately delivering loss after loss. Becky hopes that Bayley’s little starry eyes look into her big, beautiful brown ones… so she can see the woman that is going to end her career looking back at her.
CHEERS DEVIN!
Dear NXT Writers, give me Defiant Devin and Irish Becky interviews every single week. I want them.
After the segment concludes, we go out to the arena as resident theme song addiction, “Turn It Up” starts playing and out twirls Bayley alongside her inflatable tube men. New merch alert!~ Bayley has now begun distributing one of her Bayley Bands as opposed to a headband and I love it. She enters the ring (shoutout JoJo!) to a chant, as the crowd participates in her air high five before getting cut off by a new “Whoooa-oa-oa-oa-oa” theme song. And I’m forming tears.
Sigh…
Rest in Peace “Anythaaang Youu Wannnaaa Doooooo”. May you find comfort sitting alongside “Going Down” by Spider Rockets and “I’m-a Wearin’ All My Bling Bling” in the NXT Diva Gone 2 Soon Theme Song Graveyard.
This song does fit her Irish Rocker roots a bit more though, but that doesn’t make it any more okay seeing another one of my loved themes suffer from early retirement. Becky hops out from the back and enters the ring, swinging her head around as only she can before we get underway with this singles match. The bell sounds and the two women circle around, Bayley quickly trying to score an early beatdown.
Bayley hurriedly hits her awesome back elbow/jumping clothesline combo, only for a one count however. Becky cowers into the corner, but this only allows Bayley to continue the advantage with some shots to the abdomen. They exchange blows, but Bayley scores with an elbow to the corner. From there, Becky finally counters out and kicks the leg, then grabbing at it before being clocked in the head. They trade punches as Becky then springs off and hits a sharp kick. Bayley now with a comeback! A set of double axe handles followed by a suplex, but Becky then takes her down and goes for a… no, Bayley kicks her away! Roll up attempt! Becky counters into a new submission hold! Bayley has no choice but to tap out and give Becky this singles win.
Back to the ring we go, as out walks Enzo, Cass and Carmella! Enzo goes through his usual intro, listing off that Carmella is hot as hell and you can’t teach that. From there, the trio makes their way inside the squared circle and cut a pretty darn awesome Twelve Days of Christmas sing-a-long promo on The Ascension. Once they finish up, The Ascension creepily enter the venue and they do not look happy in the slightest. The bell sounds as these teams get underway with a match, leading off with Cass and Viktor starting.
They fight a bit in the corner, as Cass finally starts to get the upper hand and nails a running splash on the opposing side. Tag in to Enzo! Or should I say Enzo tags himself in. He tries to go after Konnor, but suddenly we notice Carmella talking to the fans at ringside. This distracts Enzo, who turns around into a huge STO for the win. Ruh roh… Carmella does not look like she meant to inadvertently cost her men the tag match, but could this be leading to something?
Thoughts: For the most part, I thought tonight was pretty darn great. Becky finally got a chance to show us who she is beyond swinging her head around, and to me personally, it did so much in making me feel Team BAE as a unit. The reason I wasn’t so high on them is because I didn’t think they had really given them a chance to fit together as a team. While I would love to see some actual duo interviews together, this was very much needed to show why she did what she did and how she fits into this new role. I kind of wish it would’ve been done sooner, but I’m not going to complain about that because I’m just happy we got it at all.
Mic skills wise, Becky did perfectly fine in my opinion. I love her accent, and I think she seemed very comfortable and pretty confident in her speaking. She definitely had more personality this time around than she did the first time we heard her historic first sentence, but I think that can be attributed to the heel turn and how it gives her the chance to really put emotions and feeling into what she’s saying.
The match itself was solid, although it kind of suffered from the same problem I had with the tag team match we saw a few weeks ago in that Becky is getting hardly no offense at all before squeaking out a win. For someone like Alexa Bliss, who is tiny and petite, I can buy this if she was a heel. For Becky though, who is a brawler and known for kicking ass, I don’t really see why it’s happening. I LOVE that she got to incorporate a new finisher though, and her submission looked both deadly and effective, but I want to see more of what Heel Becky can dish out in her matches. I feel like her style is actually something that works great for a heel, but so far it feels like she never has control of the action very long before it goes right back to her opponents.
As far as the Carmella stuff is concerned, I’m all for it. My one complaint about this otherwise perfectly assembled trio is that Carmella is a heel and Enzo/Cass are faces, so while their act is perfect and it actually does work great in terms of how they’ve played off each other… it’s kind of hard to book them together when Carmella would need to go against face Divas and Enzo/Cass heel men. Splitting them does seem best because while I love the group, Enzo/Cass still work great by themselves, and Carmella is great in her own right so I don’t really have a problem seeing them broken up this early. We need her in the actual division to freshen the matches up a bit… but I can’t lie. I really, really want to see Enzo vs. Carmella. They seem like two people who would be able to work a pretty fun and entertaining match against each other, and with Enzo being smaller, it actually does come off believable seeing the two of them go at it.
Come on NXT… be that WWE branch that does the right thing. Well, okay you already are that. But be the one who does it when it comes to Intergender action!
That’s it for this week. Join me against next time on this wonderful golden roped ride,
Bobby
