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Welcome to this week’s NXT Redux! After TakeOver, Ember Moon has a lot to live up to. She hasn’t made any impression on Asuka even though she continues to showcase her stellar wrestling performance against her opponents.
This week, eyes are all on Ember as she takes on Aliyah and issues her own challenge to Asuka. Let’s watch the match.
Ember enters to a thunderous crowd. Commentary puts her over by saying her focus is now on going after the NXT Women’s Championship. Aliyah enters sporting some cute new gear to match her blue cat ears. With the crowd firmly behind Ember the two tie up. They exchange pin attempts. Ember hits a butterfly suplex and locks Aliyah in a standing submission. Ember wrenches Aliyah’s neck and head.
Aliyah frees herself and hits a neckbreaker. Aliyah hits Ember in the face multiple times before a big clothesline takes down Ember. Aliyah hits a northern lights suplex on Ember after kicking her in the face in the corner. They exchange blows before Ember hits a corner standing moonsault. Ember hoists up Aliyah but takes too long showing off and Aliyah hits a headscissor take down.
Aliyah tries the same move but gets stuck in the pop up position as Ember looks for a power bomb? Aliyah rolls under for a pin attempt. Ember then grounds her with a low flying clothesline before hitting her eclipse for the win.
After the match Ember issues a response to Asuka.
The interviewer asks who is Ember Moon? She says when the dust settles from her encounter with Asuka, Asuka will then know who Ember Moon is.
Thoughts: Since we are back at square one with rebuilding NXT’s goodwill, this was a fine outing from both women. We don’t know much about either character. Ember is our warrior without a back story. She’s a fantastic wrestler and I’m happy to see that she showed more character here.
She was cocky and showboated during the match. That’s something they can expand upon. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy watching her, that standing moonsault was beautiful and she’s far above and beyond NXT, but she’s still lacking character. This is a good place to start. I chuckled at her promo, who is Ember Moon? I still don’t know either. But, I want to know more, it’s time for more. I’m very open to it.
The same goes for Aliyah. Is she doing a cat woman type character? I don’t know much about who she is or what she stands for, is she a face or heel? Every time she steps into the ring though, she breathes wrestling. Her skills are much more refined and she’s still so young, I can see her going very far once she targets a niche to exploit and make her own.
I liked how she took the fight to Ember and this was a fairly fast paced and competitive match from the both of them. I appreciate it. Though the outcome was predictable, it was still a bit satisfying since it was a good match that showed off both of their skills. That’s something that NXT as a whole needs to better work on, building back and forth competitive match ups. We’re working with a bit more bulk than we were a few months ago though, and according to the spoilers I do see some good matches on the way, especially when talking about our Women’s Champion. No more squashes, it’s time to get competitive.
What did you think of this week’s NXT? How would you book the division, going forward? Sound off in the comments below.
