Good day folks, and welcome to this weeks NXT Redux!~ Tonight, we continue on with the NXT Womens Championship Tournament and find out which Diva will move on to join the ranks of Paige and Alicia Fox as they duke it out for a spot in the coveted final two. Everyone’s favorite Canadian box of butternut squash waffles, Renee Young doesn’t grace our presence with a fellow female by her side, but I couldn’t resist getting in another one of my growing-in-the-weirdness nicknames for her, so now I can move on and inform the two people who don’t already know that tonights tournament match will pit the heatwave, Summer Rae against the feisty Sasha Banks in what’s sure to be a strong match.
I’ll take up no more of your time. Behold:
We head to the Full Sail arena as the entrances of both Sasha Banks and Summer Rae commence. The bell sounds and things get underway with a few lock up attempts until it’s Summer that’s able to slam Banks down face first into the canvas. After some kicks, Rae chokes Sasha out and hits a nice dropkick for a one count. The crowd starts cheering for Sasha, but Summer Rae seems none too pleased as she uses her boot to choke the spitfire and toss her around by the hair. Sasha tries to fight out with a slap to the abdomen, however Summer doesn’t let this momentum shift as she drops Banks down for a near fall and then pushes her to the corner.
Another foot choke as the domination continues with a stretching submission type move turned into a roll up. Sasha reverses! Just for a two count though, as Summer hops up with her flipping DDT type move. Banks now making a comeback with some scrapping and slapping, following it up with an armdrag off the ropes for just a one. Banks misses a dive and gets put away with an awesome new reverse DDT-Legdrop type maneuver that gives Summer the victory as she advances on in the tournament.
Thoughts: I was iffy on this match overall, but not for reasons of the action as I thought Summer did great in her relentless attacks to try and keep the momentum going, and Sasha shined in her moments on top as well. Oh, and Summer’s new finisher is excellent. It looked mega impactful and I really hope she keeps this instead of the spin kick as that always seemed hit or miss to me as a finisher. This works much better and continues to utilize her legs, which I’m sure are considered her top feature in the way they were for Stacy Keibler as well. The main problem I had is that unfortunately, Sasha didn’t get that much offense in at all… which brings me to a point I want to hit.
I’m starting to think that she’s being lost in the shuffle amongst the NXT Divas. I may be (aka probably am) wrong, but I feel like it’s been forever since we’ve seen her compete outside tonight’s show (where she was sort of required to be there in order to fill in the numbers for the tournament.) It’s just beginning to seem like maybe they don’t know what to do with her since NXT is so overpopulated with faces compared to heels. Okay, truthfully I don’t know what Bayley is considering she seems face to me with her new character, but always competes against faces (and yes I’m assuming Alicia Fox turned up face last week too… gah).
Anyways, back to Sasha, I feel like she really needs a character to jump start herself in NXT. Emma got the dancing and skyrocketed, Bayley has finally developed something of her own and she’s at least seeing an interview and regular competition even if they’re not victories. Sasha could be this big underdog spitfire like they were seemingly going for with her win over Alicia Fox, but it feels like they got caught up in Emma, Bayley and Paige that she’s sort of getting lost and I personally feel she’s way too good with flashy moves to be turned heel where she’d probably have to tone them down (although I’d be fine with a heel turn if it got her on TV more).
I was talking to a friend about this the other day randomly, and we both thought it’d be cool to see Sasha take on that persona Maria Kanellis had way back when she was an interviewer. The fun, bubbly… sometimes, (okay 99% of the time) ditzy babyface. The fans really loved it, and I 100% think Sasha could pull it off just as well, if not better. She’s already fun and bubbly, and she’s so easy to get behind already just by the vibe she gives off when she enters that I truthfully think all she needs is that little extra spark to differentiate herself. I feel the fans would get behind her as much as Emma or Paige after seeing some funny interview segments with Renee Young where she gets confused or forgets what she was going to say and just laughs it off while smiling. (I mean hey, with the whole Miss Utah thing going on right now, it’d be the perfect time to jumpstart on a persona like this while it’s hot!) Or… maybe she even starts asking Renee questions as she thinks this should be an equal opportunity to share the floor, such as what’s Renee’s favorite color or what’s the weather in Canada like. (I’m not a writer so they’d for sure come up with better suggestions than I have.) Those ideas alone would only be scratching the surface with what Sasha could do, but come on NXT higher ups, can you please just take one idea from me? Since my attempts at saving Redemption didn’t pay off, I’ll be okay if you just utilize this one so we can get more Sasha on our screens.
Overall, it was an average week for NXT. We didn’t get any segments, but we get enough that I don’t need them every single week. And we got the continuation of the tournament so there’s not much more I could’ve asked for. The match was completely fine for me wrestling wise, I just hope Sasha gets to showcase more of her skills in the coming weeks and Summer continues to up her game as she’s fast become something really special to the division in my opinion and can only get better with the more she gets to do.
