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Welcome to this week’s NXT review! Liv Morgan challenged Billie Kay and Peyton Royce last week to a match if they could find a third teammate. This week the duo is partnering with MMA wildcard Daria Berenato to take Liv, Aliyah and Ember Moon on.
Before this week’s main event Dasha Fuentes caught up with Billie and Peyton to ask them why they chose Daria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5A4XKijueI
Billie said every loser, geek, and nerd wanted to be their partner. But, you don’t just get to hang with the Aussies, you get chosen, she said. Peyton said they are giving her an opportunity to prove herself. Billie said they just want to make the world prettier and it will be once Daria steps into the ring to rearrange some faces.
Now onto our main event!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOCVZFF3pNI
Each woman gets their own entrance, with Aliyah recieving a good hometown pop and Ember arriving to a hyped crowd. Billie and Peyton enter where they wait for their partner Daria who arrives ready to square up.
The match begins and its back and forth with Billie and Liv in the ring. Liv hits a low flying headscissor and takes down both Billie and Peyton as Peyton storms the ring. She tags in Aliyah who gets quickly grounded by Daria’s mat wrestling and a tackle. We go to commercial but when we come back. When we come back Aliyah is getting run over by Peyton and then Billie. They hit a double stalling vertical suplex on Aliyah. They take turns tagging back in forth dominating Aliyah.
Daria tags in and they grapple for a little bit before Daria grabs hold of Aliyah in a body scissor. Aliyah eventually escapes and tags in Ember as Daria tags in Peyton. Ember quickly hits her signature offenses on Peyton with a hard kick, hurricanrana, back handspring elbow, and a springboard cross body.
The match breaks down and Liv enters as Daria breaks up the pin by Ember. She eats a big boot by Billie who drags Peyton to the corner. She yells “Plan B!” and Daria gets tagged in. The Iconic Duo looks to leave the ring area all together as Ember pops up to catch Daria in her flying signature cutter. Ember gets the win for her team as Billie and Peyton abandon their partner and look on from the ramp.
Earlier on the show Nikki Cross continues to shock the competition with Sanity.
Thoughts: My patience is wearing thin with NXT these days. I’ll get to the good bits of the story, but first I want to say that the match itself and the way everyone is being built on the face side is uninspiring.
Billie and Peyton continue to work really well together, but solo, they haven’t been able to shine as much as someone like Ember. Ember continues to be the more well rounded and developed in ring wrestler. It shows and everyone appreciates it. I really like her and want to know more about her but at the same time our heels need to look just as dominate solo as she does. It’s more than likely they are doing it on purpose so Billie and Peyton need each other to succeed as a commanding heel team but their weaknesses shouldn’t be showing so obviously right now. Right now the Aussies need to be racking up more wins so the faces get even more development. My concerns from last week still stand, why should I even care about Liv and Aliyah when I still don’t know much about them?
Speaking of Liv, as much as I’m not into her character right now, I still want to see her succeed. I think if she incorporates more about her family into her character and what really drives her, that will make her more relatable. Also, her move set went from experimental, to basic? I’m not sure what happened. I’d like to see varying scrappy offense from her since she is our scrappy underdog.
Aliyah continues to be smoother in the ring and she took her punishment well here. I want her to flesh out the Catwoman like persona she was experimenting with so we get a clearer picture of who she is and where she’s coming from. It would be different if she was slinky and more feline like in her movements or incorporated some more crafty offense.
Daria, I think, is really something special. Her MMA character isn’t something we’ve seen in the women’s division before. If NXT plays its cards right we could have a really interesting character go through unique stories. She’s already showing great promise with her strikes and mat wrestling.
When I first read the spoilers about this I was scared Billie and Peyton would suffer a major loss here when they need to continue to be built. It was a good move having Billie and Peyton abandon Daria here. That and the backstage segment were the saving graces of the story. I do believe some of the dialogue needs to be improved but the feud will continue. This may set up Daria for a face turn or begin to introduce other women that join Billie and Peyton.
Maybe someone like Nikki? I’m still hoping a triple threat involving Billie and Peyton against Asuka happens soon. Asuka needs a shake up to her reign and they are running triple threats on house shows featuring either the combination of Billie or Peyton against Asuka and Nikki in triple threat bouts for the title.
We need more development and we need it soon. NXT is in a really bad place across the board. It’s been hard to watch when it seems like creative forgot how to effectively write.
What did you think of this week’s NXT? What do you want to see in the division? Sound off in the comments below.
