Good day everyone, and welcome to this weeks NXT Watch. Now if you haven’t been checking out the program as of late, you’ve been missing some good stuff involving both Summer Rae and Paige‘s as well as Audrey Marie and Sasha Banks‘ feuds. Unfortunately, neither got any spotlight on tonight’s show. Now since we’ve been getting so much as of late, I’ll accept a week off without kicking and screaming and throwing a temper tantrum, and that decision may be based on the fact that while they are missing, we get some Emma dancing heading our way as she takes on Aksana in singles action. A win for the plucky dancing underdog would do wonder for both her WWE career and my overall happiness, but will that actually happen? There’s only one way to find out for sure…
The sound of some sultry sexy sax music plays, as out walks Aksana looking ready to go. She slowly steps into the ring and poses a little, before being interrupted by the perky, upbeat tune of our resident dancing queen, Emma! Emma sways her hips in true awkward drunk girl fashion, which leaves Aksana quite unimpressed. She tries to flip her way into the ring, but she sadly falls and doesn’t make it. Never one to be phased though, she keeps on dancing and finally makes it inside! Aksana continues to look slightly confused and afraid, as the bell rings and we get underway.
Aksana with a kick to the abdomen to start off, before sending Emma flying into the corner and crawling around the ring. She slams Emma back down again, but she’s soon called off as Emma climbs outside the ropes and I think throws some sort of temper tantrum. She fixes her hair (shades of World of Hurt!) and finally snaps Aksana off the ropes. Emma slides back in, and after a failed pin attempt, she throws Aksana around the ring a couple of times. Emma now crawls around the ring in Aksana fashion, but the Lithuanian Lover kicks her into the turnbuckle pad and hits a pair of nice bodyslams. She follows it up with an elbow, as the crowd gets behind… someone. I assume Emma because she now gets fired up and takes Aksana to the corner.
A snapmare occurs, as she now locks in a cravate. Aksana attempts to fight out of the hold, as the crowd doesn’t seem to know who they’re supposed to chant for. Someone begins clapping for Aksana, which allows her to try and fight out again to no avail. Emma looks to go for a suplex, but does some sort of drunken looking dance. Aksana escapes and gets drilled with a boot to the face, but as Emma looks to run forward, she’s dropped with the Divo Drop to obtain the victory!
Thoughts: I’m more of a glass half full kind of guy, but I honestly can’t think of many positive things to say regarding my feelings of this match other than Emma’s entrance and the spinebuster by Aksana. There were so many things that didn’t work for me, and I don’t think it’s all entirely the girls fault.
First off, both have been portrayed as heels so to me, the crowd didn’t really know who to cheer for. That made the match seem way more slow than it should have because they were kind of silent during submissions and were unsure if they should be clapping for Emma or Aksana when both were in rest holds. I’ve sensed a pattern that NXT doesn’t seem to use the same girl for more than one match per set of tapings so I can understand that they probably wanted at least some form of Divas action on this show and both Emma and Aksana hadn’t competed prior whereas mostly everyone else had, but it put a downer on the action in my opinion.
I know that due to their backgrounds it’s probably going to be common that Aksana will be the root of this match not working out well, but I don’t think that’s the issue at all. Emma is my favorite Diva in NXT and truthfully, Aksana is my least favorite on the main roster but regardless of that feeling I think this was Aksana’s best outing in a long time. I’ve not really enjoyed her wrestling wise as of late, but here she seemed much better with what she did get to do. I really liked the bodyslams, and the spinebuster finisher was very impressive. I guess my point is that if I can look past how I feel about the two on a separate note and say this was not Aksana being the cause, everyone should be able to!
With Emma, I love her dancing don’t get me wrong. However, after tonight’s performance I think I prefer her dancing when it’s solely in her entrance and maybe brought out once in a match. The constant reverting to it did not help either female to look good out there, and it kind of made some of her movements come off a little messy to me as much as it pains me to say it. She’s so entertaining, but I think there’s a difference between it being fun and it being too much. I’m sure it gets compared to Jillian‘s singing gimmick a lot. And to be honest, I think that’s a good comparison to make right now because with Jillian, she brought it out during her entrance and would maybe scream a note during the match. That’s more what Emma should do with the dancing, and until tonight it’s what she had been doing with it. Although I will say her falling from the ring ropes as she tried to flip in was so brilliant and I hope she pulls that out every once in a while.
Overall, the lack of continuation in either feud and an okay-ish match doesn’t make this one of my favorite episodes of NXT. Here’s to hoping next week is an improvement!
