It’s nice that this got to happen near the end of SDR’s career, after it wasn’t able to happen in 2011.
It would be nicer if they put a little more into this than they did. Still, if two women are going to riff it out on the mat for sixty percent of the match and then throw some live rounds out, I would struggle to think of many pairings in the 2010s that I’d rather see it from. The matwork is all tight, everything feels like a real struggle, and they kick the hell out of each other. Del Rey needs consecutive Royal Butterflies for the win.
Not a match that’s going to disappoint anyone who wants to see it, I don’t think, but like with most of Del Rey’s career, it’s hard to shake the sense that this could have been even better.
HANDWERK 