Shayna Baszler vs. Dakota Kai, WWE NXT (12/5/2018)

This was for Shayna’s NXT Womens Title.

In their previous encounter, Shayna and Dakota delivered one of the best television matches of the year, one of the real surprises of the year for me personally, and generally, one of the best examples of great wrestling TV to be found anywhere in the world all year.

Given all of that, it’s a hard act to follow.

You can only come out of nowhere once, you know?

Still, even now that the world sees them coming, Baszler and Kai put forth a worthy successor to that match, a match that is not only still really great, but one possessing the same urgency and meanness and desperation as that match in May while also carrying the story forward in a real natural way, continuing the most violent and perverted courting period in recent memory.

Following her moral victory six months ago, Dakota’s intimidation is gone, and she spends a lot of this match kicking ass, and doing so in the most uplifting sort of way.  She avoids things that hurt her in the past, cuts off a Shayna attack on her arm quicker than in either of the previous matches, and has a real anger to her every movement. Dakota always had that special probably unteachable thing where it naturally just feels good to see her whip ass, and this is a match that finally lets her whip some ass.

However, as tends to happen when anger replaces intimidation, Dakota borders on overzealous at times, allowing Shayna to repeatedly catch her, including one of the best transition spots to be found anywhere in wrestling all year.

Everything else here that worked in the first match works here. Even if it no longer exists as this feel-great surprise, it’s all still thrilling.

The hard shots, the spirit, the way every single thing they do seems to work out perfectly, even down to having a great wrist control spot, which nobody outside of Tanahashi ever seems to be able to get entirely correct. Each spot feels like a huge deal, each transition is perfect, every shot sounds like a cannon, it all just works. Along with the match in May, it’s the closest the division has come to matching the 90s WCW Main Event Style of urgency and efficiency since Bayley left.

Following Kai again fighting back when she wouldn’t have before, Baszler again has to employ a more advanced technique than she clearly ever wanted to with a gorgeous somersault into a leg trip, before frantically diving into the rear naked choke for the win.

It‘s not the moral victory it felt like in May, but there‘s still something to it here, as both the body of the match and the finish itself that makes it still feel like something of a victory for Dakota Kai, although this time, it feels like one for Baszler too. 

Sadly, this is about all they’d ever get.

The only problems with the match are the things they can’t even begin to control, like not getting even more time now despite proving they can do more with five or six minutes than any pairing on the NXT roster (or at least those to be limited like that), or the fact that they never got the blowoff they deserved where Dakota wins the title and so this is largely the end of the story, as far as I understand it. Of what Shayna and Dakota could control, they get totally and completely perfect, more so than a whole lot of other far more highly acclaimed pairings in this same setting.

Unable to come from out of nowhere in the same way their last match did, still an exceptional title match, and yet another spectacularly efficient chunk of pro wrestling television from, secretly, NXT’s actual feud of the year.

***

Kairi Sane vs. Shayna Baszler, WWE Evolution (10/28/2018)

This was for Kairi’s NXT Womens Title.

I liked it just a little more than the Takeover match in August.

Sure, I think there are some complaints to be had here. On the main roster, the crowd is nowhere near as receptive as one that specifically came to see NXT, and who at least theoretically knows these two and responds to them like stars. It also lacks the moment of triumph at the end that helped smooth over a lot of the issues with the Takeover match on a mechanical level, this being a match about Shayna getting her title back now with the help of some bullshit in a real rarity for the NXT Womens Title that you can only chalk up to being infected by it happening on a main roster event. If you look at all that and say you think the Takeover match is better for atmospheric reasons, I get it.

However, what this match has going for it is that it cleans up the major issue that the Takeover match had, and opts for something far more preferable.

Rather than asking Kairi Sane to sell the leg, Shayna instead focuses on the arm.

The work on Shayna’s end is just as brutal as always, again being one of the only other wrestlers up there with your Rod Dogs and Trevor Lees as the best bullies in all of pro wrestling, but Kairi is a hundred times better at this. The issue before, asking her to sell leg damage while still demanding she does all of her exuberant high flying and high speed offense, is entirely removed now. Kairi Sane, being STARDOM born and bred and a joshi wrestler in general, is not a naturally great limb seller, but this asks so much less of her. She strikes with her right, so there’s rarely a moment where she’s forced to use it to go through the routine that’s the reason she’s here to begin with, and the segment is not so long that it demands she constantly is in this deep state of agony either. Kairi is a functionally good seller, holding it at her body, remembering to touch it or favor it when she lands on it even a little bit, and with the way the match shifts, that’s enough.

It’s a small change in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a small one that makes this match better in a way that really mean something to me. It’s the difference between trying to shove someone into a match layout with no regard for their skills or talents and crafting one that suits those far better. The latter will almost always prove better.

Beyond the slight change, what works about this pairing works again here.

Kairi is a perfect babyface and Shayna makes for a perfect opponent. Kairi’s increased confidence following winning the title in their last match allows her to have more sustained offense at the start as well, and it makes Shayna’s eventual transition to control even more impressive than usual. The offense is all perfectly crisp, they have a few real great ideas, and it works as well as it can, before the main roster stink gets all over the thing in the closing moments. It’s just great wrestling.

The other two Horsewomen get involved at the end, and following a kick from outside from Duke on Kairi, following Kairi’s escape of the rear naked choke, the champion falls right back into it. Like before when she won the title, Baszler’s second application of her hold is a hundred times more desperate, with a real serpentine nature to the thing. Kairi passes out, and Shayna gets her shit back.

Still not perfect, but all the small improvements more than make up for what it loses on the main roster.

***

Shayna Baszler vs. Kairi Sane, WWE NXT Takeover Brooklyn IV (8/18/2018)

This was for Shayna’s NXT Womens Title.

Veggies first.

It is not as great as it could have been.

For whatever reason, the absolute brain geniuses behind the scenes laying out NXT matches at this point decided that it would be best to have Kairi Sane in a leg selling match. You can sort of see the idea behind it, in the same way you can always sort of see the idea behind it. Take away the thing a babyface does best, or at least tease it, and introduce them to some adversity on their way to the big win, either now or later. The thing is, and this is almost always the case with modern matches like this, the wrestler in question is offensively minded and will do their shit no matter what, so with rare exceptions, the selling is not especially good (usually done in that very annoying way where someone runs full speed and uses their leg fine, then briefly holds it, before changing absolutely nothing and rarely being affected in the slightest bit), and so it is simply a large chunk of the match that does not matter. It is time wasted, and this match is no exception.

That being said, the match is still great for two reasons.

Firstly, Kairi Sane still rocks.

She has a natural babyface gift to her that allows her to overcome a lot of the problems with the focus of the match. She hits hard, does cool offense, and most importantly, is simply very very easy to like. Kairi is naturally sympathetic and likeable on a level that few other babyfaces of her generation have the ability to reach (it is her misfortune that one of them was one of NXT’s two greatest ever babyfaces), and the match still functions effectively, because one naturally wants to see her succeed.

The other part of why this works is also a big part of the answer as to why that is.

Shayna Baszler is among the best antagonists anywhere in wrestling.

Her work on the knee, although limited (smart! if you have to do something ill advised, do less of it!) is incredibly good. It is violent and mechanically perfect and done with a meanness few in wrestling can match. Even though it is not her best attack on a leg this year, nor her best match with a focus on the leg, it’s the sort of performance in control of a match that can make it great, in spite of a not-great performance in response to it. Shayna is great at the other stuff too, not just the villainous character moments and nasty holds. When Kairi gets the Anchor on late in the match, first regular style and then in the ropes, Shayna’s brief moment of back selling is tremendous and stands out especially because it does not matter much at all, instead feeling like something a great wrestler decided to do because they are great at wrestling.

Damage to the back also maybe helps Shayna out just a little bit at the end, as a purely instinctive move to offer herself even more protection than the match does, when Kairi rolls backwards through a rear naked choke and on top of Baszler to take the title off of her in something of a moderate upset.

It’s not a finish I love, but even more so than the decision behind the body of this match, it’s one I get, and like on some other level.

Beyond the fact that Shayna will win it back and they realize how triumphant it will feel when someone actually beats Shayna’s ass and pins her for the title the next time (don’t ask what happens to the person who gets that rub in the months after that), I like the actual way they pulled off the flash win. As the other loss in Shayna’s 2018 showed, she has a real weakness to not just these flash pinfalls, but ones that come as counters to submission holds that feel like match enders. It’s not only a 2004 Samoa Joe style piece of booking to book someone dominant to be susceptible to something fast, but it’s this last little shred left of Shayna not being as experienced in pro wrestling as everyone else in the division.

NXT being NXT, I have real doubts it will ever be used to the full potential of such an interesting idea, but conceptually, it’s a neat thing, and like this match at large, it winds up working almost in spite of itself.

Despite the imperfections, between the more positive aspects of Kairi Sane’s performance, and yet another outstanding Shayna Baszler singles performance, there’s still just a little too much here to deny.

***

Shayna Baszler vs. Candice LeRae, WWE NXT (8/1/2018)

Another hit, from this year’s Oney Lorcan.

Shayna and Candice have seven or eight minutes together in a clear showcase match for heel champion Baszler going into another Takeover special later in the month. It is not the sort of thing you expect a lot from, and that in the hands of lesser wrestlers, could have easily topped out at simply being very good.

Thankfully, these are not lesser wrestlers.

Candice is perhaps not in her element here, nor would she ever again truly be in her element under a corporate wrestling environment, given that her element is bleeding a ton and fighting men in front of the hottest crowd in all of pro wrestling in hyperemotional independent wrestling stunt brawls, but she does a really good job. Above all, even without the smoke and mirrors, what always worked for Candice is that she was naturally likeable and sympathetic, and it‘s largely through that that she succeeds here. The other part is down to skill and talent and effort too, to be fair, as when Candice’s arm is attacked, she does a very good job with it for the rest of the match. She never forgets, always keeps it present in an astute viewer’s mind, and makes the work feel like it matters, all while also making a series of terrific underdog babyface comebacks.

Shayna Baszler is why this match is great though.

Her attacks on the arm, and in general, are unreal, and unlike anyone else‘s attacks in professional wrestling. It is not only mechanically beautiful, but performed with such aggression and hostility behind every movement. Everything that Shayna does to the arm is not only the meanest and grossest shit that I’ve ever seen, but it is also either brand new or so rarely put to use that it may as well be. It is a perfect antagonistic attack, capable of eliciting both shock and awe in equal measure. 

The match also packs a great little narrative punch too.

Baszler originally catches Candice in the way she did nearly a full year prior in the Mae Young Classic, countering Mr. Toad‘s Wild Ride (the less commonly used name, but the one we will all be more comfortable using) into her rear naked choke, only for LeRae to make it to the ropes this time. Classic pro wrestling booking to show improvement, which also makes every nearfall and big piece of offense after that from Our Hero feel like a major accomplishment and step forward. A cradle almost does it, and a Tornado DDT off the top gets even closer, but with the hurt arm, Candice goes for more, and it’s that classic mistake, the Disease of More, that results in her undoing. 

Candice misses a Lionsault, and after a real nasty punt up into the face, Shayna goes immediately into the rear naked choke to win.

Going into a major title match on a Takeover, it is the exact perfect match to have and with the exact perfect message behind it. Not only is Shayna meaner and more technically skilled than anyone in the division, but she also has an unmatched killer instinct at this point, finally pairing her aggression with the experience to make the most of it. More than any other match in her NXT tenure to date, Shayna Baszler leaves looking like a wrestler who cannot be beaten.

It is not quite her best work in this field in 2018, but no other wrestler on Earth in 2018 was better at these squashes/showcase matches than Shayna Baszler, and this is one more wonderful bit of proof.

three girl

Shayna Baszler vs. Dakota Kai, WWE NXT (5/30/2018)

This was for Shayna’s NXT Womens Title.

I am certainly not the high man on this thing, I am not going to tell you it was the best or my favorite wrestling match of 2018, but it is genuinely god damned exceptional, and as a result of the length, its more modest ambitions, and the general malaise of post-Dusty NXT television, it has never quite gotten the acclaim it deserves.

To whatever extent a review from a small/niche market wrestling blog half a decade later can change that, I would like to try to sell you on this thing, provided such a thing is possible. You’re here reading this, so it feels like a fair assumption this is something I can do, as you probably like Baszler, Dakota Kai, or both of them.

Of all the ways to make this particular case, the easiest is to take about the pure narrative might of the thing.

Back at the start of the year, on January 10th, these two met on NXT television going into Shayna’s failed first challenge for the NXT Womens Title. It was not especially long, even compared to this match’s five to six minutes, and was a pure squash. This is not to insult the quality of it, it was a spectacular squash, but there wasn’t much to it, outside of the fact that Shayna Baszler won by referee stoppage after snapping poor Dakota Kai’s arm.

Since then, she’s run through everyone else, captured the title, and spent weeks belittling and bullying Kai prior to this rematch.

On its own, that’s enough of a set up for a great match. Super likeable babyface tries to avenge prior injury suffered at the hands of bully heel, now with the title on the line. Pro wrestling ass pro wrestling and things of that nature. What really makes it work though is something a little more in depth than the simple bullet points of the presentation. It’s about performances, and very specifically, it is about the performance of Dakota Kai.

Few wrestlers have ever done a better job of expressing fear and intimidation than Dakota Kai does in this match.

It’s hard to really put a finger on what she specifically does, I am not interested in breaking down facial tics and eye movements, nor do I imagine you are interested in reading that, but she is unbelievably great. Few wrestlers have their career work done with their face alone, but Dakota Kai’s expression of fear and intimidation during the champion’s entrance and early lock ups backed into the ropes is that, and I mean that one hundred percent as a complement. Something about it feels incredibly genuine and real, and it immediately brought me into the match on a gut level.

Beyond the really beautiful and simple narrative work going into the match, it is also probably the best semi-squash of the year, and one of the best of the decade. If I cannot sell you on narrative alone, let me tell you that this simply just whips a thousand pounds of ass as well.

Most notably perhaps, it features my favorite transition spot in some time.

Shayna Baszler vs. Dakota Kai, WWE NXT (5/30/2018) pic.twitter.com/hjOCCRTyeP

— killer spelled backwards (@ElHijoDelSimon) April 21, 2023

It is one of the grossest things I can remember seeing in recent memory, the rare thing aided by repetition. One would be nasty, but the five or six that Shayna unloads in astonishingly short order feels like the cruelest and most mean spirited thing I’ve ever seen. It’s made all the worse by the set up, where Shayna very casually takes Kai down and over to the mat before unloading that before the match has even gotten serious.

The thing about Shayna here as a character, and why this works so well, is that there’s no real cause for it.

Dakota never pushes her to that, the match had barely gotten serious at all, only ever showing Dakota’s fear when Shayna backed her into the corner off a lock up once or twice. She just decided to do it, like it was there. So many decisions in wrestling benefit from having a clear answer to “why?“, but this is a match that benefits from its major point instead being “why not?”. 

Real bullying doesn’t have a cause to it, even in the pro wrestling way where it comes because someone usually dominant got a little embarrassed. It’s like this, deeply casual, cruelty with no real point outside of cruelty itself. It’s not because [x wrestler] did [x thing], it’s something done because it can be done.

Shayna’s the best bully in pro wrestling because she gets how to portray this sort of person, and because she’s presented in that exact way. It doesn’t stop with the transition either, because everything she does to the leg is so gross. There’s a stomp explicitly to the back of Dakota’s heel that in any other match would be unbelievably grotesque, but is only the second nastiest attack on the leg here. Even the more basic stretches she applies have a kind of bored meanness to them that elevates the material.

Kai’s comeback doesn’t last long, but that doesn’t matter.

Mechanically speaking, yeah, it’s great. Her selling of the leg while doing a kick based comeback is some of the best in recent memory (and really ought to be studied by everybody around the world constantly doing leg based matches when the person in jeopardy throws a lot of kicks), always hobbling and taking the fastest route into things. She is incredibly sympathetic, but it also feels deeply genuine. It is a very hard balance to strike, but Dakota Kai here feels like one of those gold standards for how a high energy kicking babyface is supposed to sell knee damage.

This is not about the mechanics though.

After how badly Shayna hurt her nearly five months earlier and after how horrifyin g the abuse in the first two-thirds of this match was, Dakota Kai coming back at all feels like a victory, and not a minor one either.

NXT at this point is not the place you go to for subtle facial expression work, or even great regular style facial selling, but that’s where Dakota makes the money here as much as with her leg selling. The way the fear during Shayna’s entrance and the early staredown spots transitions to this clear decision in the final moments to not take this shit anymore, it’s so great. Real bravery, deciding to go for it probably still knowing the result, it’s the stuff all the great babyfaces are made of and even if Dakota never got to become what she could have as an NXT babyface, stuff like this lasts forever, and she is perfect in it.

Shayna eventually throws her down out of the air when she tries a headscissors, and goes into the rear naked choke for the tap, but even that feels like a step forward for Kai, losing to a flash hold rather than being injured for the referee stoppage, and being a message to send to somebody else. The bully wins and escapes with the title, but Kai’s relative success is shown in the use of the word escape. Kai put up enough to make Baszler drop the act and treat her like an actual threat, frantically grabbing the win as soon as it presented itself, rather than opting for another show of dominance.

Moral victories aren’t usually a thing I believe in, but the real mark of this match’s success is that it doesn’t feel like a match with a loser.

Outside of the fact that this wasn’t the second match in a series that led to Dakota unseating Shayna to win the title, it’s flawless for what it is. Shayna looks meaner than ever, delivering the most memorable beating of her career yet. Kai looks stronger than ever, surviving it and fighting back like she was never able to before. Shayna looks stronger for still beating her, Kai gains something in standing up for herself this time, and everyone leaves looking better.

This is how it’s done.

Perfect pro wrestling TV, and if you subscribe to certain unsubstantiated rumors/wild fan theories/idk, one of the greatest displays of violent flirting in wrestling history.

***+ but also one of those “star ratings are bullshit“ sorta matches

 

Ember Moon vs. Shayna Baszler, WWE NXT Takeover New Orleans (4/7/2018)

This was for Ember Moon’s NXT Womens Title.

It’s another great one between these two, both individually and as a sequel to their similarly great match at the previous Takeover two months and change prior.

What works here, in terms of just being a great wrestling match, is what always seems to work for these two, given half a chance, speaking both individually and then collectively, as they make an outstanding match up for each other.

Shayna is maybe the best bully in wrestling at this point. She is believably mean and nasty, comes off as genuinely intimidating, and every single thing she does looks great mechanically, which enhances the previous two qualities exponentially. She also does things that nobody else is really doing, or small touches that nobody else thinks to add, like holding on the thigh in a Bow & Arrow, instead of the foot or ankle, to make it feel both more genuine and a lot crueler, or the way she twirls out of a folding press and around into a sleeper. On the other end, there is Athena. She is maybe not as naturally likeable as past NXT female stars like Bayley or future ones like Kairi Sane, but she has a quality to her that makes her very easy to root for, at least in this match up and others in the past against similarly unbeatable feeling buzzsaws. There’s just something genuine about her, that when combined with all of the cool offense she does and the way she rarely does anything that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, makes it a very easy decision.

The contrast between the two is also tremendous yet again, especially when they work to it so well for the entire match. Ember needs to fly and move, Shayna wants to conduct the match inside of a phone both, and if possible, on the ground as much as possible. The match is a struggle for Shayna to keep her where she is, for Ember to gain distance, and for Shayna to try and catch her again. There are other struggles, pieces of focused work, but primarily, it’s a stylistic and/or ideological struggle that guides everything.

Narratively, it’s also a delight and on most other shows, would be the biggest success of the year for the NXT system of these slower builds and bigger payoffs that either help out less gifted wrestlers, or in this case, make it even easier for two great wrestlers like this to succeed.

It’s maybe not THE perfect follow up to their last match, but it is in all the ways that matter, with Ember trying and failing to repeat her big win, and Shayna progressing to be able to beat her, with that feeling like a bummer in a way that a super rookie progressing rarely ever does.

Things that worked there don’t work here.

Ember’s immediate attack doesn’t work out as well, but by the same token, Shayna isn’t ever able to go for the arm like she wants. In fact, when she tries and when she tries to do the bully arm stomp, Ember’s able to get her down, and for once, Shayna has to experience the thing she put everyone else through. Ember diverts her attention to the arm, and it’s all done so well. As 2023 and beyond has shown, Ember is (or will become?) someone who absolutely can tear up a limb, but this character doesn’t feel like that should be in her wheelhouse, and she works the arm like someone who doesn’t normally work the arm. There are openings she leaves, she isn’t as great at it as she is at just bombing someone out, and it feels like it makes a difference for her, in a negative sense. Shayna is also outstanding in response, always selling the arm really well, and never really using it again.

Generally speaking, I’m not so big of a fan of the idea of antagonistic wrestlers or characters being the ones in a match to overcome something. I hate it a whole lot when certain wrestlers do it frequently, I think it sort of misses the entire point and feels like someone taking a shortcut to some reputation goal they want for themselves.

HOWEVER, this is professional wrestling, no idea is inherently good or bad, and a match like this is the best case scenario, or at least the best possible context in which to do a thing like that.

Largely, beyond just crowning a new head of the division in a big way, this works in spite of the idea behind it because Shayna is so mean and nasty that she cannot really complete the leap and ever totally feel sympathetic. She does some things here — namely popping her shoulder back in on the post — which are too cool and admirable for the lead villain of the division for the next two years, I think, to be doing, but in a larger sense, she gets it right. So often when this happens, it feels like someone playing a bad guy trying to get over, seams all exposed in front of the world, but in this match, it simply feels like something that happened to a bad person. That’s really the difference, the feeling behind it, what I got individually out of it. If it feels like a victory in which she overcomes something, it feels just as much like a tragedy to me, in which Ember Moon cannot do enough, steps outside of her wheelhouse just a little too much rather than using the arm as a point of distraction, and where this monster finally gets great enough at Pro Wrestling to become unbeatable.

Shayna gets her rear naked choke on to block a second Eclipse — thankfully not in one motion, avoiding the dreaded Catch Spot — and when Moon escapes once by yanking on the arm, Baszler instead just uses the good arm. She pulls on her hair with it, grabs the back of her neck or the side of her head, and it works. Moon can’t get the same quality of pin out that she could in January, she can’t get to the bad arm to get out like she did a minute before, and while the ending comes slower, the forward momentum towards that ending is never actually stopped itself.

There’s also this one tremendous moment right before the end that bad NXT commentary misses entirely, but that I think really ties this all together. Moon gets near the ropes and flails around. She gets a foot onto the rope and over it for like half a second, before it falls back in, and the referee makes a choice to simply not call it off. It’s the sort of thing you don’t get a lot in wrestling, a questionable referee decision that decides the entire thing. I’ve seen a lot of matches where that’s a rope break, and it would have maybe saved the title here. But it isn’t, it doesn’t, and Shayna immediately rolls Ember back out and away.

Following a real spirited and engaging struggle, and a super endearing last attempt to yank at the bad arm when rolled back out to the middle, Ember finally passes out, and Shayna gets her prize.

A hell of a thing here.

I’ve always felt like the high man on these two matches, but I think everyone should like them a whole lot. It’s a real tidy little two match story, and while there was so (so so so so so so) much more possible between wrestlers who worked this well together, what we got was real great. It’s fitting that it’s the end of Ember Moon in NXT and, unless I’m missing out on some big surprise (this would be great!), more or less the end of her having great matches under the WWE umbrella, because you can’t sum up the time spent here any better than that.

Nowhere near enough, but undeniably great.

***

Ember Moon vs. Shayna Baszler, WWE NXT Takeover Philadelphia (1/27/2018)

This was for Ember Moons NXT Women’s Title.

It’s another first part of a story, the first match in a series, and I think it’s very important to view it through that lens. It is always very clearly a match setting up a sequel, and one always laying groundwork, and given that it does such a great job of that, I am willing to give it a kind of leeway that I don’t think many others did at the time, or have since.

Naturally, it helps that it also rules ass.

While it is maybe not entirely accurate to call this a real and proper Different Style Fight, given how Shayna has adjusted to professional wrestling, feeling more like a shoot-adjacent wrestler than ever a real and proper outsider, it retains a lot of those elements. Particularly, it is always a match in which Shayna feels dangerous on a wrestler that no other WWE womens wrestler has ever really felt, helped in no small part by Ember Moon’s reaction to her at all points.

Shayna gets to Ember’s left arm fairly early, and it is absolutely to the match’s benefit.

Not only because Shayna is at her best when brutally targeting the arm of a more traditional professional wrestler, displaying her other-ness, her mechanical skill, and her gift for intimidating violence all at the same time, but also because Ember very quietly is an outstanding arm seller too. It really should not be any surprise, standing out as one of the world’s greatest female wrestlers ever since she really first began to break out, but it is yet another thing that she’s clearly really really great at. Not only in the moments when it is obvious, being deeply sympathetic after Shayna stomps on and/or severely stretches the arm out, but in quieter and more solitary ones as well.

The match really benefits their strengths in the final third or so, while also providing a really really compelling narrative. Following Ember Moon hitting the Eclipse with one and a half arms but being unable to make it into the cover, Shayna grounds her with a series of armbars.

While a lesser match would either (a) have Ember tap out on the second or third one, or (b) have Ember counter the first or second one into a cradle to win, this is a match that takes its time, relatively speaking. Ember tries and fails four or five times to escape the cross armbreaker, and the result is not only creating this much deeper sense of peril in the moment, but transforming the hold into something that feels like a genuine challenge to escape. Not only from Ember’s sympathetic and dramatic selling of the situation, but also from her inability to get out for minutes at a time. She has three or four planned escapes, fancy ideas that all fail short, and they really have a way of making it feel so much more dramatic, but also making that fifth or sixth try, the one that actually works, feel like this gigantic victory in and of itself.

Ember finally converts Shayna’s cross armbreaker into a pin to win, but despite how well it was built up in the minutes before, it only ever feels like survival.

The slightest gap in Shayna’s game, allowing for the underdog to succeed and stay alive, the exact sort of victory you could not imagine Ember Moon pulling off six months later, making it the exact perfect victory for the current moment. As great as you are, there is always something new to learn, and nothing adds value onto a win and reign like Shayna Baszler is going to have quite like just even a little hint of adversity like Ember Moon throws her way.

Outstanding professional wrestling.

***

Io Shirai vs. Shayna Baszler, STARDOM Stardom of Champions 2017 (2/23/2017)

This was for Shirai’s World of Stardom Title.

It is the exact match that I imagine you would want out of an Io Shirai vs. Shayna Baszler match, or at least that I imagine you would want if you’ve found your way into reading this review.

Shirai tries to fly and do wild stuff and Baszler tries like hell to stop her via targeting a limb.

Both attacks are wonderful in their own right.

Shayna Baszler’s attack on the arm is stellar stellar stuff. She’s like a shark taken human form, constantly going wild whenever Io gets close enough to let her sniff even a single drop of blood in the water. Shayna has a way of countering pins into armbars in a way that I’ve found exhausting and phony when people like 2010 Davey Richards have done the same, but that she manages to make feel cool and dangerous. Equally and especially gratifying is the way in which Baszler completely zeroes in on the left arm for the rest of the match, not only delivering something fairly new with such a focused attack on Shirai, but feeling like a real challenge in a way that Io hasn’t had in some time at this point.

Yet again on the other end of the match, the high flying attacks of Io Shirai have a recklessness, force, and utility to them that feels unmatched in wrestling outside of one of her spiritual peers in Kota Ibushi. It is yet another performance from Io Shirai in which I think to myself that someone could call her the best wrestler in the world here, and I wouldn’t care enough to fight it, and might even be won over for a moment or two. In part, that’s also because of her selling of the right arm from Baszler’s attacks. It’s always hurt, she throws likke eighty percent less elbows than she normally might to sell it (please everyone in wrestling take notes), and eventually learns her lesson about pins where she holds onto Shayna after a move. Pure technique that might have beaten other wrestlers is abandoned in the favor of pure artillery and attrition, opting instead to simply bomb out Baszler.

Io drops Shayna with a god damner of a jumping Tombstone Piledriver as a set up instead of German Suplexes, with the fear of God put into her after her previous tries at it, and then puts on an especially impactful feeling Moonsault to keep the title.

The best Different Style Fight in STARDOM history, hitting at the core of what makes those matches work, which is as much a styles clash as it is the simple story of a wrestler called into question and answering emphatically.

***1/4

Nia Jax vs. Shayna Baszler, WWE Raw (9/20/2021)

An absolute god damner.

It’s Nia Jax’s last match, and it’s very fitting.

That’s to date (1/28/2022) of course, but fast-tracked WWE projects don’t tend to work a lot after they’re gone, unless they come back to the WWE itself. If she does work again, I doubt she’ll have a return as violent and exciting as this match. It’s a perfect final match for her, going out as she spent most of her career, having awesome little matches that most people slept on for reasons that don’t make a lot of sense.

This is two and a half minutes, and all of it rocks.

Nia talks shit, gets absolutely lit up by Shayna, and just gets completely owned. She’s got some real chippy hands of her own to throw, but in a phone both, Shayna entirely beats her ass. Gross palms, head kicks, and one Fujita level punt to the face for good measure. Nia muscles her out of the rear naked choke once, but can’t keep doing it, and eventually just gets choked out.

A perfect ending for one of the great bullies of the era, running into someone who isn’t at all scared, and getting completely obliterated.

Dudes rock is not a gendered term.

spiritual three girl

Shayna Baszler/Nia Jax vs. Natalya/Tamina, WWE WrestleMania 37 Night Two (4/11/2021)

This was for Shayna and Nia’s WWE Womens Tag Team Titles.

All the talent in this match was on one side, but it wasn’t entirely worthless. Everything Shayna does is outstanding, and Nia took an absolutely WILD back body drop bump here that felt like a gigantic deal. It was also really great when they beat the shit out of these two tenured goonesses. Falls apart when said goonesses have to do…well, anything. Bad offense, worse bumping and selling, really nothing of value outside of being warm bodies for Shayna to beat up and for Nia to shout half of the monologue from TRAINING DAY at. Wonderful finish, as Shayna grabs Nattie in mid-Shartshooter and chokes her out while her legs are still wrapped up in Nia’s.

Our Heroes win in the end in a not entirely useless affair.

An impressive thing, given that it wasn’t a complete and total waste of the talents of the champions by putting them up against very possibly the worst wrestler in WWE history, and also Tamina.