Mae Young Classic Final
Kairi Sane vs. Shayna Baszler
ER: A very good match and a match that felt like the finals, but I was obviously rooting for Baszler. Also, after seeing Sane in five tournament wins and at this point I can safely say that she's not very good at projecting the possibility of a loss the later a match gets. Once it gets time for her big comeback she clearly looks like she's just thinking of the all the stuff she still needs to hit, any work done to her earlier in the match floats out the window. It's not just her body part selling, but she starts getting so excited for her upcoming win that she just starts rushing through her lines to finish the play. I really liked most of this though. Shayna as the cocky bully was really fun, and I bought into Kairi's more pro wrestling based reversals, rolling an armbar into a pin, flipping back on a choke for another pin, and it was all fun until Shayna kicks her in the head. From there Shayna went after the arm, stomping on the elbow in a spot that made my arm hair stand up, yanking it from a seated position, even running into that arm full speed with a knee. I loved Baszler suckering her into missing her corner elbow/crossbody, and I was really excited for how they were going to plausibly fit in Sane's comeback. Problem is, I didn't think her comeback was very plausible. It could have been, and they wouldn't have had to do many things differently. Shayna was selling her guts out for Kairi - and it should be noted that Shayna's selling was really great - but Kairi mostly didn't justify the selling. She was just too excited for her win and her moves.
PAS: Very good match, worthy of a finals, but very clearly the wrong lady went over. Not only are there way more interesting things that can be done with Shayna as a tournament champ, but she was obviously the superior performer. Most of the cool things in this match were provided by Baszler, all the early cockiness, the little kicks to the head, the absorbing of the spear, the nasty armwork. Then later in the match she did a masterful job of selling the broken rib to make herself look vulnerable, and set up the big finish. I really wish Sane’s spear looked better, a selling job that good deserved a better looking instigating move. I did love Sane’s backfist, which she hits with such force, and the diving elbow to the ribs was super nasty (Baszler covering her head only to get wasted in the body was awesome). Also total waste not to have some post match gaga. If you are going to have Shayna lose, at least have her jump Kairi post bell and have some sort of pull apart with the Horsewomen and the WWE wrestlers, any business they want to do there lost a lot of its luster. It really felt like they just wanted the photo op with horseface Ivanka and roid Kushner post match.
Labels: Kairi Sane, Mae Young Classic, Shayna Baszler
posted by Phil @ 10:00 PM
2 Comments:
One thing I've noticed during the tournament is an online narrative that Baszler was only getting wins due to her "Four Horsewomen" status and that other, more deserving wrestlers were being bypassed. Obviously complete nonsense, as she's clearly been one of the standouts of the MYC. For all that people wanted to talk about LeRae or Martinez beforehand, both of them had by far their best match of the tournament with Baszler. Sane winning was never really in doubt, but they'd be nuts not to sign up Baszler (and also Piper Niven) after these matches.
The underwhelming thing of the tournament was having the pretty clear #1's of each bracket go to the final.
I may have not liked the cheap push of LeRae based on her spouse but if they had done something like I had mentioned in the recap of the episode with her match with Baszler with a surprise upset, after match beat down, and doubt she could continue would have made a nice story to build on in the future in NXT.
This final unlike the previous tournaments are not going to have any follow up. With the whole Horsewomen angle pretty sure Baszler is going to totally bypass NXT. We get a cool little match but it isn't really going anywhere.
We now have a crowned princess and if the Instagram post I saw is credible Sane is now positioned for something to crown the new NXT women's champion. I am hoping between now and the next NXT Takeover we have a Queen of the Ring tournament with the current NXT women roster. If more women are needed give some of those 1st round losers another chance or work in some of the originally intended injured participants for the MYC if they are clear to wrestle. Seems like a way to build off the MYC and a good way to build towards filling that vacant championship.
As far as the match itself. The story was written to much in Baszler favor and the getting around her finisher that the other ladies tapped so quickly for had no real foundation other than maybe Sane fighting spirit but the announcers didn't even really push that over. Baszler rib issues made sense why her finisher didn't work but the announcers really didn't push the rib thing, that I can recall, until building for Sane's finish and previously the only work I could remember to Baszler rib's was some scissor action since she had stopped every spear like attempt I believe. You had the elbow shots to the ribs but they weren't immediately shot out. It was a bad piece of story telling. The move happened pretty close to the ropes should have had a foot under the rope to almost immediately break the finisher up.
They also had another shot at some possible good but cheesy story telling they could have done with Sane's finish. When she hit the feet to the chest with Baszler tied up in the corner like we had seen Kai do. I was hoping when she was setting up a run attack she was going to hip attack Baszler like Toni Storm instead of her spear thing. If instead of a headbutt to set up the initial tie up chest stomp if she could have whipped her hair in away to blind Baszler could have brought up a moment of Belair. With Blanchard only having one match can't off the top of my head think of a move. I don't know if done right and getting the announcers behind it could have been a little cheesy moment to show Sane had learned some things during and paid tribute to the women that helped make this event so good.
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