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[2015-10-07-WWE-NXT Takeover: Respect] Bayley vs Sasha Banks


SmartMark15

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Performance of a lifetime from both ladies. Sasha in particular absolutely nails her performance as just a really despicable heel and is even able to work the notoriously smarky Full Sail crowd into genuine heel heat. Poking Bayley's eyes to get the first fall, trash talking Izzy and stealing her headband. You wanna talk genuine heel heat? A little girl CRIED. Meanwhile, Bayley puts in one of the best babyface comeback stretches, putting money in the bank with Sasha's hand and paying it off beautifully at the finish of the match. Prefer this to their first match and I find it strange that general consensus seems to disagree.

 

Probably the best women's match in WWE history.

 

*****

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When I was in college, Star Trek Voyager had just begun. My roommate and I chuckled for the first few eps because there was something about Kate Mulgrew that made her seem like she was always on the verge of tears. (She got over it.)

 

Bayley is like that for me. Something about her eyes makes her seem ready to break down, even when she's mad and focused. It makes it hard for me to take her seriously, unfortunately. Sasha, on the other hand, is one of the most entertaining workers on the entire roster. She proves it here with her Mastery of expressions and attitude, as Smark pointed out above.

 

Both gals bring some sloppiness here, Bayley especially as she looked on several occasions to have hurt Sasha.

 

I've seen other 4 Horsewomen matches that were more engaging for me, despite all the good this one brought. So I couldn't call this one the best WWE women's match. But it's fun, and it really shows Sasha's skills. And it's always great to see talented gals get 30 min to show what they can do.

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  • 5 months later...

The sequel to the Brooklyn match and not quite as good in my opinion (I know some people strongly disagree!) due to a bit of sloppiness early on, but once that's over and done with this turns into yet another barnburner.

The heel heat segment is one of the best I've seen in WWE in years... Heels just don't do this kind of thing anymore, it seems like the WWE style is for heels to just be boring with chinlocks and stuff because it theoretically gets meta heat. Sasha doesn't do any of that. She puts Bayley in a Boston Crab and stamps on the back her head! Why does anyone else do that? And then she terrorises a young girl in the crowd in a Bayley shirt, snatches her hairband and gets in the ring to do a piss-taking impression of a crying child. All meanwhile a crowd who cheered her entrance are appalled and booing her as loud as they can. Special stuff.

An underrated aspect of this match is the numerous callbacks to the Brooklyn match. Sasha Banks don't fall for the same shit twice. So in Brooklyn there's a spot where Sasha is trash talking Bayley in the corner only to get kicked in the face. Here she trash talks her in the corner again, Bayley attempts to kick her but Sasha catches her boot and turns it into a backbreaker with a sinister smile on top. At Brooklyn Bayley pulls Sasha straight of the ropes into a Bayley to Belly, at Respect she tries the same thing but Sasha blasts her in the face with a forearm this time. Bayley goes for the reverse hurricanrana like in Brooklyn, but here Sasha flips through it landing on her feet (I don't care that she slips). At Brooklyn Bayley successfully reverses the Bank Statement into one of her own, she tries it again here but Sasha sees it coming and forces her right back into it.

The finish is fantastic. Bayley counters another Bank Statement attempt by putting Sasha into the most brutal looking submission hold ever seen in NXT... I don't even know what it is, some kind of inverted cattle mutilation + bending fingers back + kicking in the head. Something poetic about the nicest person on the show doing that after all these years of Sasha's terrible behaviour. It's like the story was Bayley always had the technical wrestling ability to really hurt Sasha if she wanted to, but she didn't do it until convinced that was the only way to win the feud. Sasha screams in pain/fear like we've never heard her before in this 'Boss' persona and taps out.

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  • GSR changed the title to [2015-10-07-WWE-NXT Takeover: Respect] Bayley vs Sasha Banks
  • 2 years later...
  • 10 months later...

They work with the time limit well. For example, they start this one by trying to get a flash pinfall and to gain that very important first fall. Sasha goes from aggressively competitive to full-on bitch mode in one motion as she takes advantage of Bayley's kindness by pulling her to the ground after Bayley offers her a hug after a stalemate. I loved Sasha's heel performance in their Takeover: Brooklyn match, but she was next-level evil here. Her teasing of the Bayley superfan was awesome, only damped by some of the smarky crowd's insistence on still cheering Banks despite how much of a heel she was. This wasn't perfect mind, as there was some sloppiness, such as Bayley having to move Bank's unconscious body to ropes so she can get a rope break. Things pick up again during the incredible final three minutes as Bayley has to hang on as Banks nearly breaks her in a nasty submission. Forget just calling this the greatest women's match to take place in a WWE ring, I'd also call this the greatest Iron Man match in history too. ★★★★¾

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