[2018-11-17-WWE-NXT Takeover: War Games II] Shayna Baszler vs Kairi Sane

[paul sosnowski]

Shayna Baszler defends the NXT Women's Title in a 2/3 falls match.   Talk about it here

[KB8]

I knew going in that this didn't go long. Maybe if I'd been expecting it to I'd have been disappointed - as most generally seemed to have been - but I thought what we got was a hoot. I didn't even know until a week ago that these two switched the title back and forth over the summer, but I've seen a couple of their matches before that and thought they were decent. This had a sort of greatest hits vibe to it, probably because of the length, but I like a greatest hits version of a match-up when it's done well and I thought this was done well. Sane still feels a bit vanilla even though she's clearly over and charismatic, but I liked her fighting uphill against Baszler and her girls. Dakota Kai booting Jessamyn Duke clean in the teeth was wild and Shirai's moonsault, while kind of dumb when you think about how long it takes to set up when she could just punch someone in the face there, looked killer. I actually liked the finish as well. You could see Baszler shifting her weight as she was readying to catch Sane coming down off the elbow, so it never felt like she just shrugged off the move and instantly rolled her into a cradle. I guess this leads to some six-man tags with Kai getting THE absolute shit bullied out of her so I guess that could be nifty.