[2015-07-15-WWE-NXT] Sasha Banks vs Charlotte Flair

[Jimmy Redman]

NXT TV July 15th 2015 - Sasha Banks vs. Charlotte - NXT Women's Title

By my count, this is only the second time that the women had the main event spot on NXT TV. The first was also Sasha vs. Charlotte, from March, which was also great but I lost my notes for that one. Story of my life.

Anyway this was the fucking BUSINESS. Right from the first lock up they were ON. Charlotte has a great thing where she uses the kip up to make a point. It's an exclamation point, a snappy comeback, a statement of intent. Here, it's a way for her to regain dominance after Sasha won the first lock up - Charlotte immediately started showing off and kipping up, just to get some power back and assert herself. Then when Sasha hits the big knees and takes over, she asserts herself by doing a Flair strut and mocking her, and also by stealing her moves. Her power is in being a dick.

The other thing about Sasha is that she was CRAZY brutal. She puts the straightjacket stranglehold on, and just fucking RAGDOLLS Charlotte around the ring. Sasha... ragdolling someone the size of Charlotte. The things Sasha was doing physically at this point were ridiculous. I love the way she transitioned in and out of things physically and always kept holds on, preventing separation. Sasha knows separation means the spear, it means the Big Boot it means being vulnerable to Charlotte's power. She put the triangle on and slams her head into the mat (stolen from Charlotte), then they get into a fucking SLAP BATTLE in the hold, and then Sasha rolls her up into a pin, AND THEN Charlotte Charlottes Up and stands up in it and oh, almost loses her but saves it and bang! POWERBOMB TO FUCKING HELL! All with this fucking triangle choke on. Later in the match, Sasha does a backslide rollup, and after it's kicked out of, she keeps the hold on and twists around into her straightjacket hold again, and drops down into a slam. She is RIDICULOUS.

She also eats offense like a motherfucker, and Charlotte comes back and absolutely fucking OBLITERATES her with shit. STIFF CHOPS. A HYUUUUGE SPEAR. A BIG BOOT OF DEATH. The best Charlotte is ENRAGED ANGRY HULK CHARLOTTE, and she fucking hulks up in this. At this point Sasha has been eating the comeback and trying to find any opening she can to go for a rollup and get out of this, starting with the backslide, but just a bunch of sweet ass T-I-G-H-T rollups. Charlotte turns Sasha's running knees right into the Figure Four, but when she does she sees that Sasha has PULLED HER WEAVE OUT in the midst of all this fighting, and just LOSES IT and starts swinging at Sasha instead of trying to bridge up. She ends up rolling off the apron to the floor, in the hold (no separation!) and Sasha EATS SHIT on the bottom rope. We get even more desperate rollups, until Sasha HITS the Bank Statement and pulls, Charlotte fights and fights and tries to roll her up in it, but Sasha fights her off. Sasha is pulling so fucking hard she's UPSIDE DOWN, and Charlotte eventually chokes and dies and barely manages to tap. Your Women's Champion.

This was the week after THE REVOLUTION and was essentially Charlotte's swansong from NXT TV, so they're both crying there in the ring. They hugged it out, total shoot. The thing about the NXT Curtain Call stuff like this is that it totally, in the context of TV, works. Everyone knew that they had Done Something here. They knew, we knew. We get their real emotions and friendships bleeding through onto TV, but in a way that doesn't take away from the show. In fact, it enhances it. Part of following NXT in this moment was being a witness to this, to something bigger than wrestling TV and kayfabe. To history.