This week’s NXT show brought something completely unexpected with Shayna Bazler, Jessamyn Duke, Marina Shafir forming a team with Io Shirai and squaring off against the team of Candice LeRae, Tegan Nox, Dakota Kai, and Rhea Ripley with both teams being squared up for War Games.
Well, that is a surprise!
The WWE wants to try something new this year with the match and I like where this is going. It seems that for the first time ever they are putting 8 women into the double cage and have them beat the slop out of each other. But there are still things to think about with that.
War Games is not the match that it used to be. The days of someone like Rick Flair or Arn Anderson getting cut and bleeding all over the place are passed. Being covered in a “crimson mask” is long gone so I’m not expecting any of those women to be covered in blood during the match. Adding to that thought is that the WWE doesn’t exactly let their women bleed very much to begin with, so it’s not like these 8 women are going to “get color” unless it is an accident. And I almost expect a referee trying to snake a towel or something through the cage to wipe away the blood if that were to actually happen.
But on the other side of that are the women themselves and what they could bring to the match. Bazler and her team are all pretty mean when they want to be. Duke and Shafir can get brutal when the time calls for it and Io Sharai can be nasty when she wants to be, even if she isn’t carrying a weapon into the cage with her. Ripley can be violent as well so she will have to make sure the other women on her team can bring the violence, even at their level. It may not be 1987 amount of violence in the match, but they could still bring it when it is needed.
And going back to Bazler’s team, 3 of the 4 women are former MMA fighters. The point of the match is “submit or surrender” after everyone has entered the cages. I would think that would be brought up in the build-up of the match as well.
Another thought in this match as seeing what Rhea Ripley’s team does to prevent from getting brutalized. Knox, Kai, and LeRae aren’t exactly physically intimidating up against the other team so what aren’t they going to pull out with this match? They are going to have to do something nasty to get the upper hand, so it will be interesting to see what they actually do to make this interesting.
It seems like a good idea for a match, goofy shark cages aside.
