8 Ups And 0 Downs For WWE NXT (Jun 22)
6. Stark And Shirai Set Stage For Tag Division Skirmish
With Io Shirai seemingly setting her sights on Candice LeRae and Indi Hartwell's tag team gold, the decision was made to throw herself and Zoey Stark into a match against The Robert Stone Brand on the back of Stark coming to her old sparring partner's aid last week. Judging from the pair's exchange pre-bout, though, don't expect the competitive pair to be meeting up for post-match drinks to shoot the breeze during the week.
That didn't matter when it came to the match itself, however, as Stark and Shirai overcame the duo of Jessi Kamea and Aliyah in a short but sweet exhibition which provided more evidence of the latter team's growth as a unit. One perfectly executed moonsault from Shirai later, the match was won and the real endgame was about to be set in motion.
Just before The Way, who had turned up at ringside during the contest, and Shirai and Stark could come to blows, the groups of Raquel Gonzalez and Dakota Kai and Shotzi Blackheart and Ember Moon both made their presence known and stated exactly why they should be the number one contenders to the NXT Tag Team Championships. Sure enough, chaos ensued... but not for long.
Highlighting again how things had changed with the enlisting of a new sheriff in town, Samoa Joe extinguished the flames of war quickly with an army of security separating the teams. Now yes, you could argue that this does once again stink of NXT not having any clear direction for a division, so instead opting to just throw every viable contender into the mix, hoping something will stick. But the fact we have this many genuine contenders for these overlooked belts is a small victory in itself, so we'll let that slide on this occasion.