6 Ups & 3 Downs From NXT Great American Bash 2023

3. Throwing In The Towel

Tiffany Stratton
WWE

Had it not been for the double count-out finish in the earlier match, the NXT Women’s Championship title bout conclusion wouldn’t have looked bad at all.

In reality, Andre Chase throwing in the towel after Thea Hail was locked in a Boston Crab for a painfully long period of time was probably the right call. Hail’s Scrappy Doo persona was not going to allow for her to actually submit, so the babyface mentor/teacher was left to look out for her long-term health.

It didn’t help that Tiffany Stratton’s Boston Crab was horrendously applied. You’d think a Performance Center would have trained her to apply that move properly for a submission match where it was the finish, but that can be forgiven, as NXT tried something different with two of its youngest talents, and it worked decently.

Also, the finish opens the door to real division between Duke Hudson and Chase, with Duke not looking pleased that Andre quit for Thea. That possible thread could be interesting to watch in the coming weeks.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.