7 Ups And 5 Downs From WWE NXT TakeOver: Respect

2. The Boss Resurfaces

At NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn, we saw Sasha Banks essentially break character as she re-entered the ring after losing her NXT Women€™s Championship to congratulate and hug Bayley, and to join her fellow Four Horsewomen to celebrate. When she showed up on NXT to challenge Bayley to a rematch, Banks had softened her stance to saying she respected the new champ and seemed to be playing more of a face. The 30-minute Iron Woman match certainly looked like it was going the same direction, with mutual respect and simply trading pin attempts. But Sasha turned it around when she took Bayley€™s pity and assaulted her. She scored her first pinfall with the help of a thumb to the eye to help solidify her standing. But the thing that put Sasha over the top as a full-fledged villain Wednesday night was when she got in the face of Bayley€™s biggest fan, Izzy, a little girl who attends many NXT events. Stealing Izzy€™s bow and mocking the young girl was something you really don€™t see anymore, nor the taunting that she did to Izzy and Bayley€™s parents. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ1iihKWI6U It was an awesome display that reminds fans of old school heat, yelling at fans. It€™s such a shame we don€™t see that these days.
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Contributor

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.