8 Ups And 3 Downs From WWE NXT TakeOver: London

Ups...

8. Selling The Women€™s Title Match

 No matter how bad WWE programming is, one thing that always seems to rise above it all is the company€™s video packages for matches and rivalries. The people who put those together tend to do an excellent job at condensing a feud into something that fans that haven€™t followed it can digest and understand. But when the product (and feud) is good, like in NXT, then the packages become even better. In the case of Women€™s Champion Bayley, the video guys used footage of Bayley reading a grade school essay she wrote about become a wrestler (a clip many fans have seen before). But this time, they followed Bayley€™s career arc from being an 11-year-old girl wanting to be a wrestler, to debuting in NXT, to finally overcoming and beating opponents to earn a title shot. The great part came right after she won, as all the challengers who came out of the woodwork €“ Sasha Banks, Alexa Bliss, Eva Marie and Nia Jax €“ trash-talked Bayley and said she wasn€™t deserving of being champion. Then we saw Nia (wo)man-handling Bayley. All of this did a tremendous job in making the current champ feel like a total underdog. That€™s no small feat.
Contributor
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 fortunately became a fan in time for WrestleMania III and came back as a fan after a long high school hiatus before WM XIV. Monday nights in the Carlson household are reserved for viewing Raw -- for better or worse.