Its funny how a crowd of 10,000-plus can completely buy into an NXT womens match so completely as the fans did for the Asuka/Emma bout. It destroys the theory that its just the 400 fans that jam into Full Sail for NXT tapings who are fired up for matches involving the women. It also shows that womens wrestling can be an exciting draw in 2015 if done right. Emma and Asuka put on a fast-paced, entertaining match. Even the hammerlock trade-offs near the beginning went rapid-fire. Knowing she was in there with an excellent striker, Emma stepped up her game with some hard-hitting moves herself. But Asuka, who let out primal screams whenever Emma hit her, threw some vicious spinning backfists, and later seamlessly transitioned from an anklelock to a German suplex and into a running kick to the face. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jjOluG3pmE Fans were way into this opening match, as they would be later for Bayley/Nia Jax. Having two womens matches on a six-match card shows that NXT has faith in its women to carry their weight and then some. Now, if only the WWE Divas division could get the same treatment and respect.
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.
