8 Ups And 4 Downs From NXT TakeOver: Toronto

3. Squash Becomes All-Out War

candice larae io shirai
WWE.com

When Io Shirai suplexed Candice LaRae onto the announce table about a minute into the match, you couldn’t help but think we were headed to Squash City.

The early part of the match was all Io, and you kept waiting for her to put LaRae away. But then the match swung the other way, with Candice getting some nice offense in herself, including a tope DDT, brainbuster and an Octopus. She delivered a vicious reverse spike rana on Shirai that brought fans out of their seats for a close 2 count.

However, Io was not losing her first PPV match as a heel. A top-rope Spanish Fly, moonsault and Koji Clutch finished LaRae in what turned into a really good, hard-hitting women’s match.

The main roster women should watch this match and take notes.

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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 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.