8 WWE NXT TakeOver: Vengeance Day Impulse Reactions
6. Dakota Kai & Raquel González Vs. Ember Moon & Shotzi Blackheart
The first ever Women's Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic arrived at this specific final as much as a way to get all four onto a TakeOver card as much as reward two of them with a trophy.
Dakota Kai is risking having the dreaded "utility" tag slung around forever, but it's the price of being so f*cking good. Shotzi Blackheart's force of a personality has penetrated the Performance Center's drab finishing school. Ember Moon has much to prove. Raquel Gonzalez wants the world and looks set to take it.
A tag match in name but an exhibition of those four individual tales in nature, the match suffered a little as a result. Some weird, weird agenting saw babyfaces Moon and Blackheart work like the f*cking Brainbusters for the first third, before an ostensible hot tag to Gonzalez played out to liberal use of the boo.wav button.
Pleasingly, it got there in the end, delivering a strong final to a strong tournament, and strong contenders for Shayna Bazler and Nia Jax to deal with down the line.
Moon led heel miscommunications in a fiery comeback that led to numerous near falls on Gonzalez in particular. She could not be stopped, even if an awful lot of moving pieces saw the immersion compromised slightly. Two amazing shoves from great heights on Moon put her out for good, leaving Shotzi piss easy picking for the heels.