NXT Vs. AEW: Head To Head
9. Women’s Roster
The AEW’s Women’s division is diverse, but is not comprised of true world-beaters.
Britt Baker is obviously very marketable, and sound in-ring, but isn’t a great worker. Awesome Kong and Aja Kong are crowd-pleasing spectacle attractions with a limited shelf life. Bea Priestley is good, and much-improved, but a notch below the best women on WWE’s main roster. Riho is very good, charming and sympathetic. Hikaru Shida is a real worker of much presence, with significant ability to construct a long, absorbing match. She is a very authentic seller; she worked around Aja Kong’s limitations wonderfully in Oz Academy last year. Yuka Sakazaki’s naivety adds to her incredible charm, but she isn’t an elite wrestler. Really, beyond Shida, the roster as a whole isn’t, creating an irony around the very name of the promotion.
Marginalised in recent years, the NXT Women’s roster remains excellent in complexion. Shayna Baszler is exceptional at projecting menace and legitimacy; Io Shirai’s character work and eclectic style puts her in the conversation for best women’s wrestler on the globe; Candice LaRae is a dazzling babyface, something NXT has belatedly recognised; Bianca Belair is raw but brimming with potential to showcase her elusive cool factor.
NXT 1 - 1 AEW