Wrestling Is About ONE Thing - And Here's Who Rules At It
What indicts WWE's creative process isn't merely the repetition, or the dry, functional stare-down routes they took to get to the rematches. No: this rivalry was created and mythologised beyond its walls. It was elevated by a series of super matches on super indies without an episodic TV model. NXT didn't even start the storyline they didn't know how to finish nor progress in any meaningful way beyond its "hosses do uncharacteristic, fun athletic things" premise. If NXT has degenerated into an artless, greedy, big budget scene grab, this programme was emblematic of the shift. Dijakovic lost to Lee on February 16 in a series that had its 'Rubber' match in October 2019.
On the February 19 NXT TV, Dijakovic said he wasn't ready to move on yet, and that they "both knew" he had Lee beat at TakeOver: Portland. He knackered his back executing the Spanish fly. Didn't that make him an unskilled wrestler thoroughly undeserving of yet another match? It wasn't fair that he was so sh*t (!), Dijakovic argued, which likely amused Kenny Omega no end, not that, at 36, he was likely to watch a show consumed primarily by the few remaining elderly ultras left over from the Bruno Sammartino years. He got one, anyway, and was joined in the mix by Damien Priest, whom Dijakovic referred to as a bootleg Marilyn Manson because, with John Cena gone, there's much leftover material that would just go to waste, otherwise.
Rhea Ripley meanwhile got over with a single word - a fierce, confident Bitch! hurled at Shayna Baszler as, somewhere, Paul Heyman did a chef's kiss. She tore through the field, looking like a warlord at WarGames and Survivor Series before showing just enough vulnerability and heart underneath the badass exterior to become a better, more rounded character in capturing the NXT Women's Championship on December 18. Then, as so often happens, she became googly-eyed at the enormity of the brand she worked for - size of that stadium! - as NXT humanised her into a dream-chasing sap. She was then put in her place and in a dreaded redemption storyline after losing to Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania. She left the ring weeping, unrecognisable from the woman who first entered it from across the Atlantic. This could be argued as character development, but she was already a star. Why climb a higher hill to go through that again? Is it because NXT didn't know how else to do it?
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