On NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia, the first Takeover of 2018, Shayna Baszler first challenged for the NXT Women’s Championship. Though this was unsuccessful, she would go on to win the title on her second attempt at TakeOver: New Orleans a few months later. In the 620 days since then, she’s basically been holding that title the entire time, with a mere two month reign of Kairi Sane’s – by far the shortest in the title’s history – breaking up the run. Thanks to how that played out, Shayna Baszler has been involved in every single NXT Women’s Title match at a TakeOver event in both 2018 and 2019, with an oppressive, suffocating strangle hold on the title.
I’ve referred to her in the past as something of a bottleneck for the division, as many women under her have been stifled from their natural progress, and in general the quality of NXT Women’s Title matches have become a shell of themselves. We essentially went from seeing the title being passed naturally from the legit best performer in the division at that time, with title matches that were frequently so gripping that the actual TakeOver main events struggled to follow them, to Shayna Baszler… someone who is fine in a five minute match but in a ten minute match needs a lot of smoke and mirrors to disguise her limits.
I was basically sick of Shayna as champion by the time she lost it the first time. And then she won it again and held it for another 416 days.
Somehow, only a few weeks ago her combined days with the title surpassed Asuka’s single reign with the gold, in spite of feeling roughly 40 times as long to me. During her matches, I at first found myself always hoping she would lose and then about eight months ago I just kinda gave up on it, seeing no need to get my hopes up for something that I’d accepted was impossible. I found myself emotionally dead watching her matches. It felt very much like she’d just hold that title and the entire division down forever, no point teasing myself with visions of what a Candice LeRae/Io Shirai title match might be or how high a level Bianca Belair could rise to if she had an actually capable champion to chase.
But tonight, finally… for now anyway, Shayna has been dethroned. Rhea Ripley emerged onto the scene a few months ago, after having great success in NXT UK. While I enjoyed her work there, something seemed immediately different about Rhea in NXT. She was working as a babyface suddenly which was of course striking but there was a striking star power to her that I’d never noticed before. And so she became the latest in a long line of challengers who seemed like they’d make for much more interesting champions. For Rhea Ripley to beat her of course like seemed like an obviously good idea, but by no means did I see it coming. Certainly not tonight.
I’m glad to be wrong, of course. I mean I’d have been happy if Aliyah just rolled her up in a two minute throwaway match and suddenly became champion, so obviously I’m good with this.
Rhea Ripley fought off Shayna’s henchwomen Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir, kicked out of a DDT onto a steel chair and nailed an Avalanche Riptide to take the gold.
One would think something like this would be saved for a TakeOver where it could be made out to be the biggest deal it possibly could. But in a sense I always kinda felt it coming, that when Shayna’s reign ended it would be unexpected, without the strongest of builds or on a particularly grand stage. If you made a megastar with a legendary moment in dethroning her after all, then her being champion for so long would’ve been a good idea atleast in hindsight and it was never going to be a good idea. It fits that it happened like this, on the last live NXT episode of the year in a match that was announced a week in advance.
They did do their damnedest on the night though, as the ring filled with people to hoist Rhea Ripley up in celebration. There is certainly a ton of potential in making something big out of Rhea Ripley and like most in the division her matches are likely to be much more spectacular than what we’ve been made accustomed to with an NXT Women’s Champion.
The aforementioned TakeOver streak isn’t finished yet, won’t be until we’ve got a different challenger confirmed for one. The next TakeOver is TakeOver: Portland on February 16th, 2020. If Shayna isn’t challenging or defending the title on that night, then the streak will close with 821 days between TakeOver events without Shayna Baszler in the NXT Women’s title match. The last time it happened was on November 18th, 2017 at the original TakeOver: WarGames, where Ember Moon won the gold in a four way after Asuka vacated it. Everything about that sentence should illustrate how long ago that feels for me.
I can’t help but think Shayna will be challenging for the title in Portland, however, needing to be beaten one last final time.
Should this be the case, and TakeOver: Tampa Bay be the night the streak ends instead, that will extend it to 869 days.
You can probably tell by my tone that I’m not really joyous or excited about this and maybe if I’d seen it live rather than hearing about it a little later that’d have been different. But as things stand, my reaction is actually what I figured it would be. I’m more just, focused on how unGodly long it took to get here and how much I wish it hadn’t ever been a thing. It’s like a traumatic time in my life that’s finally ended. It’s good that it’s over, sure. Still went through it for two years, so… gonna be recovering for a while.
But I do truly look forward to being excited for this division again. It used to probably be my favorite thing about NXT, honestly. The NXT Women’s Championship was once the gold I held in the highest possible regard, and these past couple years, it’s been so clear that the moment we got past this Shayna Age it’d almost definitely just go right back to that.
So I look forward to that, and I will be ecstatic when we get to see it happen. But for now, I just… need a little bit.
After all this time, I kinda need to be reminded what that feels like.
