In principle, I like all three of these performers. It’s just that they’re part of a severely dead brand that I have almost no interest in except to cherry pick little gems like this from every now and then. It was nice to see this match even though there were a lot of WWE-isms in it that grated me the wrong way.
The booking as is was already a problem. Although they try their best to be creative with the three-way stipulation, it still feels a little stilted and inorganic in a way most of these multi-person matches do. That isn’t helped with Charlotte leaning hard into the NXT Dialogue in the opening stretch of this match here. I get that she’s a heel and it’s meant to be annoying but it’s so overdone and uninteresting that it only serves to detract from the action.
Once Charlotte shuts up, we get your pretty standard three-way action mixed with a healthy dose of cycling one person in and out of the ring at a time. When things take a turn for the great is when they start to break from that formula and just start fighting. There’s a really fun and interesting brawling segment here that has Charlotte tossing Shirai into the IYH window and Ripley throwing a potted plant at Charlotte. It felt so genuine and so energetic that it immediately stood out from everything else they were doing. Top it out with a great high spot of Shirai jumping off the monitor and there’s just enough here to tip the scales into worth seeing territory.
The finishing stretch is pretty standard but it was nice to see Shirai get the belt at last. A long delayed victory for her in what was a pretty fun match all things considered.
