Shayna Baszler Grinds Her Way To A Nearly-Fatal 4-Way Win At NXT TakeOver: New York
If you’re a champ in NXT, anything that isn’t a singles match is your worst nightmare. You don’t have to be pinned to lose your title, and you have more than one competitor to worry about. After weekly attacks on the women of NXT, Shayna Baszler ran into a bit of karma. She walks into NXT TakeOver: New York as the champion, but forced to defend her title in a Fatal 4-Way match against Bianca Belair, Io Shirai, and former NXT Women’s Champion Kairi Sane. The odds, as they say, were stacked against Baszler.
The four women stare each other down to start, but the Sky Pirates get thrown out of the ring, giving us a brief rematch from the previous TakeOver between Baszler and Belair. It’s all strikes and pin combinations, and then Shirai and Sane join in on the fun. There’s a number of pins early on, but no quick wins. We’re off and running.
Shirai and Sane, who’ve tagged together in multiple matches, team up eventually, seeing a benefit to knocking out Baszler and Belair early on. That leaves them both in the ring alone, and they understand the stakes. They know they have to put friendship aside to battle for gold, and that’s what they do. They counter each other’s offense for awhile until Baszler and Belair trip them up and get back in the ring. Baszler stomps on Belair’s arm and then tries to use her hair to pull her into the ring post, but Belair counters, driving the champ face first into the post. Belair gets a near fall in the ring, but the match continues.
Baszler rolls to the outside, and that gives Sane room to attack a dazed Belair. She comes off the top, hits Belair, then flies to the outside to take out Baszler. Meanwhile, Shirai
The four women work their way into the corner, and that leads to Shirai and Sane slamming Belair and Baszler off the top rope. All four bodies are strewn across the ring, nobody
Again, Sane and Shirai team up, laying out Belair with a bunch of strikes. When Baszler takes Sane to the outside though, Belair gains control. She picks up Shirai, raises her above her head, and throws her into her three opponents.
Belair takes this opportunity to attack the champ, but Baszler counters and locks in the Kirifuda Clutch. Belair survives though, digging deep and standing up out of the submission and reversing it into the KOD. That should be it, but Shirai breaks up the pin. This is her chance. She hits two devastating moonsaults on Baszler, and it looks like she has the win, but Sane breaks up the pin, not letting her friend and tag team partner get the win. Then Sane hits Baszler with the InSane Elbow, and Shirai
When Sane goes back to the top, Belair hits her with a hair whip and then loads both Sane and Shirai
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