NXT: Watch Your Back, Because Payback’s a Bayley
Last week on NXT, The O.C. (AJ Styles, Luke Gallows, and Karl Anderson) came to Full Sail University to challenge Undisputed Era and make clear that they—like pretty much the entire Bullet Club—run this business. Shayna Baszler, on the other hand, got to look forward to NXT TakeOver: WarGames III after putting away Dakota Kai once again. She also split her time rolling up on the RAW and SmackDown Women’s Champions on their respective brands for a Survivor Series advantage.
This week on NXT, however, Shayna ending up having to think about Survivor Series on her home turf, in addition to WarGames, as Bayley—the aforementioned SmackDown Women’s Champion—finally got some retribution for the past couple of weeks.
First, Team Shayna’s Io Shirai and Team Rhea’s Mia Yim competed in a ladder match to determine which team would have the literal advantage (re: order of entry) heading into WarGames. The match was the main event of the show, but much earlier in the show—after the first match—both Rhea Ripley and Tegan Nox were found knocked the hell out outside of Full Sail.
Immediately before the main event though, Dakota Kai approached Mia to let her know that there were “no hard feelings” over her getting the final spot on Team Rhea last week. “You were chosen for Rhea’s WarGames team fair and square,” Dakota told Mia. “But tonight, if anything goes down, just know that I have your back.”
It was easy to “Sure, Jan.” her, but really, have Mia’s back she did, as she came to her aid in the match after Io headbutted Mia to the outside. (This was after Mia had already been busted open in the match, due to a ladder to the face.) Dakota helped Mia to her feet, only for both women to fall back down as a result of Io’s top rope moonsault to the outside.
Io went back to the ring to climb the ladder, but Dakota grabbed and powerbombed her off the ladder, before sending Mia up to go climb.
But then NXT Women’s Champion Kay Lee Ray attacked Dakota from behind, went on to push Mia off of the ladder—to the outside and through another ladder—and then helped Io climb the ladder—even going as far as to push her up the rungs—for the win and the WarGames advantage.
Bianca Belair then came out to celebrate with her WarGames partner Io Shirai… and possibly future WarGames partner in Kay Lee Ray?
Well, that question seemed to be immediately answered as “The Queen of Spades” came out to both applaud Io’s win, as well as Kay Lee Ray’s assist. But the celebration was cut short as Shayna got hit with a cheap shot—which just so happened to be a chair shot—from Bayley.
With that, Full Sail exploded. And then Bayley hit her finisher on Shayna… onto the NXT Women’s Championship. Team Shayna tried to go after the former NXT Women’s Champion, but she booked it immediately to close this week’s episode of NXT.