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NXT Women's Division is Pro Wrestling Storytelling at its finest

5K views 27 replies 13 participants last post by  Sweettre15 
#1 · (Edited)
I believe this because with the current angle going on, you can trace it all the way to last Summer or even before that. Everything that happened then, ties into what's currently going on now despite the players involved somewhat rotating. This whole Charlotte/Bayley versus Sasha/Becky thing is a continuation of something Summer Rae and Paige started.

Let's go over eveything that has happened in the Women's divsion of NXT thus far:

Summer Rae debuts and tries to end Paige's career in her pursuit to dominate the divsion and that results in Summer Rae losing to Paige:



Plot 1: Paige and Emma vs Summer Rae

As they continue to feud, A Divas tournament happens for the NXT Women's Championship and the girls that make it through are Paige, Emma, and Summer Rae (amusingly so she eliminated Sasha Banks to proceed in the tournament)...This leads into a match between Emma and Summer Rae where Summer Rae gets eliminated and Emma and Paige are left fighting for the Divas title.

Summer Rae manages to weasel her way into a Number One spot by injuring Emma after losing a Dance off:



Despite Summer Rae losing that title match that she weaseled her way into, She ends up once again getting the upper hand on Emma out of jealousy:



In one promo around this time, Emma said that her destiny to win the belt would have to wait until she rectifies the situation with Summer Rae being a thorn in her side but I cant quite remember if it was before or after the above match.

Meanwhile.......as all of this was going on:

Subplot 1: Charlotte/Bayley/Sasha Banks - The planting of the Seeds

Charlotte and Ric Flair make it known that she's coming to NXT and the first person to befriend her is...Bayley, when she gleefully obliges to be Charlotte's opponent in this debut match:



Charlotte would then beat Sasha Banks in a friendly contest during a time when all 3 of these girls were faces:



The Plots Start to Interwine:

After Summer Rae blinded Emma with her own bubble solution in the last video link of Plot 1, Sasha Banks decides to call Summer out on her cowardly actions but Summer decides to try to get inside her head so she can have her bases covered when she ignites her next set of fires:



Which is amusing because the last matches Sasha had on NXT were losses to Charlotte and Summer Rae yet she decides to tell Sasha to "get it together" and it doesnt end there. She gets inside her head again the next week by trying to tell Sasha that Paige sees the NXT divas as being beneath her due to calling herself the Anti-Diva:



That same night, Renee Young brings this up to Paige in an interview segment regarding their planned match and of course Paige gives a reply regarding the definition of "Anti-Diva":



Paige and Sasha then have their match the next week and it leads to Sasha becoming a sore loser due to Summer Rae getting more and more inside her head:




So Sasha and Summer would not only become thorns in the side of Paige but also Emma's when she returned to NXT to get revenge on Summer:



They also would start to ignite issues with Charlotte/Bayley after picking on her by breaking her headband.

So it seemed that Sasha and Summer were going to try manipulating Bayley into being their ally and that Charlotte would be the one to stand up to them in this particular segment:



However that turned out to NOT be in the case after what took place here:



So it turned out that Charlotte would be the one to double cross Bayley and join Summer/Sasha to form the BFFs and Bayley wanted an explanation:



Meanwhile Paige and Emma would gradually become more and more sidetracked and focus on their brewing hostilities toward each other due to incidents caused in their feud with the BFFs:


During this time, periodically Natalya would come down to help Bayley and Emma in their feud with the BFFs by either managing them during their matches or appearing in tag matches.

As time would go on Summer Rae would be gradually less involved in the affairs of the BFFs and it would become more about Charlotte/Sasha Banks during her absence.

Anyway, Summer Rae would periodically return to assist Charlotte and Sasha in their feud with Bayley by distracting her and causing her to lose to Charlotte.

With the exception of one 6 person tag match with the help of Paige and Emma, Bayley would mostly go on to be assisted by the likes of Becky Lynch and Natalya in Paige and Emma's absence.

This would lead to a feud between Charlotte and Natalya teased here that ended up culminating in a match at NXT Takeover:


Subplot 2: Becky Lynch

As mentioned before, Becky in her previous Riverdancer gimmick would go on to assist Bayley in fending off the BFFs as a lighthearted kindred Spirit but first she'd debut in a match against Summer Rae during one of her sporadic assists to the BFFs:



Even though the clip is short, the match was mostly Becky dominating Summer Rae with no help from Charlotte and Sasha. Which was an early sign of dissension in the BFFs.

After a while of tension building between Charlotte, Sasha and Summer Rae, the BFFs would essentially end after this tag match:


It's not shown in the clip but after the match, Charlotte would let Bayley attack Sasha and after that she would go on to disband the BFFs. Becky Lynch, not long after, would go on to take time off for a repackaging

Plot 2: Charlotte/Bayley's feud and reconciliation

So not long after the group disbanded, Summer Rae would go on to defeat Bayley in a #1 Contendership match for a shot at Charlotte's title in a losing effort that would mark the end of Summer Rae in NXT permanently.

While Sasha and Bayley both ended up in pursuit of the title, it resulted in Bayley finally beating Sasha Banks in a #1 Contender's match for a shot at NXT Takeover: Fatal 4 Way.

In the build up for the match, Bayley would gradually go on to show more courage while Charlotte would constantly talk down to her and make it known that she doesnt take her seriously because she's too nice.

Charlotte would go on to defeat Bayley in both the match at Takeover and a rematch two weeks later on NXT but she would go on to respect and befriend Bayley due to seeing just how courageous she is in their matches.

Subplot 3: The return of Becky Lynch

Meanwhile during the feud between Bayley and Charlotte, Becky Lynch would return repackaged in a more "Rocker" persona with a serious presentation and go on to lose matches like this to Charlotte:



This however was just yet another seed being planted for the future

The Stories Once Again Intertwine:

As Sasha makes her way into a number one contendership spot for the NXT Women's title, she also gains a new ally in Becky Lynch.

The seeds were ironically planted after Becky Lynch lost to Sasha in this match:


In a repeating of history after Sasha attacked Bayley, Becky would go on to call Sasha on her actions and Sasha would get inside her head the same way Summer Rae did to her.

So after Sasha beat Bayley in a match, this happens:



Becky would then turn heel on Bayley and her reasoning would be that she's decided to align herself with people that are successful instead of constantly losing matches like she was against Charlotte and Sasha.

This would also become another cog in the feud between Charlotte and Sasha's feud as Charlotte and Bayley would go against them in tag matches. Becky and Sasha would also continue to either attack Bayley or defeat her in matches over the course of several episodes.

Charlotte during her feud with Sasha would once warn Bayley to stay away from those two while she's gone but Bayley ends up getting herself crippled by Becky and Sasha in the go home shows for NXT Takeover: (R) Evolution.

Charlotte would then defeat Sasha Banks at R:Evolution on the same night of yet another ambush on Bayley by Becky and Sasha, which would lead to Bayley losing yet again to Becky and Sasha losing again to Charlotte...which is where we are currently in the story.

Final thoughts: If you look at this plot from beginning to now, It comes off as Paige and Emma only being able to fend off the BFFs but Charlotte seemingly destroyed them from the inside and it's possibly her only reason for double crossing Bayley to join them. I've yet to see a feud with this much attention to detail and layers to it because of how much this has went on but with different players involved.

Has anyone noticed how much continuity the NXT divas division has had in their feuds and if so, what are your thoughts on all this? I personally think it's a real shame that this kind of detail or even half of it doesnt go into anything on the main roster

Also, who do you think will get involved in this feud next? I predict Alexa Bliss due her constantly losing to Charlotte and Sasha and last being seen getting pulverized by Sasha in a short match
 
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#2 · (Edited)
Re: The booking of the NXT Women's Division is Pro Wrestling Storytelling at it's fin

One thing I'd like to add is that it seems like everything builds to something bigger in the NXT Women's divisions thus far and the only "loose end" at this point was the abruptly ended Charlotte/Paige feud that hopefully comes full circle on the main roster.
 
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#5 ·
Re: NXT Women's Division is Pro Wrestling Storytelling at it's finest

Shame this got moved to a (slightly) dead section, it's a really good post. The only NXT I've seen is REvolution, so I'm gonna book mark this and come back to it. The NXT women's division sounds amazing.
I highly recommend that you do this via Hulu Plus so you can harken all the way back to about May of last year and binge watch all the way up to this point.
 
#6 ·
Re: NXT Women's Division is Pro Wrestling Storytelling at it's finest

I love a good story :russo. This is awesome. Kudos to you for putting it all together. Yes, Alexa Bliss should be worked into the storyline somehow because she's being wasted as a jobber. I don't think Becky's working at all. She went from a river dancing gimmick to a rocker gimmick, now an awkward lackey. They need to reevaluate their long term goals for her, because right now I only see her as enhancement talent.

Prior to the injury, Bayley was overexposed and doing nothing of note but taking up TV time just to job or defend Charlotte. That did nothing for Charlotte and just made Bayley look out of place. She needs to go back to being her own woman, and they need to start building Alexa as a top babyface and Carmella as a top heel.

Carmella's got her character down already and she's a VERY fast learner in regards to wrestling, but she's also out of place with Enzo and Big Cass. She'd be excellent as a heel and a much better fit as Sasha's lackey than Becky. She can then eventually break away from Sasha when they plan to send her to the main roster, like they did with Summer, and continue to repeat the cycle with new girls. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. NXT gains new viewers after every live special, so these storylines look new to them too, and they're equally as effective.
 
#7 ·
Re: NXT Women's Division is Pro Wrestling Storytelling at it's finest

I love a good story :russo. This is awesome. Kudos to you for putting it all together. Yes, Alexa Bliss should be worked into the storyline somehow because she's being wasted as a jobber. I don't think Becky's working at all. She went from a river dancing gimmick to a rocker gimmick, now an awkward lackey. They need to reevaluate their long term goals for her, because right now I only see her as enhancement talent.

Prior to the injury, Bayley was overexposed and doing nothing of note but taking up TV time just to job or defend Charlotte. That did nothing for Charlotte and just made Bayley look out of place. She needs to go back to being her own woman, and they need to start building Alexa as a top babyface and Carmella as a top heel.

Carmella's got her character down already and she's a VERY fast learner in regards to wrestling, but she's also out of place with Enzo and Big Cass. She'd be excellent as a heel and a much better fit as Sasha's lackey than Becky. She can then eventually break away from Sasha when they plan to send her to the main roster, like they did with Summer, and continue to repeat the cycle with new girls. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. NXT gains new viewers after every live special, so these storylines look new to them too, and they're equally as effective.
Personally, I don't ever see Carmella becoming the top heel. IMO, it will be Sasha for a while, and then probably Becky after that. I disagree with it not working for Becky. They are trying to build her up, and after a while I'm guessing they'll separate her from Sasha.

I do think they should build up Bliss though. She has a ton of potential, and with Charlotte making the jump soon they could certainly use another legitimate face to go along with Bayley.
 
#10 ·
Re: NXT Women's Division is Pro Wrestling Storytelling at it's finest

Thanks for tagging me. I agree bro. There is no better creative team and management than the NXT one. That's mainly Paul Levesque. His ok is making these stories. His specially chosen writer, his development team.
 
#12 ·
I really think that if WWE's creative were smart then they'd replicate this formula or continue it on the main roster because this is the kind of layered story and character development Raw needs. Especially for the divas division if the Total Divas producers and Kevin Dunn would allow it.

This whole cycle allowed us to see these girls grow and evolve as characters as well as let us see how good in the ring they were.

Accomplishes a lot more than half baked title feuds slapped together and 6 diva tags.
 
#13 ·
Most storylines on the main roster do the same, for example:

Heel Seth Rollins of the current story goes all the way back to his debut, at least up to Triple H screwing Daniel Bryan at Summerslam 2013.

Most main event storylines are a continuation of Triple H screwing Daniel Bryan, which started The Authority storyline we're currently in(Guaranteed The Authority is going to return)

The Authority & Daniel Bryan is the responsible for the modern stories, The Authority is responsible for:

-Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins going solo/The Shield no longer in existence.

-Rollins being a heel(To join The Authority),

-Rollins being holder of the Money in The Bank Contract(because of The Authority's help)

-Brock Lesnar being the champion(Because The Authority wanted him as champion)

-John Cena vs Brock Lesnar III at Royal Rumble 2015(The Authority made the Orton/Cena match at HIAC 2014 for the #1 Contendership)
 
#16 ·
The NXT Women's Division is a prime example of simple honest to god pure wrestling storytelling, the business at it's best really.

I wish the girls could get to stay down there forever.
 
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#17 ·
Take out Charlotte/Banks right now. The whole thing is Bayley apparently isn't good enough to best banks in the ring and Charlotte has to do it for her. The problem is is that Bayley is doing all charlotte's mic work and carry the face side of the feud, when she's not actually in it. It's horribly done and very Cena esque.
 
#26 · (Edited)
Ok I was starting to get a little frustrated since the NXT women's division thus far Because I view the entire division as one big arc due to the developments mentioned above and because one of the things helping it is the revolving door of supporting players. alongside that....What the hell are they doing with Alexa Bliss?

However after finding the new events that are going to unfold I'll let it slide since:

Apparently in the next set of episodes all the divas are going to get so hungry for that belt they all are going to turn on each other and Suprisingly outside of maybe Becky(even she's a minor constant), it's all been brewing from being the longest running constant in this chain reaction/snowball storytelling being used here in NXT.

So it makes sense to me now.

They still need to come up with something for Bliss besides letting her get pulverized by Sasha.
 
#27 ·
Alexa Bliss isn't doing anything because she's green and not ready to be doing the longer matches the main four women can do.

She will get her spotlight probably in the second half of 2015. Remember, Sasha was a jobber for her first year on the card, as was Bayley.
 
#28 ·
Well Bliss has been having impressive showing at the house shows if you ask the correspondents and fans that go there so I don't see why that would hold her back.

Hell, Charlotte was green when she came in last year and they still pushed her as she gradually improved through it all.
 
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