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MAE YOUNG CLASSIC FINAL DISCUSSION


Phil Schneider

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It was a good finishing stretch and that elbow is unbelievable.  Kairi was receiving a lot of love from a crowd that I'm not even sure if they had watched the MYC but it is doing well streaming numbers. She's already on her way.  She's going to be a big deal.  Baszler is solid but still a little rough around the edges.  

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Fantastic match. Shocked as shit they put Sane over and didn't go for the Rousey angle. Shayna looked like a killer though.

It is funny that we all were convinced Shayna had to win because it was all about setting up an angle and they go ahead and had a pure sports match where the plucky babyface went over. We all worked ourselves into a shoot.

About as perfect as it could have gone. Amazing that they're giving mega pushes to two joshi wrestlers.

Ross was terrible on commentary and apparently Vince isn't dead because Hunter and Steph were more concerned with this than their pop getting brain damage 30 minutes prior.

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Before the tournament, I wanted Kairi to win, and I ***umed she would.

Once I started watching the tournament, I figured Shayna would win.

By the end of the match tonight, I'd kinda come around on Baszler winning, and felt the slightest tinge of disappointment that she didn't, even though I was still happy Sane did.

Can't ask for much more that that. :)

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I thought both women were great in this. Kairi is about the most likeable underdog there is, and Shayna is a great bully with skills to back it up. The crowd was about 5% into the entrances, and they had  just about everybody by the finish. Great selling by Shayna too with the rib injury that did her in.  Piper Niven being at ringside hopefully means they're going to sign her.

I almost forgot about Kairi's dead eye look right before she countered the choke. She had me on that I was like shit that's it.

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Baszler rules. That's been the larger message of this tournament, at least for me. She's like the closest WWE will ever get to BattlArts and I'm so there for it. I don't know who said it- either someone on here or one of the SC reviews- but the fact that she's using a sleeper hold as the new DDT/Diamond Cutter/RKO is fucking magical. Good match.

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I was also irked by "rear naked sleeper". How on earth could anyone think that's an improvement over just calling it a sleeper. (Aside from being much funnier.)

Back on the positive side of things, I really enjoyed Kairi hitting one desperation move to the ribs and then pressing that advantage the whole rest of the match, right up to the end when she landed the elbow to the midsection.

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Decent match and I thought both women looked great. Shayna is going to be really awesome in a few years. And Kairi, if booked right, should be the next big face in the women's division. Just super likeable.

Hoping Piper, Candice, Mercedes, and Toni are signed. 

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Good stuff from both and an excellent end to a super enjoyable tournament. Great moment for Kairi to get the win, this always felt like her star vehicle. Loved the big fight feel all throughout. Definitely hope a lot of signings come from this eventually.

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After seeing 5 Kairi wins, I've certainly seen enough for now. She brought essentially the same structure to every match, and blew off everything for her near identical comebacks. I left nearly every match more impressed by her opponent. Killer performance from Shayna though. 

http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2017/09/mae-young-classic-final.html

Edited by EricR
Didn't see Phil just posted basically the same thing
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There will be no Kairi slander in this thread. 

Great match. Kairi is going to be a megastar and now I'm bummed out we'll never get a Kairi/Asuka program in NXT, imagine the visual of Asuka being dethroned by the tiny underdog with the crazy elbow drop. Damn it. 

If the four from the MYC pictured in the crowd have been signed then they picked the right ones.

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They did as well as possible working within the limitations of time and the audience. I thought it was excellent with the two focusing on a body part that emphasized the awesomeness of The Elbow. Kairi is the best at selling beyond just getting the physical pain across but also dragging the viewers into rooting for her by way of her indomitable passion etched on her face (so fucking great at emoting). Sure, she may have dropped the elbow selling at the end but that's what WWE mega babyfaces do unfortunately. Look at how Bryan sold in his matches prior to his ascension up the card and compare it to his late '13/early '14 comeback selling. It was more Ultimate Warrior inspired than anything resembling his selling prior to that. I'm not a die hard Stardom fan (my sub to Stardom World goes long stretches without use) but I was always impressed with how Hojo never dropped her selling when she'd get her comebacks. I think only Sami Zayn can rival her in terms of selling but her body language is far more compelling in my opinion. Her matches come off as epic struggles to the death. I jumped out of my chair when she hit her elbow. I thought for sure they'd use the tournament to build up the Survivor Series tag, but I'm so glad they didn't overshadow the tournament with that. Excellent booking, awesome babyface gets the big win and they have their next NXT superstar just as Asuka gets the call-up.

I've been a fan of Shayna since she left UFC and started working her way around the indies. She's a top notch grappler (in the ring, less so in the octagon) and very smart in the ring. I really enjoy her subdued form of selling, almost a complete contrast to Kairi's, and it suits her character perfectly. Her strikes are somethings she defo needs to work on but she's got a great platform to build on. Most importantly, she's got the presence down, which is probably the hardest part to nail and something almost every Performance Center entrant just couldn't get as of yet. As for people criticizing her hype because of her MMA record, MMA fighters laugh at Minoru Suzuki getting dominated in sparring by local kids at gyms when he was in the US and Suzuki's MMA record in legitimate competition is downright awful, but he's seen as a real-life killer. Baszler isn't Minoru Suzuki but I think the situations are not completely unrelated. If you continue to build her as a dangerous woman and she keeps on improving, it'll work. Her strikes need immediate improvement though because they kind of deflate her aura as a bully. 

Overall, the tournament was a bit of a let down in overall quality but as they weeded out the inexperienced wrestlers they wanted to introduce us to and got talented woman vs. talented woman, things naturally picked up. I would think Piper, Jazzy, and Storm get signed but there's no rush because they need to further establish the likes of Dakota Kai, Nixon Newell, Abbey, Lacey Evans, Bianca and the list goes on and on. If it were up to me, I'd shitcan 205 Live and replace it with a pre-taped women's show filmed at Fullsail or some other intimate location. They have too many women and it seems like each show tops out at 2 female programs running simultaneously. 

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I don't remember where I sawr it, but there was an interview with American MMA fighters and they laughed at Japanese guys, Suzuki included, getting dominated by people off the streets. I wish I knew where it was from.

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Thought it was a good match and finale to the tournament. That was the best Shayna match and performance I have seen so far. Glad Kairi not only won but had so much support. I was really worried at how the larger audience would take the finals in general, but they were into it all by the end. Was neat seeing the GLOW girls, Toni, & Piper all there.

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58 minutes ago, Oyaji said:

I don't remember where I sawr it, but there was an interview with American MMA fighters and they laughed at Japanese guys, Suzuki included, getting dominated by people off the streets. I wish I knew where it was from.

Hmmm... I can believe that Suzuki would have trouble with grapplers we've never heard of, but "people off the streets" seems like a stretch.

The one person I've heard comment on Suzuki's real life grappling skills is Josh Barnett (Baszler's coach, so this isn't as off-topic as it seems), who says they are "top notch". Now granted, Barnett is a worker and has a vested interest in talking up catch wrestlers. But would he really describe someone as "top notch" when they're getting handled by untrained nobodies?

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