Asuka vs Nikki Cross (NXT, 6-28-2017)

NXT, Winter Park, FL

This is a request via Ko-fi. This is Last Woman Standing for Asuka’s NXT championship.

Cross sits menacingly in the corner as Asuka makes her usual entrance. Asuka stares her down, confident as always. Asuka bounces around as referee Drake Younger raises the title belt high, Cross stays in the corner. Bell sounds, Cross slowly gets to her feet.

C&E to start, aggressively and quickly broken. Another one, same result. Cross misses a clothesline, Asuka misses a spinning kick. C&E again. Cross drives Asuka into the corner and drives her shoulder into Asuka’s midsection. Asuka turns it around and throws some punches, then the combination kicks. Cross reverses a whip, crossbody to Asuka, and then slams her head into the mat. Asuka comes back with a running dropkick to the head.

Cross to the floor, Asuka baseball slides, and Cross lifts the ring skirt to trap Asuka and unload on her, just mauling away at Asuka. Cross looks under the ring and finds a couple steel chairs. Six, to be exact, as we go to a break.

Back from the break, Cross is going for a suplex onto the pile of chairs. Asuka blocks and looks to do it herself, Cross blocks and sends Asuka crashing into the ring steps. Asuka takes a quick count, but Nikki knows it’s not there yet. Another whip to the steps, and this time it’s reversed by Asuka. Cross down for a count of five. Asuka slamming Cross’ head off the steps repeatedly. Forearm to the back, and then back into the ring. Well, Cross into the ring. Asuka goes under the ring and finds a trash can. “ECDub” chant briefly.

Asuka puts the can over Cross’ head and kicks the shit out of it, denting the can. Asuka makes sure the can is secure on Cross, then climbs up and hits a missile dropkick. Cross down, count reaches eight. Asuka back in with knee strikes and a kick to the spine. Asuka back outside, looking under the ring again. She tosses three chairs in, before Cross comes over and stops her from tossing in a fourth, shoving Asuka back into the barrier with help from the chair. Cross off the apron, meets a knee to the mush and she’s down again.

Asuka throws a fourth chair into the ring, then kicks Cross a few more times. Back to the apron for both, and Cross tries to fight, but she’s caught with some forearms, before ducking a shot and hitting an inverted DDT on the apron. It’s the hardest part of the ring. Count on Asuka reaches five before Asuka stumbles to her feet and back into the corner, now both inside the ring again.

Cross hammering away in the corner. Cross to the top turnbuckle, but gets bieled off into a bunch of chairs, then Cross makes it up and hits a back suplex onto the chairs. Both down. “This is awesome” chant comes out of nowhere, otherwise crowd not making a ton of noise for this one yet. Both back up, opposite sides of the ring, Asuka pulling herself up with the ropes, and then they both collapse back down as we go to another break.

We’re back and the chairs are gone from the ring like dissolving corpses leaving no loot on Dragon Age: Inquisition. Hey, have you ever been talking to Cullen in Haven, at his spot near Cassandra outside the gates, and a couple of Inquisition soldiers are training, and their fucking heads disappear? That’s wild.

Asuka with a series of kicks to the chest. Cross blocks a spinning backfist and slams Asuka down, but Asuka shakes it off in anger, Cross daring to challenge her. That’s where Asuka is really at her best. Fisherman neckbreaker from Cross, and Asuka is down. Cross yelling at Asuka to get up. Count reaches five, she hits another fisherman neckbreaker, and then a third. And a fourth. Asuka reeling, obviously, and down with Cross on her feet and letting the count go this time.

Cross now to the floor, wants “my championship,” and comes back in with the title belt. Asuka up at nine, and catches Cross running in for a belt shot with a high kick. Now it’s Cross down. Spinning back kick from Asuka, Cross down again. Cross barely beats the count, but comes up with a grin on her face.

Asuka on the apron now, looking to suplex Cross to the floor and that pile of chairs that Nikki made earlier. Cross saps the neck of Asuka over the top rope, then slides through and goes for a power bomb onto the chairs — and she hits it! Drake Younger checking on Asuka before he starts the count, kind of unfair, really. Nikki lost a few precious seconds on the count there due to Younger’s obvious bias.

Count reaches nine before Asuka gets up. Cross can’t believe it, and she’s so furious that she’s crying. Mauro starts yelling about bushido like a goof. Now they’re up on the ramp, and Asuka goes for a German suplex off the ramp, then an attempt at a Northern lights. Cross keeps blocking, turns it around, but gets knocked off the ramp, and Asuka flies off with a hip attack. Cross down, but up at seven, stumbling around.

The fight reaches the commentary position. Asuka kicks a light by accident and goes down, her leg in pain. Cross now has a big opening. Cross picks Asuka up suplex style, places her feet over the guardrail, and hits a big spinning neckbreaker to the floor. Asuka gets up at nine, Cross again nearly in tears, before her rage takes over once more.

Asuka with a spinning backfist, Cross stumbles away, but when she does, she finds a ladder and hits Asuka in the stomach with it. Asuka down again, but Cross knows that’s not enough so she picks her up and smacks Asuka’s head off of a table. And now she drags the table over in front of the raised commentary stage. Asuka’s head smacked off that table again.

Cross sets up the ladder by the table, then goes back over to Asuka. Cross looks up at the ladder, smiling, and places Asuka on the table. Forearms from Cross to Asuka’s head. Another smile, and Cross is confident she has Asuka beaten, starting to climb the ladder. Asuka gets up, grabs the foot, and rolls off the table. But they’re both climbing now. Cross up top first, but Asuka gets the leverage underneath her and suplexes Cross off through the commentary desk! The crowd, of course, comes alive and chants “holy shit” for a moment.

Both women down in the shattered remains of the commentary desk. Younger’s count is on. Asuka stirring first, and she’s up at nine, barely, while Cross, though she’s laughing still, can’t make it to her feet. Asuka retains her title and stays unbeaten.

Rating: 3.5/5. I debated between 3.5 and 4 and came to the conclusion that I can “only” go to 3.5 — it’s a very good match, but falls a bit short of great, despite the killer finishing spot, and the obvious chemistry between the two. I need to be clear that 3.5/5 is not a rating of disappointment for me, it essentially means “I enjoyed this a lot.” But as for what keeps it a bit short of great for me, a big part of it is that the Full Sail crowd was obviously suffering some fatigue or the like, because they were largely quiet throughout the match save for the bigger weapons spots. That took some zip out of the rest of the match. Even Cross’ series of great fisherman neckbreakers got no actual reaction from the audience. But that doesn’t take anything away from the women themselves, who put in a great effort here. I’m also not huge on Last Man/Woman Standing matches in WWE in particular, but this was good enough to overcome that — it beats the more bloated HHH-Michaels LMS, for instance, or at least it does to my memory, which could be faulty.