Forever Forward Fridays

Shayna Baszler (c) VS Britt Baker - AIW Women's Championship 5/11/2016

JJZ: Is it just me or are almost all women's matches on the independents 12 minutes and under? I love Baszler. I was hoping to find a 20-25 minute match so I could watch her go to work. But at least I was able to watch this match with Britt Baker. I have become a huge fan of Britt during her AEW run so I'm stoked to watch some of her indy work. Just from the match you can tell Shayna has the experience and Britt isn't yet what she will become. For 10 minutes they did a pretty good job of telling a story in a short window. Being perfectly honest, I did want more from this match but I understand I went into watching it with higher expectations than I should have. Judging it for what it was trying to be I think they accomplished what they planned. A couple of holy shit moments took me by surprise. I always heard about the AIW all women's shows and looking at their roster back then I think there would be a ton of hidden gems on those. Hope you enjoy baby.

CJD: I really appreciated the crash course on commentary of the AIW Women's Championship as it's an area I'm pretty uneducated. Sometimes I refer to matches as 3 Act plays, this was more like 2 Acts. Baszler's beatdown, Britt's comeback. There's nothing wrong with that and what we got was very good. Britt is a terrific babyface, I bought everything she did and rooted for her big time even though I'm a Shayna mark. I always forget Shayna is of mixed German and Chinese ancestry until I look up her Wikipedia. What a fascinating combo! This was a lot of fun, I agree that I'd love to see them go a half hour now, but for where both ladies were at at the time this felt about right.

Forever Forward Fridays

Shayna Baszler (c) VS Rhea Ripley - NXT Women's Championship 12/18/2019

CJD: Sometimes I like diving into matches that have historical significance more  than I care about match quality. This is one of those times. I was trying to avoid WWE since they won't let us give them free publicity on Instagram and they're clearly a terrible company but my options were limited. My opinion of this as a match would fall firmly in the "Good" category. But for Baszler's time on top of NXT's women's division, which I really enjoyed, I thought it was an awesome moment. When she transitioned from pure ass-kicker to boss god with minions doing her bidding, I'm sure some people got sick of it. It wasn't the best. But after a GOAT contender in ASUKA, in a very difficult position, I thought Shayna did a great job as the Ace (or Spade) of the division. Rhea was awesome here as well. I'm glad to have had an excuse to finally sit down to this match because I feel it was a bit lost to time otherwise.

JJZ: I've always wanted to see this. I loved Shanya's second title run. She was such a dominant champion and Rhea is such a believable threat even knowing the little that I do about this feud. I'll agree this match is just good but that doesn't take away the huge feel of it. The urgency that Ripley and Baszler wrestle with in the second half of the match came through the screen. The crowd pop when Rhea grabbed the ref's shirt to prevent her hand going down was awesome. Loved the home stretch. Wish I didn't know who won because everything played out great.