Wednesday’s NXT TakeOver: Respect was the site of two firsts: for the first time, two women competed in an Iron Man match, and for the first time, two women closed the show at a WWE special event. It was not the first time, however, that women proved their abilities to a sport (and a company) that for too long refused to view them as the complete athletes and performers they are, making them sideshow attractions and obligations, cheerleaders and ring girls, while the men scored the heavyweight roles. It’s no longer that way, it seems.
Forgive me if I’m getting a little carried away, but Sasha Banks and Bayley do that to me.
Banks and Bayley’s match, for the NXT Women’s Championship, was the tenth Iron Man match in WWE history, a 30-minute battle of wills with the winner scoring the most pin-falls, submissions, and count-outs in the time allotted. (30 minutes, for reference, feels like more time than women have been given in whole month’s worth of Raw. When Trish Stratus and Lita main-evented WWE’s flagship show in 2004—the first two women to do so—the match clocked in at just under 10 minutes.) I took the show’s titular “Respect” cheekily, but NXT—of course—meant it with all sincerity. “Respect must be earned before it is given,” a voice declared over the evening’s opening montage, echoing a point made several times in the last few weeks: Banks and Bayley had earned this showdown. The crowd concurred: You de-serve it, they chanted as the segment opened.
The Iron Man contest was a rematch: the women had tangled in August at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn, where long-suffering babyface Bayley took the title off The Boss. That night, emotion roiled below—and sometimes on—the surface: the result of Bayley’s long, unlikely journey to the top; the audience’s knowledge of Banks’s impending departure to more televised pastures (she was already appearing regularly on Raw); and the return of Becky Lynch and Charlotte, the other members of NXT’s “Four Horsewomen,” who stormed the ring post-match to celebrate an incredible night for women’s wrestling.
But, that night in Brooklyn, Banks and Bayley’s match was followed by Finn Bálor and Kevin Owens competing for the NXT (Men’s) Championship. NXT’s promotional machine assured us that the women were the “co-main event”—but the women’s match was penultimate, the men went last—and as every single person on this green earth knows, there’s no such thing as a co-main event. On Wednesday, finally, there was no doubt about the marquee. “Ever since TakeOver [Brooklyn], the only thing I’ve been hearing is how me and you stole the show,” Banks said to Bayley a few weeks ago, and she’s probably hearing the same about Wednesday’s events. But you can’t steal what you already own. TakeOver: Respect belonged to the two women from the start.
Of course, there was no men’s title match on Wednesday: champ Finn Bálor was busy competing in the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic. If he hadn’t been—if Bálor had been scheduled to take on Owens or anyone else for the title—I believe NXT would still have given the women the top billing. Coming off their epic theft in Brooklyn, any other card would have been an obvious atrocity. But we won’t see Banks v. Bayley again until Bayley gets the call-up to the main roster, so it will take another storyline, another rivalry, before we get the historic first of women headlining over the men at NXT. (Don’t worry: the men can co-main event.)
Blame it on the buzzy high still lingering from Wednesday’s match, but I believe that occurrence is a matter of when, not if. NXT has been roundly and rightly praised for dedicating screen time and thoughtful storytelling to its female competitors, and the organization easily could have rested on those laurels. Instead, we got an Iron Man match and a main event—and it wasn’t the only women’s match on the card. Recent Japanese arrival Asuka destroyed the nasally, weasel-y Dana Brooke in a great, fast-paced, endlessly entertaining match earlier in the night. The NXT women’s division has a midcard, for crying out loud. The NXT women’s division has jobbers.
And the NXT women’s division has stars. Women’s wrestling! The chants began before the competitors entered the arena, and started up again once Banks and Bayley arrived in the ring. This is awesome! shouted the crowd, before the women had locked anything but eyes. And then the match began, an intricate, echoing contest which is far better watched than read about, so let’s be brief in recapping: Banks scored the first pin off a delightfully heelish sequence: taking Bayley’s handshake only to hurl her to the mat; blocking the referee’s view as she drove her thumb into Bayley’s eye. (And this was before she yelled at a little girl, stole her headband, and made her cry. Watch out, Seth Rollins: Banks is the best bad guy on the roster.)
Bayley earned a point of her own before Banks retaliated with a count-out, preening with her stolen headband while Bayley failed to make it back from a beating outside the ring. But Bayley tied the game with a stolen roll-up and won—as we knew she would, as she had to—with a hard-fought submission maneuver in the match’s final seconds. Iron Woman, the crowd had chanted, as the clock snuck under five minutes, and that’s what Banks and Bayley were, without a doubt: iron women, powerful and shining, soaked in sweat and near tears.