NXT has my heart this week. If all of the matches at Wrestlemania had the build of Sol Ruca vs Zaria, or the sheer fun factor of Tatum vs Blake, maybe the ticket prices would’ve seemed less outrageous. Let’s get into the show.

Early on, we see Blake hanging out with the Vanity Project, while she prepares herself for her casket match against Tatum Paxley. Jackson Drake matches with a “hot blonde” on Tinder and Blake gives the boys permission to go have fun, assuring them she has the match handled.

Later we see Shiloh with Tatum, where he lets her know that she doesn’t have to worry about interference during her match, since he set up Jackson’s date as a red herring. Why do I feel like we never do fun stuff like this on the main roster?

Periodically throughout the show, we cut to Jackson’s “date” and all of these segments are hilarious. He ends up thinking he got stood up, then leaves the bar where he went to meet his date on the arm of an absolutely jacked rando who lets him know she’s a mortician’s assistant? I loved every second of this nonsense.

Worth mentioning is a vignette we saw for an upcoming NXT debut. Rayne Leverkusen! Now to be known under the ring name, Lizzy Rain, she gives a quick promo to let us know what she’s all about (the metal!), and announces that she’ll be making her NXT debut next week!

I’m unbelievably excited about this. I’ve been a huge fan of Rayne for awhile now, and I think she’ll be a great fit for NXT. She’s truly larger than life, and her in-ring ability and charisma will take her far.

I also like the name Lizzy Rain for her (although I do think it sounds a bit too close to Izzy Dame. I wouldn’t want to call a match between these two). I can’t wait to see what she brings to the table. New arrivals are always an event, and fresh, exciting faces are going to be much needed with callups anticipated now that Mania season is officially over.

Now on to the matches!

First up, we have an absolutely spectacular casket match between Tatum and Blake. The match starts off hot, with an almost immediate attempt by Tatum to get Blake into the casket. Blake jumps out with an “Oh, hell no!” and the match rolls on.

This match was just as campy as I hoped it would be, with all the hokey weapons these ladies could get their hands on, including a bouquet of roses, Tatum’s giant doll house, a fire extinguisher, and a bunch of diamonds stuffed into a casket pillow.

Blake even tries to hit Tatum with the fake title belt she’s been carrying around. Unfortunately, this happened during a commercial break, which I thought was a bit of a misstep, since the belt ending up in the casket comes back into play in a crucial moment near the end of the match.

There were so many creative moments in this match, I’m going to have a hard time covering them all. Blake and Tatum really do make for great opponents against one another. The moments they spend trying to out-crazy one another are just so much fun.

They embody the campy, fun side of wrestling that sparked my interest in WWE from the beginning. Part of where modern storylines seem to fail for me is that they try so hard for sincerity, it just ends up feeling forced. Wrestling should be fun, and this match was like popcorn to watch.

At one point, after fighting on the apron, both ladies fall into the casket at the same time and the lid slams shut, before they both rise up out of it cackling at one another.

Soon after, they battle on top of the casket, and Tatum makes the interesting and appropriately insane decision to hit Spanish fly onto the floor. Blake is the first up, and she blasts Tatum with a fire extinguisher followed by Glamour Shot DDT and another attempt at the casket.

She gets Tatum in and slams the lid shut, and that’s it! Or at least that seems to be the case for a moment. At the last possible second, Tatum jammed the fake title belt under the casket lid, and when Blake realizes what’s happened, she gets into the ring and tries to pull the title belt out from where it keeps the casket lid from fully closing. She drags Tatum along behind it, and both ladies are back in the ring.

We get a “Tatum’s gonna kill you” chant from the audience, which I thought was a nice touch, before Blake starts hitting Tatum with the fake belt, leaving some nasty welts behind. She pours the bag of diamonds out over the ring and goes for a second Glamour Shot, before Tatum reverses it into Cemetery Drive onto the diamonds, and hits a beautiful kick to send Blake off the apron and into the casket.

Tatum flings the fake belt into the casket after Blake for a bit of extra showmanship and slams the lid shut, sending Blake back to hell. And still!

This match is an incredible one. I can see myself coming back to it as a comfort rewatch. Just everything you could want, and more fun by leagues than anything at Mania.

That would be all the fun we get tonight, however, because our next match is all business. The time has finally come for Zaria and Sol to put their feud to rest in a match I’ve been anticipating and dreading in equal parts for a while now.

Last Woman Standing feels like an appropriate escalation from their match at Stand and Deliver. At S&D, it felt a bit like Zaria in particular was holding back.

For me, this felt plausible enough in-story, because at this point, Zaria hadn’t truly turned heel. She still had the moral high-ground, and, on some level, still cared for Sol, so much so that Sol mirroring Zaria’s own actions from the top of the ladder at last year’s S&D caused her to hesitate, costing her in that matchup.

This match felt different from the get-go, with Zaria being the one to surprise Sol by not entering from the ramp, but rather sneaking up from behind to get the jump on her.

Sol really brought more violence to this match than I expected from her, at one point beating Zaria with a kendo stick in a way that felt almost excessive. I’m one hundred percent sure now that these two are friends in real life, because I have it on good authority that kendo sticks are seriously painful to get hit by, and Sol was not holding back, a theme which would hold true as we get into the deep waters of this bout.

Sol really dominates early on, but the match becomes more of a back and forth as it continues. The two fight into the audience at one point, before scuffling along the barricade to come to a stop by the announce desk where Zaria hits F5 off the barricade, smashing the desk to splinters.

Sol is somehow able to break the ten-count, getting to her feet while Zaria retrieves a table. Sol hits Zaria with a suplex on the floor and looks up to the top of the perch overlooking the ring, giving us a hint of things to come. They scuffle some more and Zaria sets up another table. Sol recovers from being slammed into the ring post, and hits spear (wow, she’s got some nerve), sending the two women through a sheet of plywood that makes up the perch.

Both break the ten-count once more, and Sol beats Zaria down with a panel from the announce desk and lays her out across the tables. She climbs up to the perch, presumably to hit an aerial move onto Zaria where she lays on the tables. By the time she gets up top and looks over the edge, however, Zaria is gone. Like freaking Michael Meyers.

Zaria appears behind Sol, looking absolutely terrifying, and she goes for a strike that misses, almost sending her over the edge. Sol hits Sol Snatcher (I honestly couldn’t tell off of what, the camera angle wasn’t great), but Zaria is able to make it to her feet.

The two exchange insanely painful looking strikes with one another, before Zaria almost falls from the perch. But Sol catches her arm to save her.

Zaria’s whole demeanor shifts here. She looks like she’s going to cry, pleading with Sol not to let her fall. She says she’s sorry. She says she loves Sol. And Sol does what she didn’t do at Stand and Deliver last year, and has mercy on her friend, pulling her back from the brink. Zaria cries and the two hug. This moment felt so genuine and emotional, I felt my heart breaking with theirs. For a moment, it’s like the bad blood between them was never there, and ZaRuca is fine again.

Then Zaria’s face changes. Her eyes go wide, and she huffs and snarls, and Sol only has a moment to register the shift before Zaria pushes her, sending her freefalling fifteen feet to the floor through the tables.

Or should I say table? She was certainly supposed to go through both, but she goes through the near one while her head visibly clips the second without breaking it. Nasty business, really hoping she’s ok. One camera angle shows her head bleeding, so we’ll see if she ends up missing time from this.

This moment is Zaria’s becoming. This is the moment where she shows us, not even who she was meant to be when she arrived at NXT, but the person she can be when she’s been driven to hate. I think it speaks volumes in terms of her potential as a character. This is what NXT was built for; to bring out the best in young stars, and make them the most incredible version of themselves, and that was done beautifully here.

Sol will leave NXT now. I doubt we’ll see her back again, even for some parting words.

And Zaria will stay behind, where we’ll get to know this new side of her. This side of her that doesn’t hesitate. This side that doesn’t love or show mercy. This Zaria the Destroyer.

This event outshone Wrestlemania for me in more ways then one. The storytelling was intentional, with great payoff. The matches were given the time they needed to breathe. As always with NXT, I absolutely can’t wait to see what happens next.

That’s all for now, but well be back at you with more real soon. So long until then!