Kelani Jordan’s face might have been my favourite part.
Jaida Parker was getting the sort of reaction that makes wrestlers stand a little taller. The Performance Center crowd liked her, loudly, and Jordan stood there listening to it with an expression suggesting somebody had just informed her that the woman she disliked most had been given her parking space.
Not anger, exactly.
Disdain.
Which was useful, because this NXT Women’s Championship match immediately felt less like two talented wrestlers politely demonstrating how talented they were and more like two women who had developed a fairly sincere irritation with one another.
I’m a big fan of both.
Parker is tremendously strong, increasingly convincing and carries herself like somebody who has already decided she belongs near the top of NXT.
Jordan is just cool. There are more sophisticated wrestling observations available, presumably, but sometimes that will do.
Put them together and NXT had something good.
Then, naturally, they gave them less than ten minutes.
Why Is the Women’s Championship Match Opening NXT?
Before anything else, this was a slightly strange place for the match.
Jordan had only won the NXT Women’s Championship nine days earlier at Heatwave, making this her first official defence. Parker, meanwhile, arrived having beaten Nattie in a Submission Match at the same event, using the Sharpshooter to force the veteran to submit.
This was not filler.
Yet there it was, opening the September 8 episode of NXT.
Wrestling television has developed a peculiar relationship with opening matches. Being first can supposedly be prestigious because you get the crowd at its freshest, but that explanation sometimes smells faintly of somebody in an office explaining why your desk has been moved next to the toilet.
Still, Parker and Jordan didn’t waste much time wondering about scheduling.
Parker started quickly and even threw in the little shoulder shimmy.
Jordan was having none of it.
The champion’s expressions whenever Parker received another burst of affection from the crowd were excellent. Her character has become considerably more interesting since abandoning the straightforward heroic presentation and embracing the idea that, actually, she might simply be better than everybody and everyone else can deal with it.
This is professional wrestling, so naturally the appropriate method of resolving this philosophical disagreement was hitting one another.
Athleticism With Some Actual Spite
The opening exchanges were frantic.
Both women were jumping around the ring, bouncing off ropes, moving over and around one another and generally behaving as though gravity was more of a recommendation than a physical law.
There was plenty of athleticism.
Importantly, there was also pettiness.
Parker scored an early near-fall and responded with another taunt. Jordan brushed it aside. Then Jordan dumped Parker down and attempted one of Parker’s own signature gestures.
Excellent.
Wrestling needs this sort of thing.
You can execute an elaborate sequence involving three reversals and a springboard, but sometimes pretending to be the person you’re fighting is considerably more insulting.
Booker T described them as fighting with “spice”, which was one way of putting it.
They were wrestling like people who wanted to win but also wanted the other person to know they had lost.
There is a difference.
Jordan started working Parker in the corner with shoulder barges, trying to negate the challenger’s obvious physical advantage. Parker is 5ft 7in and wrestles with the confidence of somebody who knows she can probably move you whether you cooperate or not.
Jordan discovered this when a powerbomb attempt went wrong.
Parker reversed it.
Then she planted Jordan with something carrying more than a little Batista Bomb energy.
That felt significant because this was becoming the basic structure of the match. Jordan could be quicker and more elusive, but whenever Parker managed to catch her, the entire geometry changed.
She became the wrestling equivalent of Mechagodzilla being switched on halfway through the film. Suddenly there was a large mechanical problem in the middle of the room and somebody had to work out how to stop it.
Then there was an advert break.
Of course there was.
Jaida Parker Is Becoming More Than Just Power
When we returned, Parker’s strength increasingly became the problem Jordan needed to solve.
Multiple clotheslines knocked the champion around before Parker started assembling one of the match’s best sequences.
Running Blockbuster.
Falcon Arrow.
Near fall.
The Falcon Arrow in particular looked magnificent, one of those moves where the impact temporarily makes three seconds seem entirely reasonable.
Jordan escaped.
Then Parker went somewhere more interesting.
Rings of Saturn.
This matters.
Parker’s victory over Nattie at Heatwave had already demonstrated that she could operate beyond the straightforward powerhouse template, and here she was again applying a submission hold to the NXT Women’s Champion.
The easy version of Jaida Parker is obvious.
Strong woman hits people very hard.
That works.
But a strong woman who hits people very hard and can suddenly tie somebody into a submission hold is considerably more interesting.
Jordan was in trouble.
Proper trouble.
And this is where the match started getting particularly good because neither wrestler seemed capable of remaining in control for very long.
Jordan countered.
Parker answered.
Jordan escaped again.
It was fast without becoming meaningless.
Kelani Jordan Does Ridiculous Things Very Casually
Jordan eventually created enough separation to remind everyone why she is such an unusual athlete.
A leg drop in the corner started the comeback.
Then came the Asai Moonsault.
Good grief.
Jordan’s gymnastics background has always been obvious, but extremely athletic wrestlers can make matches feel like exhibitions. Here is Move A. Here is Move B. Please admire the rotation.
This didn’t feel like that.
The aerial offence existed because Jordan needed increasingly elaborate ways to escape Parker’s strength.
That made it useful rather than decorative.
She attempted the 450 Splash.
Missed.
Parker suddenly had another opening.
Again.
This match was becoming a succession of very brief disasters for whichever woman happened to be in control.
Jordan’s speed would create an opportunity. Parker’s power would extinguish it. Parker would appear to have Jordan trapped. Jordan’s athleticism would provide an escape hatch.
It was a genuinely enjoyable clash of styles.
And then came the finish.
Wait, Was That It?
Jordan ultimately used the turnbuckle to her advantage, sending Parker into the exposed area before hitting the Split-Legged Moonsault.
One.
Two.
Three.
Jordan retained.
And I found myself looking at the screen thinking: already?
The official match time was 9:50.
That explains some of it.
The finish wasn’t necessarily bad. Jordan exploiting the surroundings fitted this more calculating version of her, especially a champion increasingly willing to do whatever is required rather than merely out-athlete everybody.
But it felt abrupt.
Parker had been building momentum, Jordan had just survived the Rings of Saturn, we’d had the missed 450 and another shift in control, and suddenly the match was finished.
It felt less like the conclusion of a story and more like somebody backstage had noticed the next television segment waiting impatiently.
Perhaps that’s actually complimentary.
I wanted another five minutes.
Both Women Came Out Looking Better
Jordan retained her championship, which was important for a new champion making her first defence.
But Parker might have been the more interesting wrestler coming out of it.
The crowd reaction was significant. She looked powerful without becoming one-dimensional, and the Falcon Arrow into the Rings of Saturn sequence suggested she has considerably more to offer than simply throwing people around.
Jordan, meanwhile, continues to become more entertaining as somebody you’re encouraged to dislike.
Her athletic ability was never really in question.
The expressions, mockery and little pieces of arrogance give all that athleticism a personality.
That matters.
Nobody particularly remembers a perfect moonsault because the wrestler performing it was technically proficient. People remember why they wanted it to land.
Jordan is starting to understand that distinction.
Parker already seems to.
This wasn’t some enormous defining championship epic. It lasted less than ten minutes on weekly television and finished just as it seemed to be finding another gear.
But it was good.
Sometimes that’s enough.
Two extremely athletic wrestlers, increasingly comfortable in their characters and apparently capable of making their offence look unpleasant, were given 590 seconds to make people care.
They did.
Then somebody apparently looked at the clock.
Strength shakes the ropes
Gold escapes before the bell
Ten minutes, too short
