WWE NXT Halloween Havoc 2026 | Match Review | Izzi Dame def. Zaria (Non-Title Match)
A woman dressed as a princess stood in the crowd and, for reasons that become slightly less ridiculous with context, someone held a saxophone. In the ring, Zaria looked increasingly furious. Across from her, Izzi Dame appeared to be having the time of her life.
This was WWE NXT Halloween Havoc, where the usual rules of professional wrestling had been temporarily suspended in favour of something resembling a particularly vindictive school reunion.
Dame had spent weeks digging through Zaria’s childhood, uncovering photographs of the supposedly terrifying powerhouse playing musical instruments, singing, dancing and appearing in theatrical productions. The revelation, apparently, was that Zaria hadn’t always been the intimidating, physically imposing woman currently holding the NXT Women’s North American Championship.
She had once been a child.
Quite the scandal.
The central accusation was that Zaria’s present-day identity was fraudulent, that beneath the dark clothing, muscular physique and general desire to throw people through furniture was a sweet little girl who once played Glinda in Wicked. Dame believed this was sufficient evidence to dismantle the entire personality of a grown woman.
It’s an unusual psychological strategy. Most people change considerably between childhood and adulthood. Some take up running. Others get tattoos. A few become professional wrestlers who can launch another human being halfway across a ring.
Izzi Dame Has Discovered That Being Horrible Is Quite Effective
The interesting development here isn’t necessarily Dame’s campaign of psychological warfare, although turning childhood photographs into weapons of mass humiliation deserves some recognition. It’s the way WWE has quietly reversed the audience’s relationship with both women.
Zaria hasn’t suddenly become a particularly pleasant person. Her previous attitude towards Sol Ruca, her former tag team partner, hardly suggested someone desperate to make friends. The champion’s increasingly cold approach to relationships, built around the familiar wrestling philosophy of having no friends and only wanting gold, was hardly designed to generate sympathy.
Yet Dame has managed to make her sympathetic without Zaria doing much.
It’s a clever little trick.
Wrestling audiences will happily cheer someone who behaves appallingly, provided there’s another person behaving even worse. Dame has effectively bullied Zaria into becoming the protagonist of her own story, not by exposing some terrible secret, but by treating ordinary childhood experiences as evidence of moral weakness.
The implication is that Zaria’s strength is somehow less legitimate because she once enjoyed playing the saxophone.
Which is nonsense, obviously.
But Dame understands that the accusation itself matters less than the reaction it produces. She doesn’t need the audience to believe Zaria is pretending. She needs Zaria to become so consumed by proving otherwise that she forgets she’s supposed to be wrestling.
For Halloween Havoc, Dame even descended inside a giant Glinda-inspired bubble, a wonderfully obnoxious entrance that demonstrated just how thoroughly she’d committed to the role.
Zaria Decides That Violence Is a Reasonable Response
Dame continued her little performance after the bell, prancing around and mocking Zaria, who initially appeared to be attempting something resembling restraint.
It didn’t last.
Zaria eventually charged, sending Dame scrambling around ringside before catching her and beginning the sort of punishment that makes you question the wisdom of antagonising someone considerably stronger than yourself.
There was aggressive ground-and-pound, repeated Irish whips into the corner and some particularly satisfying boots to Dame’s head. Zaria caught one of Dame’s kicks and imposed herself physically, following up with a choke in the corner.
Dame had spent weeks suggesting that Zaria wasn’t really a monster.
Zaria appeared determined to provide a practical demonstration.
A magnificent fallaway slam followed, with Dame launched across the ring in a display of strength that deserved considerably more attention than anything involving a childhood photograph.
It was excellent.
There was also the matter of Zaria’s Halloween attire. Usually associated with red, she’d opted for a striking green variation that brought DC Comics’ Poison Ivy to mind. Not an outright costume, and certainly not a wholesale reinvention, but a nice seasonal adjustment that complemented her imposing presence.
In theory, the green gear should have been the most interesting thing about Zaria’s appearance.
Unfortunately, there was still a saxophonist waiting to become involved.
Izzi Dame Is More Than a Woman With an Embarrassing Photo Album
For all the silliness surrounding the rivalry, the actual wrestling was considerably better than the storyline might have suggested.
Dame eventually interrupted Zaria’s dominance with a heavy kick to the midsection, before trapping the champion upside down in the tree of woe and driving into her with a spear-like attack.
It was a useful reminder that Dame isn’t simply a theatrical nuisance who has discovered the internet and developed an unhealthy interest in someone’s school photographs.
She can wrestle.
Her offence became increasingly impressive as the match progressed. There were substantial lariats, a powerful chokeslam and a leaping lungblower that punished Zaria’s attempted moonsault.
The chokeslam was particularly good, a move that helped Dame look capable of matching the champion’s physicality rather than merely surviving it.
The contrast was becoming increasingly clear.
When Zaria concentrated on wrestling, she was the more dangerous competitor. When Dame could get inside her head, the balance shifted.
It’s hardly groundbreaking psychology, but it worked because both women committed to it.
Dame wasn’t merely waiting for distractions to rescue her. She was delivering meaningful offence, absorbing punishment and finding opportunities to counter Zaria’s strength.
That matters, particularly when WWE is trying to establish her as a credible future championship challenger.
You can only spend so long waving photographs around before somebody expects you to win a wrestling match.
The Saxophone Player Makes Their Move. Sort Of.
Zaria eventually found another gear, cutting through Dame with a tremendous spear that appeared to restore the natural order.
The champion was back in control, and Dame looked increasingly vulnerable to the sort of decisive finish that had seemed inevitable before the opening bell.
Then the TitanTron became involved.
Images from Zaria’s past appeared on the screen, including reminders of her relationship with Sol Ruca, while a collection of strangely dressed figures emerged as part of Dame’s elaborate distraction.
There were princesses, toy soldiers and, yes, the saxophone player.
They didn’t attack Zaria. They didn’t physically interfere. They were simply there, standing around in costumes and apparently representing a series of childhood memories that Zaria would rather forget.
And somehow, this was enough to disrupt a woman who had spent much of the match throwing Dame around.
The Sol Ruca imagery at least offered something more substantial. Zaria’s relationship with her former partner represents a genuine emotional complication, a reminder of someone she once trusted before adopting her current solitary outlook.
There’s a story there about rejection, regret and whether Zaria’s intimidating persona has become a defence mechanism.
The saxophone is slightly harder to justify.
Nevertheless, Zaria hesitated while attempting to hoist Dame into position for an F5, allowing her opponent to escape and secure an inside cradle.
One.
Two.
Not quite.
Dame followed with a tremendous Gorey Bomb, another convincing piece of offence that almost delivered the victory.
Again, Zaria survived.
In fact, she responded with another spear, suggesting that Dame’s elaborate psychological campaign was still struggling to overcome the simple reality that her opponent was extremely difficult to put away.
For a moment, it looked as though all the costumes, photographs and theatrical nonsense might amount to nothing.
Which, considering the amount of preparation involved, would have been quite funny.
The Championship Belt Becomes an Administrative Problem
The finish was appropriately chaotic.
Dame introduced Zaria’s NXT Women’s North American Championship into the ring, intending to use it as a weapon. The referee intervened, attempting to prevent the inevitable disqualification.
During the confusion, the belt ended up on the canvas.
Zaria, already furious and apparently incapable of making a calm decision while Dame remained within shouting distance, grabbed the championship herself.
The referee tried to stop her.
Dame saw the opportunity.
A sharp head kick connected with the championship belt as Zaria held it, driving the metal plate into the champion’s face and sending her crashing to the mat.
One.
Two.
Three.
Izzi Dame had beaten Zaria.
Not cleanly, obviously. That would have required the match to operate under a more conventional understanding of sporting competition.
Instead, WWE had constructed a finish that simultaneously gave Dame a significant victory, protected Zaria’s physical credibility and preserved the championship because the match was non-title.
Quite an efficient piece of wrestling bureaucracy, even if the referee’s handling of the belt was a little clumsy.
Dame retreated with the satisfaction of someone who had successfully orchestrated an elaborate practical joke and somehow received a professional achievement for it.
The championship was next, she promised.
And why wouldn’t it be?
She’d just beaten the champion.
The Problem With Winning a Match That Wasn’t for the Title
There is, however, something faintly ridiculous about Dame having deliberately rejected an immediate championship opportunity to pursue this psychological campaign.
Wrestling has always required its villains to make questionable decisions, but turning down the chance to win a title because you’d rather embarrass somebody with photographs of them playing Glinda is quite a commitment.
To be fair, Dame’s strategy has produced results.
She has established that Zaria can be manipulated, shown she can compete physically with the champion, and secured a pinfall victory without risking a failed title challenge.
From that perspective, it’s difficult to argue with the outcome.
But the execution occasionally threatened to undermine the more interesting character work.
The childhood revelations are amusing precisely because they’re so ordinary. The notion that a professional wrestler’s credibility might collapse because she once participated in a school play is wonderfully absurd, but the joke only goes so far.
The Sol Ruca material offers a potentially richer direction.
Why has Zaria become so hostile to friendship? Is her current identity an authentic expression of who she has become, or a deliberate attempt to distance herself from previous relationships?
And, more importantly, why does Dame’s opinion matter so much to her?
Those are the questions worth exploring.
Not whether she can still play the saxophone.
Zaria Might Be Better Off Embracing Her Past
What makes this rivalry interesting is that Zaria’s apparent weakness isn’t actually weakness at all.
Her childhood doesn’t contradict her present identity. It simply shows she lived a life before becoming a professional wrestler.
Most people have.
The real vulnerability is her inability to accept that Dame knows anything about her, or that someone might use those memories to embarrass her.
Dame has recognised this and exploited it beautifully.
There’s something rather satisfying about watching a physically dominant heel become an increasingly sympathetic figure without undergoing the traditional personality transplant that usually accompanies a babyface turn.
Zaria hasn’t become nicer.
Someone has simply become nastier.
And Halloween Havoc gave both women enough to carry this feud forward. Dame has a victory, Zaria has a legitimate grievance, and WWE has a championship match waiting whenever it decides that enough psychological damage has been inflicted.
A steel cage would be an interesting eventual destination, although there’s no guarantee that keeping Dame physically contained would prevent another photograph from appearing on a screen somewhere.
Perhaps the next revelation will be that Zaria once won a school spelling competition.
Or enjoyed baking.
At this point, nothing would surprise me.
For all its peculiarities, this was an entertaining match with strong physical exchanges and a surprisingly effective reversal of the traditional hero-villain dynamic. Dame’s performance deserves credit, particularly for making such an eccentric premise work as well as it did.
Zaria remains the more intimidating wrestler. Dame has become the more dangerous opponent.
There’s a difference.
And if WWE can resist turning the entire feud into an extended investigation of Zaria’s extracurricular activities, there’s something genuinely compelling developing beneath the costumes.
The champion still has her gold, but Dame has found a way into her head. That’s the real result of Halloween Havoc, regardless of what the official record says.
