Anna Jay/Ruby/Statlander vs Nyla/Diamanté/Emi

Superstar Entrance

Just a note on the entrances, because they can be telling. The team of Nyla Rose, Diamanté & Emi Sakura all come out to Nyla’s music (even though it’s YouTube but whatever). Nyla’s got some Venom-themed gear with some pretty cool details on it. Good job Kel. Then Anna Jay comes out. Besides her Dark Order-themed music, Anna’s tron and gear make her look more like her original incarnation “The Star of the Show”. Then Ruby Soho to a nice “PAHP” from the crowd. Ruby has a nice tribute to Pride Month across her back. AND THEN… This is why Ruby Soho is such a pro… Ruby pretty much hits the pre-hype rolodex of gestures in 7.9 seconds to hype up Kris Statlander who enters last. And Statlander comes off as a “YUGE PAHP”, coming off as a huge star in the moment. Mission accomplished. Let’s go home.

warming to emi

Actually not yet, we’ve got a match to do. Ruby gets the better of Diamanté early, who tags in Emi Sakura. Ruby casually tags in Statlander. Stat & Emi get into a really good stiff chop battle leading to some high speed, high impact offence from Statlander. Then it becomes Anna Jay verses Emi. I actually have always been pretty lukewarm on Emi but this was the match that turned me into a fan. Emi grabs Anna in a suplex position and then s-l-o-w-l-y rakes her nails across Anna’s back before setting her up for beautiful double-underhooked spinning back breaker. Great stuff!

Then Nyla gets in the ring and one-ups Emi with the “nails offence” by seemingly driving her fingers up Anna Jay’s nostrils.

Nyla even hits Anna with an even harder hitting spinning backbreaker. Anna gets a chance to flaunt her world-class emoting after she gets knocked out of the ring. With Diamanté the legal woman, Nyla & Emi approach Anna on the outside. Nyla says into the camera “She’s down bad! We’re just gonna help her up!” and then precedes to batter Anna with cross face forearms while utilizing the same “nostril hold” while Anna Jay screams in pain. Anna is rolled back into the ring to be picked apart by Diamanté.

One minor objection to this match: Anna finds herself closer to her own corner than her opponent’s and while she could easily make a tag, she runs to the enemy corner to give Sakura a face breaker, setting up a double hot-tag tease. I’m probably making it sound more aggregeos than it was. Like I said, “minor”.

ruby vs the refs

Ruby Soho continues her ref-adjacent storytelling (somewhat) when she gets the hot tag but Bryce Remsburg doesn’t see it and physically holds Ruby back. I’m not sure if this is a continuation of what happened with Referee Stephon Smith on Elevation or not. Likely just a fixture of this match.

Anna does eventually get the hot tag to Ruby who lays in some heavy forearms on Nyla, which actually impressed me how effective these came off because my one criticism of Ruby’s offence is sometimes it looks “too safe” but these looked stiff! Ruby tags in Statlander who does what would normally look like a routine crossbody but Statlander’s size and ability to launch herself off the top rope just gives me visions of Mike Awesome. A lot of the fans bought this as the finish. Stat then lands a high hard kick and uses Nyla’s wobbliness to attempt a side suplex but Nyla quickly says no to that and chokeslams Kris.

Then, easily the spot of the match: Nyla & Emi put Statlander on a platter for Diamanté to hit a running (perfect) Code Red. Both heels go to take out Kris’ partners to protect the pinfall but while Emi successfully takes out Anna Jay, Ruby pulls the rope down causing Nyla Rose to go ass-over-teakettle, allowing her to bring the pin. Awesome sequence. Whoever drew this up, bravo.

A bit of a game of elimination then as Emi gets thrown out of the ring by Ruby who gets knocked between the ropes and out by Nyla who takes a flying forearm from Anna Jay and falls to the floor with a thud that caught the sympathy of the crowd. The legal woman for her side, Diamanté then takes out Anna Jay and turns her attention to the legal woman for her side, Kris Statlander. Diamanté goes for a Standing Sliced Bread but the powerful Kris Statlander stops the move mid-motion and turns it into the Friday Night Fever (formerly known as Big Bang Theory) for the win.