{"id":83371,"date":"2021-01-21T17:12:01","date_gmt":"2021-01-21T22:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=83371"},"modified":"2021-01-21T17:12:01","modified_gmt":"2021-01-21T22:12:01","slug":"kicks-off-first-womens-dusty-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/01\/21\/kicks-off-first-womens-dusty-classic\/","title":{"rendered":"WWE NXT Kicks Off First Women\u2019s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WWE Hall of Famer <strong>Beth Phoenix <\/strong>appeared in person at the Capitol Wrestling Center, not only back at the <em>WWE NXT <\/em>announce desk but on hand to introduce the first-ever Dusty Rhodes Women\u2019s Tag Team Classic. It was another step in WWE\u2019s evolution of its women\u2019s division, and in her intro Phoenix pointed out NXT\u2019s integral role in this expansion, launching female Superstars like <strong>Bayley, Sasha Banks, Bianca Belair, Shayna Baszler, Alexa Bliss, Becky Lynch, <\/strong>and <strong>Asuka. <\/strong>The tournament, a stepping stone to the NXT tag team championship, was inaugurated in 2015 to commemorate <strong>Dusty Rhodes,<\/strong> the WWE luminary and NXT producer and trainer. The first iteration of the Classic for the NXT women\u2019s division kicked off with a match between the teams of <strong>Mercedes Martinez <\/strong>and <strong>Toni Storm, <\/strong>and <strong>Kacy Catanzaro <\/strong>and <strong>Kayden Carter. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The fresh-faced Catanzaro and Carter were the underdogs heading into the ring to face the veteran Martinez and Storm. Martinez\u2019s long in-ring history extends beyond WWE to promotions like <strong>SHIMMER<\/strong>and <strong>Ring of Honor<\/strong>, while Storm was the bete noire of <strong>Rhea Ripley <\/strong>in <em>NXT UK<\/em> before bringing the pain across the Atlantic. Unsurprisingly, in the bout\u2019s opening moments Storm dominated, unleashing a clothesline and a basement dropkick on Carter. Both tagged in their respective partners, putting Martinez in play against Catanzaro. Martinez quickly got the better of Catanzaro and unleashed several punishing ploys. Martinez hit Catanzaro with a\u00a0 hard slap to the mat, a headlock which Martinez manipulated into a lift and slams, a kick, and then for good measure Martinez manipulated Catanzaro with the ropes and trapped her in her grasp, hoisting her into an overhead lift and dropping her into a power slam.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Catanzaro &amp; Carter vs. Storm &amp; Martinez \u2013 Women\u2019s Dusty Classic: WWE NXT, Jan. 20, 2021\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/F4JoOl8hBsc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Carter slid in for the save, breaking Martinez\u2019s cover, keeping their team alive. Martinez tagged in Storm, who pummeled Catanzaro into the corner. From there, Storm and Martinez traded tags rapidly to employ a strong and well-choreographed offense. The wind started to change as Martinez placed Catanzaro on the ropes and then took to the ropes herself, setting up an overhead throw. Catanzaro climbed Martinez\u2019s shoulder and manipulated Martinez up and over instead. Martinez hit the mat hard on her lower back, unable to immediately get back on her feet and instead shakily sliding within range of Storm, and tagging her in with trembling hands.<\/p>\n<p>Catanzaro took a breather after her spectacular maneuver, and tagged in Carter. Carter came in fired up, and not only evaded all of Storm\u2019s attempts to get hold of her but delivered blows, kicks, and rolled Storm through to a shoulder\u2019s down cover. Martinez was alive and revitalized enough to crash in on Carter\u2019s cover. Catanzaro woke up, and kicked Martinez, who rolled, inert, out of the ring. Catanzaro added insult to injury, taking the ropes to barrel fly into a splash on Martinez\u2019s prone form as she lay between the apron and the announce desk.<\/p>\n<p>Storm made a last stand for her team, unleashing a headbutt and German suplex on Carter, and locking her into a punishing single crab hold on Carter\u2019s leg, provoking screams of agony through resiliently gritted teeth from her opponent.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Kacy Catanzaro &amp; Kayden Carter told you so: WWE Network Exclusive, Jan. 20, 2021\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uSPobw3nc3I?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Help came for Carter and Catanzaro unexpectedly, in the form of returning NXT women\u2019s champion <strong>Io Shirai. <\/strong>Shirai blocked Martinez\u2019s onslaught, leaving Storm isolated between Catanzaro and Carter.\u00a0 Carter swept Storm\u2019s footing out from under her, while Catanzaro climbed the ropes for a high flying finisher, barrel rolling into a slam on the inert Storm, for a cover that finished the match. It was official: Catanzaro and Carter had their place in WWE women\u2019s history as the victors of the first night of the first Dusty Rhodes women\u2019s tag team classic.<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.\u00a0WWE fan? You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/watch.wwe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WWE Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Looking to talk wrestling, pro football, or any number of sports? Head on over to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/boards\/index.php\" target=\"_self\">LWOS Boards<\/a>\u00a0to engage in conversation with fellow fans!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WWE Hall of Famer Beth Phoenix appeared in person at the Capitol Wrestling Center, not only back at the WWE NXT announce desk but on hand to introduce the first-ever Dusty Rhodes Women\u2019s Tag Team Classic. It was another step in WWE\u2019s evolution of its women\u2019s division, and in her intro Phoenix pointed out NXT\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3715,"featured_media":83377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[317,4,5,3],"tags":[304,2589,5698,612,598],"class_list":["post-83371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-women","category-wwe","category-nxt","category-wwe-universe","tag-io-shirai","tag-kacy-catanzaro","tag-kayden-carter","tag-mercedes-martinez","tag-toni-storm"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3715"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}