WWE NXT: Mia Yim should be the one to dethrone Shayna Baszler

There’s seemingly no end in sight for Shayna Baszler’s title reign, but Mia Yim may be the one best positioned to beat her.

For 218 days and counting, NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler has maintained a vice-like stranglehold over the developmental brand’s distaff division. Despite facing a variety of opponents that seemed over enough to supplant Baszler as the top woman – from Kairi Sane to Bianca Belair – everyone has succumbed to the champ’s deadly Kirifuda Clutch.

After another title retention at NXT TakeOver XXV over Io Shirai, it seems as though the championship will remain around Baszler’s waist for the foreseeable future, primarily due to the lack of credible wrestlers in the division.

However, if anyone has a chance to usurp “The Queen of Spades” as Women’s Champion, one candidate stands out as the best choice: Mia Yim.

While Mia Yim may not immediately jump to the top of most fans’ minds when pondering who could wrest the title away from Baszler, there’s little question that she has received the most beneficial push for such a spot compared to the rest of the women in NXT. Or, at the very least, she’s one of the few female workers down there who requires the least amount of build-up to convince the audience that she can score a decisive win over Baszler.

Outside of losses to Jinny at Royal Rumble Axxess and to Bianca Belair and Baszler on disparate episodes of NXT, Yim has not tasted a televised defeat in 2019, and that impressive on-screen win/loss record lends itself well to her character’s pleas for a title shot.

Of course, it also helps that none of the other women have been presented as legit in-ring threats – either due to lackluster booking, the inexperience of the wrestlers, or a combination of both – and Baszler has already brushed aside the ones who have come across as worthy challengers.

If not Yim, then who? Candice LeRae? Her potential as a top babyface is obvious, but she would need at least a couple months worth of wins to shake off her perpetual sidekick status. Kacy Catanzaro would make for a fun foil to Baszler’s bully heel schtick, but the NXT creative team seems content to keep her in the “plucky underdog” role. Deonna Purrazzo, who would be an interesting opponent for Baszler, has seemingly been relegated to the NXT house show loop. And the other clear-cut choice to win the belt from Baszler, Dakota Kai, is still rehabbing a torn ACL.

But don’t view the shortage of top-flight contenders as an indictment of the argument for Mia Yim; even if all those women were healthy and/or booked properly. The 10-year pro has always gotten high marks for in-ring work (if you can, go and check out her tangos with Rosemary in Impact Wrestling) but she has garnered some momentum over the last few months with her “HBIC” persona.

Still, Yim would have to offer more than some Wu-Tang clan references and a rougher attitude to make a possible feud with Baszler work. Fortunately, these two have plenty of history to work off of. When Yim suffered a right leg injury in December 2017, she credited Baszler and Jessamyn Duke — her roommates and women she referred to as “family” — with helping with her rehab and with aiding in amending her ring style to a more ground-based attack.

Baszler and Yim’s off-screen relationship has been mentioned many times by the NXT announcers, so weaving that tidbit into a larger storyline narrative would be fairly seamless. In fact, it would enhance the already-established on-screen issues between these two.

Since Baszler and the rest of the 3/4’s Horsewomen’s reign of terror began, the NXT bookers have fashioned Yim into something of a locker room leader who stands up for the rest of the women in the division, similarly to they way Gail Kim was portrayed during most of her run in TNA/Impact (perhaps not-so-coincidentally, Yim uses Kim’s Eat Defeat as one of her finishers).

The writers could easily expound on that dynamic if they decided to move forward with a full-fledged Baszler/Yim feud. So long as Yim avoids tweeting problematic barbs towards the champion, the story of Yim knowing Baszler inside and out and that familiarity fostering an absence of fear as she fights to end Baszler’s run atop the division is one that practically tells itself.

Mix that in with Baszler and Yim’s magnetic in-ring chemistry – watch their match from several months ago, their clash in the first Mae Young Classic, or even this one from the indies, if you’re not convinced – and you have the recipe for not only a compelling rivalry between two world-class wrestlers but also a realistic path to Yim winning the NXT Women’s Title.

In fairness, Yim would face some long-term questions about the viability of her championship, mainly due to a scarcity of staunch antagonistic opposition within the women’s ranks. But those are more semantical issues that can be cleaned up with impactful debuts by the likes of Karen Q or Chelsea Green or by simply turning some babyfaces heel, provided the turns are logical.

Getting the title off of Baszler in the near future, however, is a more pressing concern. Her dominance over the rest of the women’s division is starting to reach Triple H “Reign of Terror” levels and if she keeps beating everyone clean, Hunter and the gang could have another Asuka situation, where Baszler relinquishes the title and doesn’t use that equity to build up a new star of the division. With Asuka, you could at least argue that her undefeated streak helped with her marketing on the main roster. They don’t have any excuse when it comes to Baszler.

I’ve said this before, but at age 38, Baszler needs to move up to either RAW or SmackDown Live sooner rather than later. Before that happens, the champ has to put someone over on her way out of Full Sail. Given their history and the current temperature of the NXT women’s division, that person should be Mia Yim.