The Captain of Team Kick turns up the intensity against NXT Women's Champion Shayna Baszler in a non-title match. Video courtesy of the award-winning WWE Network.

NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler emerged victorious from her non-title match against familiar foe Dakota Kai, but that doesn’t exactly mean everything went according to plan for The Queen of Spades.

For one, the formally doe-eyed Kai demonstrated more grit and aggression than Baszler bargained for. Although the champion reminded Kai of their past showdowns by cruelly wrenching Kai’s arm, The Captain of Team Kick fired back with a bristling assortment of kicks, at one point repeatedly booting Baszler square in the face. Even after Baszler ripped her off the top turnbuckle with a gut-wrench superplex, Kai unleashed one final burst of strikes until Baszler shrewdly tripped her and sank in the Kirifuda Clutch to force the tapout.

Baszler’s second surprise of the night came after the match when she, Marina Shafir and Jessamyn Duke began circling Kai. Before they could inflict further damage on the Kiwi Superstar, Io Shirai rushed the ring to save her friend and send the trio packing, with Duke and Shafir barely pulling The Queen of Spades out of the way of Shirai’s faster-than-a-speeding-bullet Meteora.