Booker T said Tatum Paxley’s performance at NXT Vengeance Day was the moment he fully bought into her character and her potential as a main roster talent.
“I didn’t know if this character had any sustainability. I didn’t think it was something that you could actually put on the main roster and people would buy it,” Booker T said on the latest Hall of Fame podcast. “But she finally got me. I finally bought in to what Tatum Paxley has been trying to do for so long.”
Booker T, who calls NXT from ringside, said the turning point came during a specific spot in Paxley’s match against Izzy at Vengeance Day. “When she did the one move where she turned to offense – did the Undertaker almost sit up, but standing up – I said, okay, now she finally got me. I got goosebumps talking about it,” he said.
He praised Paxley for solving a problem that many character-driven wrestlers struggle with: making the gimmick work during the actual match. “When you got a character like that, you got to be able to figure out how to make it translate and make the people really want it,” Booker T said. “It’s like Bray Wyatt. Bray Wyatt had something to make the fans go into that supernatural world that he was living in. And I really feel like Tatum Paxley has figured it out.”
Booker T said what impressed him most was Paxley’s ability to maintain character while delivering strong in-ring work. “Her work was extraordinary. But then being able to incorporate the character at the same time where it was still believable – that’s what professional wrestling truly is,” he said.
Co-host Brad Gilmore connected the praise to a broader point about character work in wrestling. “Sometimes what you see in certain wrestlers, when they have a specific character or gimmick, the gimmick kind of goes away when the bell rings. They don’t always have a way to incorporate it into the match psychologically,” Gilmore said. “It seems as though she has figured out how to incorporate the character in the work itself.”
Booker T agreed. “Being able to carry it in the ring – that’s the only thing that matters. That’s where the rubber meets the road. That’s where you really start paying the bills, inside that square circle,” he said.
He also praised Izzy’s performance in the same match. “Izzy did a great job too. But Tatum really went out there and really became her own,” Booker T said.
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