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What's the story?
Last weekend, one of the newest members of the WWE, Candice LeRae, had her independent farewell match at an event for the Bar Wrestling promotion. She would take on her long-time tag team partner Joey Ryan.
In case you didn't know...
LeRae joined an impressive group of signees at NXT this week. Also reporting to the performance center were former IWGP Tag Team Champions War Machine and former IWGP Jr. Tag Team Champion Ricochet.
The heart of the matter
Candice LeRae and Joey Ryan formed the World's Cutest Tag Team in 2013 and remained together up until LeRae's WWE announcement. The duo would even win the Pro Wrestling Guerrilla Tag Team Championships in July 2014 defeating The Young Bucks.
After defeating Ryan in the match, they would hug in the middle of the ring as the crowd cheered LeRae on. Candice would bring in her three nieces and ask the crowd to sing Happy Birthday to Candice's mother.
After the song, Joey Ryan would grab the microphone and talked about how when they started becoming a tag team there really weren't many established intergender teams in professional wrestling.
Ryan would go on to talk about the history of the World's Cutest Tag Team and how it opened up a whole new world of professional wrestling. He would conclude by saying that even though he doesn't watch much professional wrestling, he'll make sure to tune in every time Candice is on and they would hug once more.
You can check out the entire post-match video from Joey Ryan's YouTube account below:
What's next?
The next set of tapings for NXT will occur from Center Stage in Atlanta, Georgia on 1 February. At the time of this writing, it is unknown if any or all of the four new NXT signees will appear on the next round of tapings.
Author's take
That video of Candice's send-off from the indies was great, and thanks to Joey Ryan for sharing that on his YouTube page. They were an immensely entertaining duo in professional wrestling, and hopefully, someday they'll be reunited.
Regarding Candice's future, I cannot wait to see what she does next in NXT. She is going to add a lot to an already stacked women's division down there.
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