This shouldn’t really need much of an introduction, right? If you’re confused about what this is, consult the picture below. If you’re still confused, after looking at the picture, go back and read the title again. Past that, I can’t help you. I’ve got Brinley Reece to watch.

Arianna Grace defeats Brinley Reece (WWE NXT, 10/17/23)

Brinley Reece debuts as a surprise injury replacement for Jakara Jackson in the NXT Breakout Women’s Tournament, or Women’s Breakout Tournament, or however the graphic is meant to be read. Everything about this is the most basic of basics, up to and including Brinley’s inset promo. Brinley has the split-second hesitation of a new driver as she goes for moves. She’s visibly THINKING about being in position, and while she’s never OUT of position, you can still tell that she’s thinking about it, instead of just doing it.

Elektra Lopez defeats Brinley Reece (WWE NXT Level Up, 11/28/23)

In her promo before the match, Brinley mentions her history as a cheerleader. She’s done other things, too, but it’s the cheer experience that seems like it would be the most interesting point of intersection with pro wrestling. You can see some of it in her ring entrance: she goes to pump up the crowd, flexing and posing and spinning on her heel as she enters the ring, and she seems completely at home with it. It’s something that doesn’t come through in her backstage interview (where it looks like she’s either reading from cue cards, or trying too hard to remember her lines). She’s got the right idea with signature moves designed to get noise out of the fans, like doing squats with her opponent on her shoulders, or doing push-ups while holding someone in a hammerlock.

Roxanne Perez defeats Brinley Reece (WWE NXT Level Up, 12/12/23)

There’s this thing that Brinley does a couple times in this match that stood out to me. She and Roxanne run though one of their things, Brinley takes a bump, and then when she gets up, she does a slow turn-around before facing Roxanne again, like a truck maneuvering though a left turn at an intersection. It makes me wonder if that’s something they teach in the Performance Center. Get up and reset, first thing make sure you know where your opponent is, something like that.

Izzi Dame & Kiana James defeat Brinley Reece & Kiyah Saint (WWE NXT Level Up, 1/2/24)

Another thing I wonder about is what the backstage meetings were like about random-seeming matches in the middle of an episode of NXT Level Up. Do they talk about what story they’re trying to tell? Do they approach wrestling with the same kind of narrative-above-all budget-cinephile approach that’s come to define wrestling criticism in the last couple years? Do they have a vision worthy of being analyzed and broken down, every last little move both judged for the verisimilitude of its fake fighting and also interpreted as live theater? Or do they just get told the finish and go out there and do some shit?

WWE NXT Women’s Title #1 Contender Battle Royal (WWE NXT, 1/16/24)

I mean, Brinley lasted longer in this than I thought she would, I guess, but watching this made me feel like I was in one of those fake meme posts people do where they’re like “I told my girlfriend to name these Pokemon!” and the girlfriend supposedly labeled Geodude as “Rock Fister” or something. This is just a bunch of women who might as well all be named Rock Fister. It’s three or four women, each of whom has been cloned multiple times over, and one of whom is the clone of the clone who ends up a moron, like in Multiplicity.

Izzi Dame & Kiana James defeat Brinley Reece & Kelani Jordan (WWE NXT Level Up, 1/23/24)

It’s not a good sign that six matches in, I’m struggling to come up with more stuff to say. In an ideal world, I’d be able to come up with something insightful or mildly thought-provoking about the wrestling matches of Brinley Reece. In the real world, the one in which I wrote this and you’re reading it, I’ve already fallen into the trap of claiming to be writing about some piece of media, and instead just writing about myself. I I I me me me. Does anyone actually like that kind of criticism? Should I put the word “criticism” in scare quotes when it’s mostly just using the work in question as a prop in pursuit of the real goal, which is talking about myself to an audience that may or may not exist? Me me me me me me.

Karmen Petrovic defeats Brinley Reece (WWE NXT Level Up, 2/6/24)

The truth is that this whole thing was a bit that I didn’t think about enough before committing to it. Some of these matches, I’ve watched several times now, over the course of several abortive attempts to write The Complete & Accurate Brinley Reece. The stopping block is always when I get tangled up in: “Why?” Like, why would anyone write something like that? Who would even read it? Is there a point to watching NXT Level Up at all, let alone in reading about someone else’s thoughts about watching it? You might as well read a review of a bowl of Crispix. What’s the person going to write about that? “Didn’t get too soggy before I was done eating it.”

Kiana James defeats Brinley Reece (WWE NXT, 2/13/24)

I mean, I could just write down the stuff that happens in the matches and then slap a star rating on it. The catch with that is that star ratings are a consumer guide. They’re shorthand for “seek this out and watch it, but skip that other thing unless you really want to.” Let’s be real. If I said that Kiana James vs. Brinley Reece from NXT in February 2024 was a five-star match, would you go look for it and watch it? Why have you even read this far? Is it because you’re interested in Brinley Reece’s wrestling matches?

Sol Ruca defeats Brinley Reece (WWE NXT, 3/19/24)

There’s not enough narrative meat running through these very, very short matches to write something in that vein, either. Brinley Reece is a character who, by and large, lacks a storyline. Sometimes a vignette will set up a match, sure, but Kiana James bullying Brinley Reece is more about establishing Kiana James’ character than anything else.

Tatum Paxley defeats Brinley Reece (WWE NXT Level Up, 4/2/24)

Another approach would be to chart Brinley’s progress as a performer. That one is stifled, too. Usually that sort of thing works best if a wrestler is traveling around, making towns, doing foreign tours, facing a true variety of opponents and figuring out what works and what doesn’t. The Performance Center is a closed loop. NJPW sends the young boys on excursion for a reason.

Jaida Parker defeats Brinley Reece (WWE NXT, 4/9/24)

All of that isn’t to say that Brinley Reece doesn’t improve as a pro wrestler as time goes on. She’s not a hopeless case like, I don’t know, Canek Jr., who’s been doing it for decades and yet still seems like every match is his first-ever. It’s just that we’re seeing her improve within the narrow band of a five-minute WWE NXT match. I’m honestly just not sure that anyone reading this would find that interesting, any more so than they would find five-minute WWE NXT matches interesting to begin with.

Brinley Reece & Layla Diggs defeat Carlee Bright & Kendal Grey (WWE NXT Level Up, 5/7/24)

I think a big thing here is that without any matches that are conversation starters unto themselves, what use is any analysis at all? These matches exist as raw data, but can that data actually be put to any good use?

Jaida Parker defeats Brinley Reece (WWE NXT, 5/14/24)

It’s like, is there anyone out there still watching… I don’t know, Johnny Polo or Scotty the Body matches for any reason other than to compare them to Scott Levy’s later work as Raven? It’s great that there’s a record of these matches that can be kept alive for however many years, in case Brinley Reece ends up figuring out how to channel her charisma and become a genuine star. Even then, watching Jaida Parker vs. Brinley Reece would only be worthwhile as a comparison point, or a deep dive to look for glimmers of future greatness after the fact.

Wendy Choo defeats Brinley Reece (WWE NXT, 6/11/24)

Let’s start (fourteen matches in) by identifying what Brinley Reece can do well. Like I said, she’s charismatic. She’s got visible size and strength over a lot of the other NXT women. She can do cool front-facing cartwheel things. I’m sure there’s a name for it, but I don’t know it. Between the neon colors on her ring gear, the obvious fitness and stature, and the pumping-up-the-crowd work, you could probably get some kind of Ultimate Femme Warrior thing going. She doesn’t have Warrior’s white-nostriled intensity, and the more I watch of Brinley Reece, the more I wish she did. It might be the big piece that’s missing, the bridge between her character’s current hyperactive positivity and the maniac dimension inhabited by WWE’s greats.

Izzi Dame defeats Brinley Reece (WWE NXT, 7/2/24)

Eight months later, Brinley’s improved. She’s faster on her feet. Not having to visibly think as much about where she needs to be, just getting herself there. She’s learning how to do it, but I wonder if she’s actually getting BETTER at it, if you grasp my meaning. Case in point: look at this match with Izzi Dame. Doing the match at all is valuable experience, but how much can a wrestler actually LEARN from it, beyond just treating it as a drill for muscle memory?

Jacy Jayne defeats Brinley Reece (WWE Main Event, 7/22/24)

Another example is this match, Brinley Reece’s main roster debut against fellow NXT person Jacy Jayne. It’s a wrestling match in the mighty Performance Center manner, that checks all the boxes that they’re probably told to check if they want to do things “correctly.” I just watched this match and all I can tell you about it is that Brinley worked on Jacy’s arm for five or ten seconds, and Jacy did a screaming arms-out pose something like one million times. I’m sure that they both worked very very hard to get to this point, but the end result is basically a can of Pepsi. Lots of thought and effort went into coming up with the formula, building the factory, designing the can, trucking it to the store, all that, but the experience you get as the culmination of all of that is drinking a can of Pepsi.

Izzi Dame defeats Brinley Reece (WWE NXT, 8/13/24)

Would it be different if WWE did things like a Japanese promotion, where the youngest on their way up are programmed against the oldest on their way down, so that every time a Young Lion faces Yuji Nagata they’re getting a personal tutoring session, whether they like it or not? (Who would even be the Yuji Nagata of WWE women, let alone one willing to wile away their career’s sundown working with Brinley Reece?) Pretty much anything would probably end up paying off better than booking poor young Brinley against Izzi Dame, who might be a very nice person in real life (no idea, don’t get mad at me if it turns out there’s weird shit there), but who also doesn’t seem to show any aptitude at all for being a professional wrestler, other than being tall.

WWE NXT Women’s Title #1 Contendership Gauntlet Eliminator (WWE NXT, 8/20/24)

I guess what I’m waiting for in watching all of this stuff is the moment where I see that Brinley Reece has it figured out. Where she goes from being someone who’s trying to be good at pro wrestling, to someone who’s good at pro wrestling. Granted, there are quite a few wrestlers who have long careers without ever actually getting good, no matter how hard they try. And there are probably just as many who stopped trying somewhere along the way, but found some other ingredient that got and kept them over, like Buff Bagwell.

Brinley Reece defeats Kali Armstrong (WWE NXT Level Up, 9/10/24)

I’ve pretty much run out of things to say and there are still eight matches left. Can you even really say that a match like this exists? Brinley Reece, Kali Armstrong, NXT Level Up? Even the devoted stans of the women’s division don’t repost this stuff.

Rosemary & Wendy Choo defeat Brinley Reece & Karmen Petrovic (WWE NXT, 9/24/24)

It does feel, almost one year on from her NXT debut, that Brinley has been slotted in at a certain level, like the CMLL guys who struggle to climb past second-match-guy status. It doesn’t seem like WWE have Brinley tabbed to be a future star, the way they seem to consider women like Lola Vice or Karmen Petrovic. She’s someone who can be the tag team partner of the babyface who has an actual storyline.

Ash By Elegance defeats Brinley Reece (TNA Impact, 10/2/24)

Maybe Dana Brooke is the theoretical Yuji Nagata I mentioned earlier. This was genuinely the most fun Brinley Reece match that I’ve watched up to this point, because Ash by Elegance isn’t a “serious” wrestler. She’s a cartoony gimmick who stooges around with her Personal Concierge, but who also has years of experience as far as footwork and timing. That’s what Brinley needs if they’re going to keep up this whole Brin-ergy or Brin-Fit or whatever thing. Someone who can put Brinley in a position to look good, both by stooging for her offense and by encouraging her to show more personality and really engage the crowd more, instead of just coloring a match in by numbers.

Brinley Reece & Xia Brookside defeat Carlee Bright & Kendal Grey (TNA Xplosion, 10/3/24)

Maybe the best thing about this whole mini-excursion to TNA is the difference in crowd noise. Watching NXT from 2024, they do something to the crowd noise. It’s not quite piped-in, but it’s definitely sweetened in post-production to the point that it almost sounds like buzzing insects. The TNA crowd audio is more honest (almost certainly not completely honest, but definitely MORE honest). You can hear what’s working and what they react to. And to Brinley’s credit, she looks the most like a genuine superstar out of everyone in this tag team match on some episode of Xplosion. Xia Brookside has the years of experience on her, and it shows, but if you just looked at these four women in a lineup, Brinley would be the one who looks like she should be some kind of wrestling champion.

Ash by Elegance & Heather by Elegance defeat Brinley Reece & Xia Brookside (TNA Countdown to Bound for Glory, 10/26/24)

Maybe what Brinley Reece needs to hit that next level is some kind of Rock ‘n’ Roll Express style tag team. Put her cheer experience to work on the apron, drumming up the crowd while her partner gets beat up and bullied, work things up to a big hot tag where she comes in and flexes her strength and athleticism all over the heels. Or at least find some other woman to be her Jannetty or something like that. C’mon, Shawn. You know about how tag teams get people over. (Naturally, in this TNA match, Brinley was the babyface in peril, and the much smaller Xia Brookside was the hot tag, because Xia is the TNA wrestler who’s sticking around for the storyline.)

Zaria defeats Brinley Reece (WWE NXT, 10/29/24)

Or they could just feed her to the hot new characters they want to get over. Brinley doesn’t even get an on-screen entrance for this one. She does get to show off her double-jointedness, but it’s in the service of making it look like Zaria casually dislocated her elbow as a wrestling move unto itself. It’s a cool idea, but why throw it away here? It’s not like Zaria can go around dislocating all of her opponents’ elbows in every match. Then again, this is also a match introducing a dominant new monster character, and yet Brinley with a just-dislocated elbow still gets a two-count on her at one point. There’s a lot here that I just don’t get.

Ashante Adonis & Karmen Petrovic defeat Brinley Reece & Dion Lennox (WWE NXT, 11/19/24)

So here we are, a year and some change later than where we started out from, and have we learned anything? I wish I could say with any certainty that I did, or that watching all of these matches led to some kind of underlying thread manifesting itself before my eyes, driving me to a great point for this piece to make. I could pitch the ebook to Hybrid Shoot: “Cartwheels to Confidence: Life Lessons from a #BrinActive Journey.”

Brinley Reece defeats Masyn Holiday (WWE EVOLVE, 2/7/25)

Instead, twenty-six matches later, we’re pretty much back where we started. NXT Level Up doesn’t exist anymore, and WWE EVOLVE is totally a different thing, for sure. This time, Brinley Reece is the established roster member facing off against a new person with a preposterous name. Brinley Reece is someone who has potential, but that and five bucks will barely even get you a cup of coffee nowadays, let alone a hot dog and a handshake. Will she actualize her potential and prove herself a breakout star that only this weird bit of writing on Violent People Dot C-O saw coming? Or is it out of her hands? It’s entirely possible that she’ll just never have her number come up, and that her WWE career (maybe even her pro wrestling career, if she never ventures afield) will peak at “warm body filling out the numbers of a Royal Rumble or the ass-end of a brand-split draft.” It’s not up to us. All we can do is watch, and do our best to be complete and accurate about it, even if it doesn’t mean anything in the end.