January 2022. It might have been a new year but the same old demons were still haunting Dakota Kai. The year 2021 had started off well for Dakota with her winning the inaugural Women's Dusty Cup alongside Raquel Gonzalez. Our Captain even got a chance to finally stand up to archrival Shayna Baszler in a match for the WWE Women's Tag Team Titles as a result of winning the Dusty Cup. But Raquel and Dakota would get screwed out of the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship. Then despite being crowned the first ever NXT Women's Tag Team Champions as a result, they lost those not even an hour later.

The Mae Young Classic. The NXT UK Women's Title Tournament. Losing NXT Women's Title matches. Betraying her best friend Tegan Nox. The Women's Tag Titles. The NXT Women's Tag Titles. Kai's success since 2017 felt lesser than greater. The Dusty Cup could have been the launching pad to success. Instead, the failures of her past were merely piled onto with the glum chain of events that followed NXT Vengeance Day 2021 -- all of which led to her going mad and being haunted by the demons of the mind. When she would effort to fight them, she always succumbed.

Even the Dusty Cup now felt like a hollow victory to her. Her spotting the Dusty Cup trophy backstage during NXT January 11, 2022 was a confrontation filled with bad memories instead of a happy recollection. That confrontation was merely a reflection of her state of mind because over the holidays her demons had convinced her to believe that nothing divides friendship more than success. Her voices convinced her she had to share that "advice" with MSK and Yulisa Leon & Valentina Feroz.

Dakota's "advice" might have been uh well-intended in her own mind. The spat with Leon on NXT January 18, 2022 would even lead to a match later that night and rare victory these days for Kai -- her first since a SmackDown dark match against Cora Jade on November 12, 2021. But Dakota needed to find a way to subdue her demons if she had any championship dreams in her future. And more importantly to find some peace within herself.

Additional Information | Dakota Kai interacted with MSK and the Dusty Cup Trophy on WWE NXT January 11, 2022 at WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. Dakota Kai defeated Yulisa Leon (4:05) on WWE NXT January 18, 2022 at WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida.