When WWE officially announced the brackets for the Women's Tag Team Championship tournament, it featured two very notable names that few expected to see in a RAW or SmackDown ring.

No, it wasn't Sasha Banks and Naomi; while that would have broken the internet and garnered an incredibly animated reaction, the duo have seriously failed to return to the show despite reports suggesting that could be imminent. Instead, Triple H decided to shake things up in a different way and commit one of the four spots on the SmackDown side of the bracket to Zoey Stark and Nikkita Lyons – a team so new they don't even have a name.

Seriously, whether due to Lyons' new-ness or Stark's torn MCL/Meniscus injury that kept her out of action for over nine months, the makeshift duo have shared the ring for a match exactly once, where they were both participants in the NXT Women's Title #1 Contendership Battle Royal back in July. While Shawn Michaels could have offered up one of his brand's pre-made tag teams for the tournament, with Toxic Attraction suddenly on the hunt for new belts, the decision to pair up two of the top female talents on the multi-colored brand as a sort of NXT highlight reel could prove incredibly valuable both for the two in-ring performers and for NXT 2.0 the show, as it could bring a few more eyes each week to the USA Network.

Fortunately, if the goal is to make Lyons look like a future star, Paul “Triple H” Levesque and company picked the right partner for the job, as during her in-ring absence, Stark actually worked as a producer for the company, as she detailed to Corey Graves on his After the Bell podcast as dictated by of The Wrestling Observer.

“I knew I was going to come back and I knew producing was going to help me inside the ring. When you coach somebody, two people are learning. And I'm learning at the same time because now I'm really having to think about it. It's amazing to be able to do both sides and then you get a different side, and like ‘Oh, this is what producers have to go through, I had no idea.'”

“People kind of want to go off and do their own thing and it throws off the producer, it throws off the camera guys, it throws off everyone. You have to be in full communication with everyone, we're all a team in this so you can't just go rogue and do your own thing. We need to help each other, we all have the same goal, we all want to have a great match, we all want to tell a story.”

Yup, if the goal of adding an NXT match to the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship Tournament is to bring a few extra eyes to the weekly show in the hopes of making the brand a viable developmental territory worthy of weekly watching from RAW and SmackDown fans, it's clear the company selected the right duo for the job.

Nikkita Lyons and Zoey Stark are up for the job of representing NXT in WWE.

Can Nikkita Lyons and Zoey Stark actually hang in the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship Tournament? Or will they struggle to overcome the tag team Natalya and Sonya Deville, even if the latter could clearly eat a pin without it affecting her standing as an in-ring performer? Fortunately, McKenzie Mitchell, the co-host of The Bump and a backstage interviewer on NXT, got the scoop from the only non RAW/SmackDown team in the tournament to decide the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship, and their answer did not disappoint.

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“This is the biggest opportunity of my career,” said Lyons. “I don’t have a lot of experience in tag teams, but Zoey is a former NXT tag team champion, and I cannot think of a better partner.”

“Look at Nikkita; she is a beast, said Stark. While I’ve been rehabbing, I’ve been watching her, and she’s really become one of the top women in NXT. And in this tournament, everyone on RAW and SmackDown will see just that.” Lyons agreed, telling Mitchell that, “right now, Zoey and I are on different tracks in NXT, but this is an opportunity of a lifetime.”

“Here’s the way I see it,” Stark surmised. “We have an advantage; we are the unknown team, and after we win those tag team titles, everyone on RAW and SmackDown will know exactly who we are.

Spoken like a team with nothing to really lose and only things to gain by having a strong showing in the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship Tournament.