Tag: Adam Cole

NXT Takeover: WarGames III: Every Match Ranked

So that’s another NXT Takeover in the bag! As always, it was a great show with some fantastic wrestling, but it felt a little weird compared to other Takeovers. The pacing of the show was a bit off, which is probably due to having two WarGames matches so it meant that the two pure wrestling matches in the middle got a little buried. It seemed to me like the crowd was noticeably quieter than usual for the non-WarGames matches, so I think in future, having two of that match on a single show might be a bit much.

That said, the show was still a quality night of wrestling, so let’s not waste any more time and get to talking about it!

5 – Angel Garza def. Isaiah “Swerve” Scott
(Kickoff Show)

Despite the fact I’ve been making an effort to watch NXT TV (almost) every week, both of these are guys who have managed to largely slip under my radar. I know who Isaiah was, but I didn’t know much about his wrestling ability and I didn’t even know what Angel Garza looked like until he showed up to wrestle here.

So as it stands, this was a good first impression for me of both of these guys. Like most people from the Performance Center, I thought they had great chemistry, carried the time they got really well and I felt that if they had the opportunity, then they could’ve carried another 10 minutes or so without breaking much of a sweat. Unfortunately, it was still a pre-show match which meant that it didn’t get the time it needed to be a truly excellent match – hence it’s placement in last – but that shouldn’t take away anything from how enjoyable this was to watch.

4 – Rhea Ripley & Candice LaRae def. Shayna Baszler & Io Shirai & Bianca Belair & Kay Lee Ray
(WarGames)

A lot was going on in this match.

First off, there was Dakota Kai’s sudden insertion into the match and subsequent heel turn, which was great, but also not in some ways. For one thing, the turn itself was really obvious, so obvious in fact, that I convinced myself there’s no way it could happen because it was just too damn obvious. That said, I’m glad to see that Dakota Kai is finally getting a sense of character to her, because until now she’s been a very generic babyface that’s a good wrestler, which is great, but not very interesting compared to the character-filled roster that is the NXT Women’s division and it should help boost Tegan Nox’s stock as a face going forward. My only worry is that being a heel not named Shayna Baszler in the NXT Women’s division right now generally means you’ve got somewhat of a low ceiling for your character because you can’t exactly challenge for the title.

Speaking of character development though, if you had told me earlier this year that Rhea Ripley, a woman who felt so damn natural as a heel would become the coolest and most believable face woman in NXT I never would’ve believed it, but here we are. Since showing up and getting in Baszler’s face, she’s been pretty good as a babyface but this match put that stock through the roof, I found it so easy to root for her throughout this whole thing and her general demeanour gives off these really cool vibes that I can totally get behind.

The match itself was ok. I felt that the earlier segments weren’t carried as well as they probably could’ve and even once the pace built up, it ground to a halt when every woman in the ring had to spend about 5 minutes staring at what Dakota Kai was doing. However, once that was over and done with, it recovered quite nicely, the huge spots weren’t there, but I think that just let the women be a bit more creative with their offence and I absolutely loved the finish.

The multiple high spots just before it were a great way to make things at a fever pitch going into the finish and having Rhea Ripley outsmart the wrestler who has been consistently presented as the most intelligent wrestler in all of WWE was fantastic. I love the way Rhea basically just called Shayna’s bluff and used the handcuffs – something Shayna intended to hamper Rhea – as the key to her victory; it was such a clever finish and only added to what I talked about regarding Rhea’s face persona. When Shayna & Rhea inevitably have their singles feud, I want more of this.

3 – Finn Balor def. Matt Riddle

Wow, Finn Balor’s actually a great heel wrestler, who knew?…hmm? Everyone who ever saw him wrestle in Japan? Oh, well alright then.

This match was pretty much what I expected it to be, it was two high-quality, pure wrestlers doing some high-quality pure wrestling. The match was perhaps a little slow in pace that I would’ve liked, but it served to give everything a greater impact, which I think is quite important to Riddle’s style of offence.

This whole thing was more or less Balor re-establishing himself as the brilliant wrestler that he is, which is something that I think was sorely needed after the problematic time he had on the main roster. In that area, I think it was a success, watching Balor in this match felt refreshing and it felt like he was a new character, unlike the past year or so on Raw & Smackdown where he’s not felt the least bit important.

This won’t go down as one of the greatest one on one matches in Takeover history by any stretch, but this was a match that had a specific goal that it needed to accomplish and that’s exactly what it did.

2 – Pete Dunne def. Killian Dain & Damian Priest
(Winner gets an NXT Championship match at Survivor Series)

Well, this match had a bit of everything.

This match definitely went on a bit of a journey it started out kind of slow (not counting the opening burst of kicks) which I would normally say was a bad thing, but in this case, I think it was necessary. Even though this was only the second match on the show, the crowd were a tad tired following the opening WarGames match and it seemed like this match had been structured with the specific intention of slowly ramping things up in order to bring the crowd back into it and ensure they weren’t dead for the rest of the show. Whether that’s true or not, it’s definitely what happened.

Other than that, this was a really well balanced Triple Threat match, it felt a bit like Dunne was carrying the thing at some points, mostly down to the fact that he was almost one of the two men active in the ring, but both Priest and Dain got ample chances to show their stuff and I’m excited to see more of their stuff going forward, especially Dain.

You could argue that Dian or Priest winning would’ve been better in the long run, since both of them are trying to either establish or re-establish themselves, however in the short term, Pete Dunne vs Adam Cole is 100% the right match for Survivor Series, that match is going to be killer.

1 – Tommaso Ciampa & Keith Lee & Dominick Dijakovic & Kevin Owens def. The Undisputed Era
(WarGames)

The NXT Wargames matches have always had a really nice balance between ridiculous high-spots and a fast pace with a high work rate and this match was a good example of that. This match made sure to not let the pace slow down early on, a feeling that was definitely helped with Ciampa being the first man in the ring and each additional wrestler felt like it only added to the feeling of slowing increasing chaos.

I was worried going into this that Undisputed Era was going to come out of this looking a little weak ahead of Survivor Series if they lost here, however, past-me is an idiot and doesn’t understand how WarGames works. I forgot how much you get the feeling that every wrestler in the match has gone through hell by the time you get to the end, so a loss inside of it doesn’t make anyone look weak in the long-run.

Kevin Owens being the 4th man was such an awesome surprise. I know a lot of people were predicting it, but I didn’t think it was going to happen. This show has been a great look into how people moving across from Raw or Smackdown to NXT is going to really help everyone involved. Not only that, but this has now created a bunch of questions for tomorrow night at Survivor Series, as Kevin Owens is officially a member of Team Raw, so now there’s a whole world of possibilities in terms of what he could do.

The action in the final segment of this match was top-notch, I got the feeling that both teams were trying to go for as high-impact stuff as possible to end things quickly, it added a sense of urgency that was quite lacking from the women’s WarGames match earlier in the night. This made for a fun finish where every member of Undisputed Era went through tables, including, ending with Adam Cole being dropped through two tables off of the top of the cell by Ciampa.

It struck the right balance between spectacle and wrestling, the surprise entrant hit the mark and the action as a whole was really fun to watch the whole way through, that’s about all I could ask for from a match like this.

And that’s it! Those were my thoughts on NXT Takeover: WarGames III! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this review, please let me know what you thought of the show either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo! Finally, make sure to come back tomorrow, where we’ll be capping off this weekend of wrestling with a review of Survivor Series!

WWE Survivor Series 2019: Predictions & Analysis

As the end of the year draws near, WWE brings us another annual Survivor Series, a PPV which – for the last couple of years at least – has always been much better than it has any right to be. This year looks to be no different as there are already several matches on this show which have match of the year potential in my eyes.

Adding NXT to the mix was a stroke of genius as not only did it make TV for this month more exciting, but it finally put stock to everything WWE’s been saying this past couple of months about NXT no longer being “developmental” and being on-par with Raw & Smackdown. In addition to this, they’ve abandoned the idea of every match on the show having to be a brand vs brand match, which means there’s a couple of juicy looking title matches for us to get excited about as well.

All this means that there isn’t really a match on this show where I’m entirely certain about the winner, so let’s dig right into the predictions!

The Viking Raiders vs The New Day vs The Undisputed Era
(Raw vs Smackdown vs NXT)

Straight out of the gate with the exciting matches.

So here we’ve got two teams that have already put on a couple of brilliant matches in NXT with Viking Raiders and Undisputed Era and then you add in one of the most consistently brilliant teams of the past decade in WWE with The New Day, how could you possibly not be excited about this match? These are three teams who know everything there is to know about having great tag team matches, my only real fear here is that there’s a chance it could get it’s time cut a little bit given some of the other matches on this show that are likely to go long.

If The Viking Raiders had won the world cup at Crown Jewel, then I would’ve picked them to continue their winning streak here, but since they now have that loss under their belt, that aura of indestructibility they had has faded a lot, especially when you consider that the Raw Tag Titles are the biggest afterthought in all of WWE right now. This leaves us with The Undisputed Era and The New Day and while I think it’s entirely possible The New Day will notch a win here, I’m going with The Undisputed Era to pick up the victory, as I feel like they have the most to lose here, in addition to the fact that I think this match will open the show, so an NXT win straight out of the gate will go a long way to shaking things up for the rest of the night.

AJ Styles vs Shinsuke Nakamura vs Roderick Strong
(Raw vs Smackdown vs NXT)

Once again, there’s precisely 0% chance this match won’t be great, these are three of the best pure wrestlers in the world right now, even WWE will struggle to mess this one up.

Styles & Nakamura have proved time after time that they can put on solid matches with each other, so you throw in a guy like Roderick Strong, who can easily keep pace with the two of them and wrestle the exact kind of style they can and you’ve got yourself a winning formula. Then there are the standard benefits that a triple threat match provides, with the pace constantly being at a fever pitch, this should essentially be the awesome Cruiserweight Championship triple threat matches we’ve been getting all year, but turned up to eleven.

This is the only match on this show where I feel fairly confident in saying that I don’t think NXT will win. I don’t think that’s any kind of reflection on Strong, but NXT need to take a couple of losses on the night and I think Strong losing this match here will matter the least in the grand scheme of things. In fact, I can honestly say I’m pretty damn confident in picking AJ Styles to win this one. WWE has been extremely high on Styles for a good couple of years now and the past couple of months have shown that enthusiasm isn’t dying down any time soon, so a strong win for the guy here feel like the obvious choice.

Team Raw vs Team Smackdown vs Team NXT
(Women’s 5 on 5 on 5 Elimination Tag)

This is a lot of wrestlers…

The main problem I always have with Survivor Series elimination matches is how inept and weak it makes some of the wrestlers look. For the wrestlers who last in the matches for a long time, it’s great, but for the wrestlers who get eliminated in the first 10 or so minutes, it’s horrible. Generally, the first half of these matches are some very basic chain wrestling, followed by 3 or 4 wrestlers getting pinned to a single signature after about 2 minutes of time in the ring, sometimes not even that. So with 15 wrestlers in the mix instead of just 10, I can only expect this problem to be even worse.

That said, once the early eliminations are out of the way the action tends to pick up quite significantly and I almost always have a lot of fun watching the latter halves of these matches. In addition to this, there’s some great opportunities here to have some really intense confrontations between people we’ve never got a chance to see go at it, like Rhea Ripley & Nikki Cross, or Candice LaRae & Charlotte Flair, or Io Sharai & literally anyone.  The confrontation last night’s Smackdown implied that NXT’s team would be Rhea Ripley, Mia Yim, Candice LaRae, Tegan Nox & Toni Storm, but WWE has only officially announced Ripley as a participant, with the rest “TBD”, which almost certainly means they haven’t made their minds up yet whether they’ll include heels like Io or Belair yet.

This factor does make things a little harder to predict, however, I don’t think Team NXT will win this one regardless since most of them will be beaten down from WarGames the night before, but in a more general sense I think there are people on the other teams that need the wins more right now. As for the other two teams I’m quite torn. Team Smackdown has Sasha Banks who, after losing HER feud to Becky could really do with a win and Nikki Cross, who is being built up a bit more as a singles star. That said, Team Raw has Charlotte Flair, and it’s hard to bet against Charlotte Flair. When you consider this alongside the fact that the tensions between Nikki & Sasha have been played up significantly, I think everything points towards Team Raw coming out on top, most likely with Charlotte & Natalya being the survivors.

Team Raw vs Team Smackdown vs Team NXT
(Men’s 5 on 5 on 5 Elimination Tag)

I mean, if we’re looking at this from a purely kayfabe standpoint, Team Raw should walk this one.

Once again, this is a match that suffers from the WarGames problem, as they can’t announce anyone for Team NXT as there’s a good chance one or more people could get messed up by WarGames. That said, assuming no-one gets injured I’d say that Saturday’s Team Ciampa, with an added Matt Riddle seems like a pretty solid bet to me. In terms of how good I think the match is going to be, you can pretty much just copy/paste what I said about the women’s match, it’ll start off kind of boring, but become really fun by the end.

I’m struggling to determine who I think is going to win this one. My gut says that it’s definitely not going to be Team Raw, but I don’t really have any logic for that, other than they don’t exactly have anything to lose from a business standpoint. Smackdown has only just moved to FOX and I’m sure WWE would like to please FOX by making their show look like it’s better than both of USA’s shows, but at the same time, such a big deal has been made out of NXT invading and showing that they’re just as good as the other two brands that a loss here could be very damaging; and I’m sure WWE wants to do everything they can to make sure their ratings victory over AEW Dynamite on Wednesday isn’t a one-off.

I’m going to go with Team NXT to take this win, but just know that I’m not very confident in that pick at all.

Becky Lynch vs Bayley vs Shayna Baszler
(Raw vs Smackdown vs NXT)

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say this has all the potential in the world to be the match of the year. Let’s take a look at what we’ve got here. We’ve got a woman whose been the biggest star in the whole industry for the past year in Becky Lynch; A fantastic wrestler whose character has recently gotten a new burst of life in Bayley; and one of the best heel wrestlers on the planet right now in Shayna Baszler. This match is going to tear all the houses down.

These three women have dominated their respective brands for the majority of the year so this match really feels like it’s a clash of the titans. I’m expecting tonnes of exciting action all the way through this with all three competitors getting plenty of licks in and hopefully, this will get plenty of time to do it all.

This brings us to the matter of who wins because I can honestly make a pretty solid case for all three women. There’s Bayley, who hasn’t had a big opportunity to show her stuff since turning heel and for the past month, she’s been somewhat undercut by Baszler showing up, so a win here would do her the world of good. Then there’s Baszler, who is currently amidst a long-running streak of dominance that’s become the focal point of every NXT Women’s storyline, so having her lose here would certainly do significant damage to that in the short-term. Finally, there’s Becky Lynch, who’s still the biggest star in WWE, so her winning would be no surprise.

Ultimately, Becky is never going to be damaged by a loss, especially one where she probably won’t take the fall. As much as it’d suck to see Baszler lose, she’s been made out as being such a huge deal on Raw & Smackdown this past month that as long as she gets a strong showing, her losing won’t be the end of the world. Which is why I’m picking Bayley. The fact that Shayna & Becky have been treating her as an afterthought is something that’s been played up a fair bit for this whole build and I think that will be the deciding factor, allowing Bayley to sneak in at the right moment and pick up the win.

Adam Coles(c) vs TBD
(NXT Championship)

This is a fantastic decision.

For the past couple of months, we’ve heard so much from WWE about how NXT is now the equal “3rd brand” but there hasn’t been much but empty words behind it until this point. I’m very glad that Cole didn’t just get shoved in the elimination tag match and more importantly, the NXT title is being treated just as important as the other two world titles, getting it’s own featured match between two of the brand’s top stars.

While Cole could end up facing any of the three men in the triple threat match, I think it’ll probably be Pete Dunne, partly because he’s that perfect mix between someone the fans might’ve heard of, but isn’t an already established wrestler on the main roster like Killian Dain is. On top of that, I think Cole vs Dunne will be a brilliant match, even if it doesn’t get as much time as it would on a Takeover.

That said, I can’t see the title changing hands on this show. Dain & Priest definitely won’t pick up the NXT title anytime soon and while I could see Dunne potentially getting a run with the strap I highly doubt it’ll happen this soon after his mammoth UK Championship reign. Not to mention that WWE has absolutely been pushing Adam Cole & The Undisputed Era as the featured NXT stars of this whole “invasion” angle, so I’m pretty confident in picking Adam Cole for this one.

Brock Lesnar(c) vs Rey Mysterio
(WWE Championship)
(No Holds Barred)

In a strange twist, Survivor Series has become a show where we can consistently expect one thing: great Brock Lesnar matches. His matches against AJ Styles in 2017 and against Daniel Bryan in 2018 were both fantastic lengthy wrestling matches and while his 2016 match against Goldberg wasn’t a clinic it certainly blew us all away. So as we sit here in 2019, Lesnar has a title match against none other than Rey Mysterio, a wrestler who wrestles a similar, small-guy, fast-paced style to Styles & Bryan and has shown absolutely no signs of slowing down with age.

Lesnar always works best when he’s fighting guys significantly smaller than him and they don’t get much smaller than Mysterio, not to mention that these two also worked together a couple of times during Lesnar’s first run in WWE in 2002-2004, so there’s tonnes of potential here for something really great to come out of this.

This is one of the two matches on this show that I’m pretty confident about picking a winner for. While it’s true that Lesnar is no longer the indestructible monster he once was, I don’t see Mysterio picking up the WWE title any time soon. I’ve no idea what the end-game is for Lesnar in this title reign, but the fact remains that he’s still where the money is and it makes sense for him to hold on to this title until at least Wrestlemania. Although I wouldn’t consider it a major shock for Mysterio to win this one, I’m sticking to old reliable and picking Brock Lesnar to retain.

The Fiend Bray Wyatt(c) vs Daniel Bryan
(Universal Championship)

Yes!

I’ve never got much of a chance to talk about it, but one of my favourite matches from this past decade was Daniel Bryan vs Bray Wyatt at Royal Rumble 2014, it was the match that made me realise how brilliant of a wrestler Bray Wyatt really was and I’m so excited that we get to see it again, only this time for a world title and with Bray’s extremely exciting new character and style.

It’s going to be really interesting to see how The Fiend’s style meshes with Bryan’s because on the surface, it doesn’t seem like they should; but if anyone can make it work, it’s the man I constantly herald as the best wrestler in the world today. The main feeling I’ve got from all of The Fiend’s matches so far is that they’re something “different”, sometimes that’s good, sometimes that’s bad, but it’s always a really interesting thing to watch unfold.

That said, as much as I think the match will be great, I’m entirely confident in saying The Fiend Bray Wyatt will walk away as the champion. There’s a chance that this will be a non-finish so the feud can run longer, probably to a TLC match next month, but there isn’t a chance in hell that The Fiend is losing that Universal title anytime soon.

So there you have it! Those are my predictions for Survivor Series 2019, thank you very much for taking the time to read this article, please let me know what you think will happen on Sunday either on Twitter @10ryawoo or in the comments below! Finally, make sure to come back tomorrow for my review of NXT Takeover: WarGames III!

NXT Takeover: WarGames III: Predictions & Analysis

Man, it feels like forever since we’ve had one of these.

Survivor Series has come which, potentially for the last time ever, we’ve got ourselves a classic NXT Takeover! It’s no secret that Takeovers are my favourite wrestling shows in the world right now and while I’m not the biggest fan of WarGames, they’re always chaotic and fun matches, so I’m not going to complain.

The circumstances surrounding this show are a little odd since almost everyone that’s wrestling on this show is also wrestling the next night on Survivor Series, so it does make me wonder if things are going to be played a bit safer, especially when it comes to the WarGames matches.

NOTE: Just a quick bit of admin, but I’m going to have to change the days these predictions get released. Since Smackdown now airs at 1AM on Saturday in the UK, I’m going to push back the Takeover predictions to Fridays and the main roster predictions to Saturday. Hopefully, I’ll still be able to get the Takeover review up on Sunday, but it might move to Tuesday if I don’t have the time.

Still, let’s go ahead and predict the winners!

Damian Priest vs Pete Dunne vs Killian Dain
(Winner faces Adam Cole for the NXT Championship at Survivor Series)

This match is a little bit of an odd one, especially by Takeover standards.

This feud is one that’s had a very simple build by NXT standards, with Dunne & Preist trading victories on Wednesday nights and Dain forcibly inserting himself into situations at every opportunity. I think this whole show suffers from being at the whims of whatever Vince McMahon suddenly decides what he wants for Survivor Series. NXT has always had a feeling that stories were planned out at least a bit in advance, but now what happens at this show has to directly impact whatever Vince wants for Sunday.

That I said, I don’t think there’s any doubt that this will be a great match. The one on one matches that Dunne and Priest have had with each other this month have been great across the board, so adding in a big guy like Dain will only make things more exciting. Dain specifically is someone who spent a couple years on Raw & Smackdown getting no opportunities to anything noteworthy, so I’m hoping this will be when he reminds the fanbase at large that he’s a brilliant wrestler that can keep pace and match quality with NXT’s finest.

If there were no additional stipulation to this match, I would almost certainly pick Dain to win, but with the added twist that the winner of this match gets an NXT title match on Sunday (a twist I’m overjoyed about) things have to be looked at slightly differently. Ultimately, I have to look at it from the perspective of “Who will showcase the best of what NXT has to offer on a big stage?” to which the answer is 100%, Pete Dunne. Damian Priest is a fantastic wrestler, but he still needs time to establish himself as a force in NXT and the Raw & Smackdown fanbase already know Killian Dain and associate him with a jobber-level tag team that never did anything of note. On top of that Cole vs Dunne is a match I’ve desperately wanted for ages so to see it at Survivor Series should be awesome.

Matt Riddle vs Finn Balor

So this is a case of unfortunate circumstances (in this case, Johnny Gargano’s injury) taking something potentially awesome away from us, but in all honestly, I think this has just as much potential behind it.

Even during his initial run in NXT, I felt that Finn Balor never had a truly great match. He had plenty of extremely good ones, don’t get me wrong, but he never had an “above-and-beyond” kind of match that we’ve come to see from NXT in the years since. That said, I think this has all the potential in the world to be that match for Balor.

Riddle has such a unique in-ring style that it always forces his opponents to step up their game to match him, occasionally this results in a match that doesn’t quite click, but with a top-level wrestler like Balor, it should elevate the match into something special. Since the story for this match was built around Balor & Gargano, it’s a little hard to use story reasons to justify either result. Riddle suffers a little in NXT from being someone who can seemingly take loses without having it hurt his stock in any way and I don’t think it would be a good idea to have Balor lose his first big feud since returning, so I’m picking Finn Balor to come away from this one with the win.

Tommaso Ciampa & Keith Lee & Dominick Dijakovic & TBD vs The Undisputed Era
(WarGames)

This match feels really thrown together.

I know that all WarGames matches are a bit like that purely through virtue of the number of people needed in the match, but there’s usually at least some level of storyline cohesion between the participants on the teams. I’m not referring to The Undisputed Era to be clear, because Team Ciampa seems the epitome of “people who didn’t have anything else to do”.

While I’m totally fine with Ciampa gunning for The Undisputed Era at every turn, I do find it a little weird that a lone-wolf character like him is suddenly fine with working with three other guys, none of whom are named Johnny Gargano. Keith Lee backed up Ciampa once for…shits and giggles? So now they’re best friends and Dijakovic is also there for no real reason other than to fill out the numbers. Finally, there’s the mystery 4th man.

There’s plenty of theories going around as to who it could be, but I honestly don’t think it’s going to be any kind of huge shock since Riddle was originally supposed to be in that spot before Gargano got injured so it’s not like there’s some grand plan behind it. The most popular theory right now is that it will be someone from Raw or Smackdown who will turn traitor and join NXT, Kevin Owens being the prime candidate, but I think a twist like that will be on Survivor Series itself, not this show. Looking through the NXT roster, Isaiah “Swerve” Scott seems the most likely candidate, since he’s been in a couple of tag matches with some of the guys on Team Ciampa this past month, but that’s about it.

As for a winner, I don’t know, because this honestly feels like a lose-lose situation to me. At the time of release, NXT’s team for the 5 on 5 on 5 match hasn’t been announced, but I think it’s extremely likely that at the three men currently announced for Team Ciampa will be on it, so either you have UE look weak going into their champion vs champion matches, or have the elimination matches’ team look weak.

Combine that with the fact that the people in this match will have to play it slightly safer than usual so they’re not messed up for Survivor Series the next night and it really seems like this show should’ve been moved to mid-December or something because the current situation hasn’t done anyone any favours. I’m going to go with what fits NXT’s stories best for the time being and say Team Ciampa will win so Ciampa can stake a claim for Cole’s title in the coming months.

Rhea Ripley & Tegan Nox & Candice LaRae & Mia Yim vs Shayna Baszler & Bianca Belair & Io Shirai & Kay Lee Ray
(WarGames)

So you know all of the complaints I made about the men’s WarGames match, pretty much ditto for this.

The difference here is that I have more confidence that this will be a damn good match regardless of the circumstances. This is partly because I think all of the wrestlers involved in this match are brilliant, but also because whenever we get one of these “first-ever” women’s matches the wrestlers involved go all out to make sure it’s something memorable and that goes double for NXT.

Besides this, there’s a much greater sense of story to this match, the Ripley/Baszler feud is one that’s been simmering for a while now and this is a great stepping stone on the path to their eventual one-on-one match. It also works great as the ending point for the Candice/Io feud, after having two excellent matches, this feels like a good way to top it off, especially when you consider that Io’s initial turn happened in a Steel Cage. Admittedly it is a little weird that Io & Belair are teaming Baszler when you consider that they’ve pretty much exclusively been enemies in the past, but I’m slightly more forgiving of that fact here because it serves the greater story well.

I’m torn when it comes to picking a winner, much for the same reasons as I was for the men’s match, except in this instance, I think women from both sides will be in the elimination matches on Sunday. So once again, I’m going to go with what serves NXT’s stories better and say Team Ripley wins this one because otherwise, Ripley doesn’t have much of a claim for a shot at Baszler’s title going forward.

And there you have it! Those are my thoughts on NXT Takeover: Wargames III, thank you very much for taking the time to read this article, let me know what you think is going to happen either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo! Finally, make sure to come back tomorrow for my Survivor Series predictions!

NXT Takeover: Toronto 2019: Every Match Ranked

I feel like we say this every time an NXT Takeover show has finished but holy crap what a show!

As usual, this show did not fail to deliver the goods when it came to its action and once again I came away from it feeling incredibly satisfied and a bit blown away by the fantastic wrestling that was gifted to us last night. Although the show as a whole isn’t in the running for best Takeover ever unlike seemingly the rest of them from this year are, there were still some matches in here which I’d rank among the best to ever take place on a Takeover. Not to mention, even a sub-par Takeover would still be better than most wrestling shows on the planet.

Still, among this heavy competition which matches rose to the top? Let’s discuss it as I rank every match from NXT Takeover: Toronto 2019.

5 – Shayna Baszler(c) def. Mia Yim
(NXT Women’s Championship)

When a match like this happens of a Takeover it’s always a bit difficult to talk about because as much as this match was still great, it wasn’t quite up to the very high standard we’ve come to expect from these shows.

That said, similar to Bianca Belair’s match against Baszler, this was a great showcase for Mia Yim. While I’d been enjoying her work on NXT TV, it wasn’t until now that I felt like I had a good sense of who she was as a wrestler. Baszler did what Baszler does best for a big chunk of this match – being domineering and mean spirited – but for the first time in her title matches, it seemed like there was extra emphasis on Baslzer showing weakness.

After some great moments where Yim took a couple of cheap shots and gave Baszler a taste of her own medicine, Baszler did a brilliant job of playing the victim for a bit. In the end it served both characters well, it showed us that Mia Yim isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty and isn’t going to try and be a pure face if it gets in the way of her goals, while to the contrary it grew the sense of intelligence and strategic mastery of Shayna Baszler, with her taking no time at all to realise her injured arm made the Kirifuda Clutch impractical and seamlessly switched to a brutal looking leg choke.

This might not quite have been as good as we were hoping but it was still a brilliant showcase for Mia Yim and laid the groundwork to further this feud going into the autumn.

4 – The Street Profits(c) def. The Undisputed Era
(NXT Tag Team Championship)

NXT Tag Title matches seem to be the perfect show openers.

Seeing The Street Profits spouting bollocks every week on Raw this past month or so almost made me forget that they’re brilliant wrestlers as well. This matchup was a great contrast of styles between Profits and UE and it made for some great phases in the action as O’Reilly and Fish tried desperately to stop Dawkins and Ford from gaining any kind of momentum, although it was ultimately futile.

As always, this match reached it’s peak once things descended in chaos and everyone started flinging themselves about everywhere. Almost all of the action in the second half of this match perfectly incorporated all four guys in order to create some really fun sequences. I really wasn’t expecting The Street Profits to win, but ultimately I think it’s the right decision, partly because they had much more to lose if they dropped the titles and also it means we won’t be losing them from NXT anytime soon, which is always the best.

3 – Io Shirai def. Candice LeRae

First off, can we just take a second to appreciate how AMAZING Io looked last night?

Admittedly, I wasn’t into this match early on, but around the halfway mark things really picked up. I’m a little salty about the reports saying that the original plan for this match was Io vs Kairi, but that doesn’t take away from how great this match ended up being. I’ve not been over familiar with Candice as a wrestler until now but I can most certainly say I was impressed by this performance.

By the same token, even though I’ve never seen Io’s work as a heel before she joined NXT, it’s obvious from her performance here that she’s an absolute natural at it. One of my main criticisms about Io so far in NXT was her general lack of a persona, but all of those complaints have been totally washed away with this match because everything she did was dripping in personality.

In addition to that, you throw on a match with a lot of fast-paced and impressive looking action (including one of the best looking top rope Spanish Flys I’ve ever seen) and a couple of shocking kick-outs from Candice and this was a brilliant way to get people behind both characters going forward.

2 – Velveteen Dream(c) def. Pete Dunne & Roderick Strong
(North American Championship)

I swear, any other show this would’ve been number 1.

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a triple threat match on a Takeover and it’s generally a type of match that I always find fun to watch even when I don’t particularly care for the participants, so when the idea of such a match where the participants are the best character in NXT, one of the best technical wrestlers in NXT and Pete fucking Dunne, I was pretty excited and sure enough, this match did not disappoint.

The action in this match was paced to perfection, I enjoyed when all three men were jockeying for position early on and quite honestly I was ready to praise this match for being brilliant by the two-minute mark, but things only got better from there. There was very little time in this match where any one man was down and out, it was an almost constant rolling line of these three men in the ring together and it made for some brilliant watching.

My favourite part of the match was easily the finish because of how out of nowhere it was. I really thought Strong was going to win when he sent Dream flying and hit the End of Heartache on Dunne, but unbelievably Dream suddenly dropped out of the sky to shitcan Strong and steal the pin, incredible stuff. That’s just one spot in a 20-minute match where the action never lets up, definitely one of my favourite matches of the year so far. However…

1 – Adam Cole(c) def. Johnny Gargano
(NXT Championship)
(3 Stages of Hell)

Let’s face it, nothing on this show could’ve topped this match.

I’ve seen some criticize this match for being “overindulgent” and at 50 minutes I can understand where those people are coming from, however, I think this was paced really well.

The first fall was necessary to ramp up the tension and intensity going into the following two. There was plenty of great action the whole way through the first fall and I was very much a fan of how the finish to that fall played out. I knew Cole was never going to be stupid enough to give up a fall like that, but teasing it only for Gargano to be the one to do it was brilliant.

The second fall seems like the kind of match I normally label as boring but something about how these two went about throwing each other around the arena worked for me. It was slower than the other two falls but given how long this match ended up being, we needed it to catch our breath before some of the mental shit that happened during the final fall.

I wasn’t sure about the weapons-based cage when I first heard about it, but I think these two did a great job at avoiding the gimmicky feel that came across when Ambrose & Jericho did this a couple of years ago, also the faces of Gargano and Cole as the cage descended was a nice little touch. As I mentioned this was in danger of crossing into the gimmicky territory, but every weapon was worked seamlessly into every spot it was in, the only time the action ever really stopped was in order to set up the finish which is quite impressive for a match as long as this.

The spectacle in this match was through the roof and I felt it helped aid this idea that Gargano and Cole’s whole rivalry is being encapsulated in one match. I’m still undecided on whether this was my favourite match of their trilogy, but it’s certainly close.

So that’s what I thought of NXT Takeover: Toronto! Thank you very much for- Oh there’s Matt Riddle!

Anyway, thank you very much for reading, let me know what you thought of the show on Twitter @10ryawoo or in the comments below. Make sure you come back here Monday where I’ll be giving my thoughts of tonight’s Summerslam!

NXT Takeover: Toronto 2019: Predictions & Analysis

Another big 4 weekends, another show much better than the big 4 show itself. It’s time for an NXT Takeover.

While this card still looks fantastic, it doesn’t quite feel like it’ll be as good a show as previous months by virtue of a couple of rematches and some untested talent. However whenever I think this about a Takeover it generally ends up being one of my favourites, so who knows what to think.

Fantastic or not, there will still be winners and losers, so let’s get about picking them, shall we?

Candice LaRae vs Io Shirai

So I don’t know much about Io’s reputation before she joined NXT, but I’m told that “attempted murder” Io is best Io and based on what I’ve seen on NXT weekly so far, I can’t say I disagree. So throwing her in the mix with Candice LaRae, who is just as much of a lovable underdog and fantastic wrestler as her husband and you’ve got the making of a match of the year candidate.

Although, as much as I’d like to see an absolute classic between these two, I also wouldn’t be against Io ripping Candice limb from limb, dancing around in the blood shouting about how she doesn’t need friends….or you know, beating her really dominantly. Which brings me to the obvious because Io Shirai is definitely coming out of this one the victor, she’s been losing to Shayna a lot recently and this new burst of character would go to waste if she lost this early, even if it was a “flukey” win on Candice’s part.

The Street Profits(c) vs The Undisputed Era
(NXT Tag Team Championships)

One day, NXT will be allowed to just have tag team champions without someone stealing them away.

Once again, I don’t think I’ll surprise anyone when I say that I think this match is going to be brilliant. considering how long they’ve been around, it’s weird that this is their first straight-up tag match on a Takeover, but I have no reason to doubt that they’ll knock it out of the park; not to mention they’re in the ring with Undisputed Era.

The real problem I’m having here is picking a winner. Street Profits have basic wrestling logic on their side since they’ve just won the titles it wouldn’t make a great deal of sense for them to lose the titles so soon, especially to a team that’s already held them. That said, the Undisputed Era has a pretty strong case too. For one thing, Street Profits seem to have already been called up, with this weird role where they sit around and chat about everything that’s happened on Raw, but does that really count as a proper debut? Then there’s the driving force of Adam Cole’s promise that The Undisputed Era will be draped in gold, and tonight has all the makings of that promise coming true.

I really want to say Street Profits will retain because I think that’d be the right move, but the case for The Undisputed Era to win is just too strong to ignore, so I’m going with them.

Velveteen Dream(c) vs Roderick Strong vs Pete Dunne
(North American Championship)

Wow, they really did a good job of making so many of these matches hard to pick huh?

First off, the fact that Dunne is finally in NXT Prime is brilliant because quite frankly he should’ve been on every single Takeover anyway because he keeps knocking it out of the park. Secondly, I’m very happy to see a Triple Threat Match on a Takeover for once, we see them so rarely on these shows and given how good main roster Triple Threats are, I’m sure an NXT one – especially with these guys – will be incredible.

Once again, I’m really struggling with picking a winner. As much as I’d be very happy with Velveteen Dream retaining, I feel like this match is where he drops that title, especially given he seemed destined to drop the title to Dominick Dijakovic before he got injured. I’m just not sure who it’ll go too. On the one hand, Pete Dunne is fantastic and should never be without a title ever, not to mention you risk making the UK division look like chumps if Dunne comes to NXT Prime and gets his ass kicked. Admittedly the case for Roddy pretty much begins and ends with Cole’s aforementioned promise of draping Undisputed Era in gold, the thing is, I think if that promise is ever going to come true, it has to be now so I’m picking Roderick Strong to pick up the title.

Shayna Baszler(c) vs Mia Yim
(NXT Women’s Championship)

Mia Yim’s one of those competitors where it always seemed like it was a matter of time until she got a big chance to show her stuff like this and here we are. Despite having a build and look that would seemingly favour a more heelish persona, Yim’s done a great job wrestling as a face and has got a large portion of the NXT fanbase behind her going into this match.

As I alluded to, this should be Mia Yim’s big coming-out party, much like Bianca Belair this match with Shayna will hopefully be when everyone sits up and takes note that she’s just as good a wrestler as all the women who came before her in the division. I imagine Shayna will do what Shayna always does in this match, which is be the most wonderful bastard in the world, which will play right in Yim’s strengths as a babyface.

As much as this will be a big spotlight for Mia Yim, I highly doubt she’ll win. It’s pretty rare in the women’s division that anyone wins the title in their first shot at it, not to mention Baszler’s been such a dominant champion it would be almost a waste to have her lose the title like this. I think Yim will ultimately be the one to unseat Baszler, however, I don’t think it’s going to be on Saturday, so I’m going with Shayna Baszler to retain.

Adam Cole(c) vs Johnny Gargano
(NXT Championship)
(3 Stages of Hell)

I know it’s not being advertised as 3 Stages of Hell, but that’s what it is. Plus “2 out of 3 falls where each fall has a different stipulation” is far too long for a header.

As much as it feels like this feud has gone on for a bit too long already, it’s hard to argue with another match considering both of their previous two were among the best in WWE history. The stipulations seem to play into each other’s hands too and I imagine in some sort of ironic twist, each man will win the fall where the other picked the stipulation (Cole wins the Street Fight, Gargano wins the standard match) and I fully expect to see Undisputed Era get involved during the Street Fight.

As for the final fall, which William Regal will reveal if (when) they are tied up after the first two, a ladder match seems like the easy pick. It’s easy for the crew to quickly set up without killing the pace of the whole match and the condensed time frame will add a great sense of urgency to the whole thing. They could surprise us and throw out NXT’s first-ever Hell in a Cell match, but the only issue with that is the crowd would be able to see the cell up in the rafters (or if they use screens to hide it, it’ll be obvious) so it won’t really be much of a surprise.

Once again, I find myself really struggling to pick a winner. If it wasn’t for one factor I’d say Cole was an easy pick, but the thing is: Tommaso Ciampa. We’ve got confirmation that August is when he’s set to return so with him just over the horizon, could we be heading back to the Gargano vs Ciampa match we were robbed of in April? I know that the ending of Takeover New York changed their relationship slightly but it could still work just as well. Then again, what about the other side of the coin? Imagine Undisputed Era standing in the ring triumphant with all the gold only for Ciampa to appear at the top of the ramp and stake his claim. How cool would that be?!

No amount of logic I apply is going to help me decide one way or the other, so I’m going with my heart and picking Adam Cole.

And that’s it! Thank you very much for- wait a minute where the hell’s Matt Riddle? Odd.

Anyway, thank you very much for taking the time to read this piece, let me know what you think is going to happen on Twitter @10ryawoo or in the comments below. Make sure you stick around over the weekend as I’ll be covering both Takeover and Summerslam!