NXT Takeover had been and gone yet again and…well it wasn’t the best Takeover ever, was it? Admittedly, even a sub-par Takeover is still a damn good show, but I don’t think I’ll be alone in calling it the worst Takeover of the past few years. I feel Takeovers are the kind of shows that depend on a crowd for a lot of their heat, more so than other shows. There are a couple of matches that I’ll discuss in just a moment, where I think the performances were noticeably lesser than they usually would be in front of a full live audience.
That said, there was still plenty to enjoy, including what might be my favourite WWE match of the year so far. Let’s break it down, shall we?
6 – Mia Yim & Tegan Nox & Shotzi Blackheart def. Candice LaRae & Dakota Kai & Raquel Gonzalez
This match didn’t feel like a Takeover match in the slightest.
As I said in my predictions, unless it’s a fight between factions and 6-person tag match isn’t something that should be featured on a PPV (or equivalent). It just doesn’t feel like that big of a deal. It’s good that these women got a chance to show their stuff, but given how many people were involved, everyone was fighting to be seen. NXT touted that their women’s division was “the deepest in the world” several times last night, a valid claim, but it’s entirely pointless if they don’t work out a good way to feature it on their biggest shows. Takeovers have always been about the biggest feuds, and most important matches and NXT needs to start building to more than one big women’s match for each show.
The action in the match was alright, but I didn’t think it was anything overly exciting. I liked how big of a role Shotzi Blackheart got to play in the match. With her being the newest star in the match, I was happy to see her getting show her stuff notably more than anyone else involved. Nox and Kai, unfortunately, feel like they’ve lost the heat from their feud a bit now. Whenever they were together in the ring, the intensity that I felt during their initial feud was seemingly gone. That might just be a factor of all the women involved with the match, so I hope it comes back when this splits into singles’ feuds again.
5 – Adam Cole(c) def. Velveteen Dream
(NXT Championship)
(Backlot Brawl)
It’s official, NXT just doesn’t understand what made all the other on-location matches great.
First thing’s first, the look of this match was absolutely horrible. The way they’d rigged up the lighting with the car headlights and massive spotlights meant that every shot they were in it was much too bright, with glare on the lenses making it hard to follow what was going on. Then, whenever they went outside of those lights, it was way too dark, so it was still hard to follow the action. This wasn’t helped by the hyperactive camerawork. Nevermind the fact that they cut to a different shot roughly every five seconds, but every shot was ridiculously shaky and even out of focus at some points during the match. I can understand what they were going for with the chaotic nature of the match, but it just made it difficult to watch.
Even if there wasn’t a problem with the cameras, I didn’t care much for the action. It was your standard WWE ‘hardcore’ match, which meant a lot of slowly meandering around the place, occasionally stopping to hit each other with something. Dream didn’t feel like he was playing the same character tonight either. I don’t mind him adding a more intense facet to things, but Dream is a character with a VERY distinct style, and it didn’t feel like he stayed true to it last night.
As much as I harped on about how Dream had to win in my predictions, I don’t think Cole retaining is the end of the world. It’s undeniable how amazing of a champion Cole has been, my only worry is that we’re very close to running out of challengers. I assume that Dexter Lumis is next in line for a title shot, given his involvement in this match, so I imagine he’ll be the one to finally slay the king, but if he doesn’t, then we could be at risk of this getting stale.
4 – Keith Lee(c) vs Johnny Gargano
(North American Championship)
This is the match that I think suffered the most from now crowd.
Gargano is the type of character that draws a great deal of the drama and story of his matches from the crowd. This regularly makes for some excellent matches, but now he’s taken his character in a new direction, and one of the critical tools in his arsenal is suddenly gone. I don’t think Gargano suited the slower, more methodical heelish style very well at all. Especially when he’s going up against a guy like Keith Lee, I don’t have any interest in seeing him ‘wear down’ a limb. I wouldn’t call the match boring at any point; however, it didn’t feel like it ever kicked into a higher gear that makes Takeover matches amazing.
There were a couple of points in the match where it looked like things were about to ramp up and get great, but they never did in the end. I praise Gargano for experimenting with his style, but this was a match where he was undoubtedly the underdog. I think the match could’ve worked a lot better if Gargano had started off by manoeuvring circles around Lee, only for Lee to have to try and slow Gargano down or match-pace with him. That way Gargano could’ve continued to wrestle his more fast-paced, exciting style without screwing up the face/heel story the match was trying to tell.
It wasn’t all bad, though. Even though I don’t think Gargano was at his best last night, he was still very good and was able to play off of Lee’s swagger and style to significant effect. I think he showed signs of the effective heel character he could become if he goes down the route Seth Rollins did in 2014/15. I’m not entirely sure where his character goes from this point, but I remain optimistic that Gargano can learn from this match and create something great for next time.
3 – Finn Balor def. Damian Priest
Balor has seemed so much more comfortable since coming back to NXT. I’ve not loved his promos where he’s been talking like someone who read the Wrestling Observer once and thinks they know it all, but in the ring, he appears to be back in his element.
This match didn’t blow me away, but it was definitely an enjoyable bout. The styles of these two meshed well, and I think they had some really nice chemistry. The element of the steel stairs constantly being a factor in the match was a nice way to tell a simple story and it helped break up the big sections where Priest would be slowly picking Balor apart. Balor was able to switch back to a face style while maintaining the more hard-hitting feel he gained since arriving back in NXT. It feels like Balor is really relishing in the freedom the black & gold brand has given him.
This didn’t feel like the star-making match I feel like it was designed as for Priest though. I do think he came away from this with his stock in NXT raised, but not nearly as much as it should’ve been. I’d be curious to know what the explanation is behind having Balor winning. I guess we’ll see if it was worth it depending on what he does next, but I still think this should’ve gone to Priest. Looking good in defeat absolutely helps him build himself up, but looking good in victory would’ve done it so much more.
2 – Karrion Kross def. Tommaso Ciampa
This is what a star-making performance is supposed to look like.
This wasn’t a long one, but it didn’t need to be. It had a job to do, so it got in, did it and got out, sometimes that’s all you need. It got a bit of everything in there too. The opening had lots of intensity to it as both men fought for control and one Kross got a handle on things, you got the feeling that it was just a matter of time until Ciampa was finished. I hope they find a way to play on this a bit more in the coming months because there’s the potential for a really good story of Ciampa having to look inwards to see how he was so quickly dispatched of by Kross.
It wasn’t just a glorified squash match though, because there were a couple of fun back-and-forth sections. Ciampa’s last comeback spot especially got my blood pumping with how freakishly fast he seemed to be able to execute something. These arguably helped Kross look even better than if it was a straight-up squash match because now it feels like his victory was more hard-fought than it otherwise would’ve been. It wasn’t as easy as all his other wins so far, he actually had to work for it. More importantly, we saw that when he does attempt to work for it, very few will be able to stand in his way.
This was a great way to establish a new feature player in the men’s division, and right now, it feels like a championship reign for Kross is very much a matter of ‘when’ instead of ‘if’.
1 – Io Shirai def. Charlotte Flair(c) & Rhea Ripley
(NXT Women’s Championship)
Match of the year, I’ll call that right now. I loved this match.
As I touched on in my predictions, all three women here have a firm grasp of their characters and exactly what their motivations are going into this match. There was so much heat going into this thing, and they absolutely made use of all of it. Contrary to how I thought the match would go, all three women were involved in pretty much all of the action. There were very few moments where one woman petered out of the ring but even when they did, it wasn’t for very long. It meant that the pace of this one could move at a fever-pitch from start to finish, which is the kind of match that I absolutely love.
All of the dynamics between the women got played upon here. I really got the sense that Rhea was just out for revenge on Charlotte and paid much less mind to Io, which eventually cost her the title. Charlotte, meanwhile, was at her heelish best, doing everything in her power to get Io and Rhea to fight each other and anytime there was an opening for Charlotte to get the advantage, she pounced right on it. Then you had Io who was fighting desperately and viciously the whole way through. She gave the impression of someone who didn’t care who she was fighting, she was going to do everything she could to get the title.
There were so many fantastic moments that to list them all would do a disservice to this incredible match. My personal favourite moment was when Charlotte and Rhea decided they were just going to spend two minutes absolutely wailing on each other with some really stiff looking punches and kicks. At first, I genuinely thought that tempers were flaring between the two women, but it eventually became clear that they were trying something different to tell the story of how much they hated each other; it definitely worked.
In the end, the night belonged to Io Shirai though and I’m thrilled that things turned out this way. I initially thought she didn’t have a place in this story, but she instead became a vital part of it, and now she’s finally got the championship. Hopefully, Charlotte sticks around in NXT long enough to have a one on one rematch at the next Takeover because that will undoubtedly be another top-tier match. Even if she doesn’t, the NXT women’s division has so many spectacular wrestlers in it right now, that I don’t think Io will be hard-pressed to find good challengers anytime soon.
And there you have it! 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 you come back this time on Saturday, where the wrestling just doesn’t stop! As I’ll be giving you my predictions for Backlash.
The Strong Style Smark 