Tag: Dakota Kai

NXT Takeover: Stand & Deliver: Predictions & Analysis

Every time a Takeover comes around, it’s always a bit of shame that so many talented performers get left off of the card. Thankfully, NXT finally decided to copy Wrestlemania, and now we’re getting a two-night show! Five matches each night, and honestly, all ten of them look like absolute winners, and I am pumped to see how all of these wrestlers try to top each other. Let’s get predicting.

Night 1

Pete Dunne vs Kushida

Not a whole lot of story riding on this one, but it’s two guys that absolutely couldn’t be left off of the show.

Kushida’s experienced a bit of a fall since losing to Gargano. I was pretty confident he would win, and now I don’t really know what they’re planning on doing with him long-term. That said, this match is a great way to tide him over. Pete Dunne similarly is feeling a bit directionless right now. He lost to Balor, and now he’s just hanging around. It doesn’t help that Burch & Lorcan are out of action right now, too, so he can’t even do faction-based stuff. That said, this match is going to be fantastic. Pete Dunne has been one of my favourite wrestlers for a long time, and there’s no doubting Kushida’s ability in the ring. I’m looking forward to seeing these two styles collide. Kushida works quick and technical, which should play quite well against Dunne’s slow, mat-based style.

Picking a winner is significantly more difficult, though, because both of them need a win. Both are coming off significant losses and are looking to regain momentum. It’s more of a matter of who I think will be in a more prominent position in the immediate future. I’m going to go with Kushida. While I think Dunne is a top-level talent, Kushida feels like he’s more on the rise at the moment, and a win like this could push him into a credible main event spot. On top of that, I think night 1 will be pretty heavy on heel wins, so this should balance it out.

Leon Ruff vs Isaiah “Swerve” Scott vs Bronson Reed vs Cameron Grimes vs Dexter Lumis vs LA Knight
(Gauntlet Match)
(Winners gets a North American Championship Match on Night 2)

Let’s just go through the list.

Leon Ruff – Dude became a star out of nowhere earlier this year, winning the North American title in the kind of shock title change that NXT hasn’t ever done before. Since then, he’s faded quite significantly, but that brief story has given him a foot in the door that cannot be removed. I think he’ll get the Kofi spot in this match, lasting the longest. However, I don’t think he’s going to win. If I were to hazard a guess, I think he’ll probably last until Cameron Grimes, where the length of time he’s spent in the match will catch up to him.

Isaiah “Swerve” Scott – I really thought he’d be a bigger star by now. He’s still a somewhat prominent player on NXT, but I’ve been expecting him to break through for a while now. Aside from his Takeover match last year with Escobar, he’s not had any major singles feuds in NXT. Unfortunately, I don’t see him going anywhere here, as I think Ruff will put him away in quick order.

Bronson Reed – A great wrestler, quickly on the rise. Unfortunately, the title scenes are just a bit too crowded at the moment to deal with him. It’s part of the problem we’re seeing with NXT’s new system of not sending people up as often. It’s just getting a bit crowded around the top, and I don’t think Reed will get a proper look-in at either of the main singles titles until at least the end of the year.

Cameron Grimes – For a while, I just didn’t get Grimes. His character was quite weird and kind of vague, but he’s slowly brought me round over the past 6 months by being one of the funniest guys on the roster. The way he plays everything is just hilarious. His anger, his fear, his joy, all of it just brings a smile to my face. The rich stuff he’s been playing up recently is some of his best work yet, and while it does have a limited lifespan, I’m enjoying it while it’s happening. I would be thrilled if Grimes got shot towards the title now, but I don’t see it happening. Heel vs heel wouldn’t really work in this instance, so we’ll have to wait a while before Grimes reaches the moon.

Dexter Lumis – This guy has to be the favourite, right? They’ve literally been building it for months now. Lumis has been on a one-man crusade against The Way. His weird and creepy attitude seemed like it would make him more of a heel, but he’s been quite carefully booked and is now a sort of twisted anti-hero that you can’t help but cheer. The simple fact of the matter is that Gargano vs Lumis has been a match they’ve been building to for ages, and it would be so weird if they didn’t follow through now.

LA Knight – I didn’t know much about LA Knight before he joined NXT, but I’d definitely enjoyed what little I saw of his time as Eli Drake. He’s been brought in a bit differently to most other signings, and I honestly thought he wouldn’t even wrestle on this show just because of how he’s been booked. That said, I’m glad he has. Hopefully, he can put on a really good final section of this match against Lumis. Knight is the only other person I think has a chance of winning, just because it’s his Takeover debut.

I’ve got to go with Dexter Lumis to win, though. Knight is possible, but given the heel dynamics at play here and how much Lumis has been built towards Gargano, I just don’t see it happening.

MSK vs Grizzled Young Veterans vs Legado Del Fantasma
(NXT Tag Team Championships)

I think I speak for everyone when I say that it’s a damn shame Burch & Lorcan didn’t get to defend their titles at this show. They’ve been a team for ages and have had so many moments of brilliance. They finally got their go with the gold, and it was snatched away from them before they could make a proper run of it.

That said, with unfortunate circumstances come opportunity for others, and now the door is wide open to swoop in and have a great title run. I think these are the perfect three teams to select for this match. There’s a huge mix of styles & characters in here that is bound to make for something incredible. NXT doesn’t do these multi-team matches all that often, but all of the ones I can remember have been brilliant, so I’ve no doubt this will be the same.

I think the titles could go any of the three ways, but there’s definitely one that sticks out in my mind as the better option. MSK are fantastic, they’ve made a hell of a splash in their short time in NXT so far, and they’re absolutely the future of this division. That future isn’t quite yet, though. Similarly, Legado Del Fantasma has done great work, and given that Escobar might not have that Cruiserweight title for much longer, giving them the tag titles could be a good way to keep their momentum going. However, I’m picking Grizzled Young Veterans. They fill a similar heel role to Burch & Lorcan, but they are enough their own team that it won’t feel like a cheap imitation. Gibson with a microphone in his hand is sure-fire entertainment, and they’d be the perfect foils if you want MSK to chase the titles following this show.

WALTER vs Tommaso Ciampa
(NXT United Kingdom Championship)

Definitely the match I’m most excited for on night 1. This could be a brutal match.

My favourite match of 2019 was Pete Dunne vs WALTER from Takeover: New York, and one of the reasons I liked it so much was because of how it balanced the intricate, technical, mat-based style with high-impact spots that made even some of the more mundane stuff feel like a huge deal. Stylistically, I think Ciampa has a lot in common with Dunne, except he has a bit of extra flair about him, which means he can turn the pace up to something incredible when he wants to. I’m expecting this match to be a bit of a hybrid of all of WALTER’s best title defences so far. It’ll have some of the technical prowess of his match with Dunne, the emotion of his match with Tyler Bate and a lot of the brutality from his match with Ilya Dragunov.

The one downside this match has is that I think the result is pretty obvious. While I don’t think it’s impossible, I would be incredibly shocked if Ciampa won that UK title. It would undoubtedly do wonders for the show, but I don’t think he quite fits with what they’ve got going on down there right now. It’s the kind of thing that, if they did it, I’d love it, but I also don’t really want it to happen. WALTER retaining is the sensible pick here, and he gets to continue his mammoth run with the title. I know he couldn’t defend the belt for most of 2020, but I honestly think he’d still be holding it now regardless. I have no idea who will finally topple him, but it’s going to be a huge deal when someone does.

Io Shirai(c) vs Raquel Gonzalez
(NXT Women’s Championship)

I was somewhat critical of NXT in 2020. They were still putting on great shows, but it definitely felt a tier below what they’d been doing for the past few years. The one person I never had such criticisms of is Io Shirai, who has been the absolute top star of NXT in my mind for ages. She carried the brand on her back throughout 2020 and has had the opportunity to put on several brilliant matches as the women’s division continued to fill with incredible talents.

So now, we’re in a situation where the division’s biggest and most unstoppable star collides with the fastest rising star the division’s seen since Rhea Ripley. In fact, it is pretty much exactly like the Baszler/Ripley thing, only with the heel/face dynamic reversed. Gonzalez doesn’t wrestle a very flashy style, but she can still use it to put on fantastic matches. I think many were sceptical of her abilities at first, but her time tagging with Dakota Kai and her singles match with Rhea Ripley silenced those doubts in my mind. She & Kai won the women’s Dusty cup, which was a great moment and, although it was brief, got to be the first NXT Women’s Tag Team Champions.

So is she going to win the title? I really don’t know. I think it’s a given that she will win the title; I’m just not 100% sure it’s right now. While Shirai has been champion for almost a year and done wonders, it doesn’t quite feel like the end of her time yet. On top of that, Gonzalez has Kai in her corner, and the tension between them is bubbling just below the surface. I could absolutely see a situation where jealous Kai costs Gonzalez the title. However, I could also see them playing the long game on that front, having Gonzalez win the title until Kai eventually decided she wants it for herself. That said, this is NXT’s biggest show in quite a while, and I think giving us a big change of the guard would be the right impact to leave, so I’m going with Raquel Gonzalez to become champion.

Night 2

Ember Moon & Shotzi Blackheart vs The Way
(NXT Women’s Tag Team Championships)

NXT getting their own women’s tag titles is something that’s felt inevitable for a while. When the main belts were first introduced, they made a big deal out of how they were going to be defended on all three brands, and then it just never happened. I think maybe once someone had a match with The IIconics? I honestly don’t remember. Now, with NXT having a far deeper women’s roster than it did a few years ago, something was desperately needed for the mid-card scene of that division, so these titles should do wonders to that end.

Ember & Shotzi both seemed like they were ready to head up to the title scene, but they decided to give that spot to Gonzalez instead – a decision I agree with, all things considered – so letting these two run with the tag titles for the next while until the singles title is ready for them was definitely the way to go. The Way, meanwhile, has been excellent as of late. I had lost interest in Gargano as a heel before this faction came together, and I think they’re all much more entertaining together. Candice LaRae is another one who felt a bit directionless after losing to Io, and this seemed like the logical next move.

I have no doubt that these four women will put on a great match. I don’t think there’s any doubting the ability of any of them. I’m going with Ember Moon & Shotzi Blackheart to retain. Given that the first champs lost the title really quickly, I think doing another title change so soon would devalue these new belts, which is something they don’t need. I’d much rather Moon & Blackheart hold them until at least the summer to really show that NXT will be treating these belts with more respect than the main roster treats their women’s tag titles.

Adam Cole vs Kyle O’Reilly
(Unsanctioned)

This is the match I’m most looking forward to on night 2.

For the longest time, I was of the opinion that The Undisputed Era should never break up. I thought they should go to the main roster as a unit and stay that way until the time felt right. Then, when it became clear that they weren’t going to the main roster anytime soon, it became a bit muddier. THEN, Kyle O’Reilly had those pair of great title matches with Balor, and it became clear that he was ready to become an amazing singles star in NXT. This meant that, while it was still a sad occasion when Cole broke up the faction, it felt like the time was right.

Now we’ve got a match between two people who know each other in the ring like few else (they once had a singles match at Wrestle Kingdom, for God’s sake). They’ve by far got the hottest story going right now, and it’s going to be a barn burner. I’m expecting some real vicious action here, and I have faith in them to use the hardcore stipulation to its fullest potential.

As much as I’d like to pretend this one was up in the air, Kyle O’Reilly has got to come out the winner here. Unless they do a screwy finish (which is certainly possible), O’Reilly needs this win to establish himself as a main-stay in the main-event scene of NXT. I think he’s going to win the NXT title at some point in the next 12 months, and this needs to be the start of his rise. I love Adam Cole, but that dude can do whatever he wants in NXT for the rest of his time on the brand; he is fully established. O’Reilly still needs the firm footing of a vindicating victory here.

Johnny Gargano(c) vs The Winner of Night 1’s Gauntlet Match
(North American Championship)

So, it’s a bit harder to talk about this one when I don’t know who the challenger is going to be, but looking at Gargano’s run as champion, it’s been a bit of a mixed bag for me. His matches have always been great, there’s no questioning that, but his character has gained me and lost me at certain points. It was an exciting fresh direction for his character when he first turned, but it quickly wore thin. I think he tried too hard to be more menacing and threatening, and it just didn’t suit him. Eventually, he shifted it into more of a ‘chicken-shit’ heel, which suits him so much better. His interaction with The Way every week always has this bumbling comedic edge that is very fun to watch.

As I said in my night 1 predictions, I think the challenger will be Dexter Lumis. He’s been Gargano’s primary focus for months now, and it would be weird if anyone else won. I don’t really know how these two will mesh in the ring because I’m still not entirely sure what Lumis’ style is. He seems very fluid and adaptable to who he’s in the ring with. This is most certainly a good thing, it just means I’m unsure of what kind of match we’re going to get when these two collide.

What I am sure of is that Dexter Lumis is coming away with that title. I would actually say Gargano is going to lose the title no matter who the challenger is. He’s been around the North American title scene for a long time now, and it just feels like his time is up. Lumis makes the most sense to win the title, but even if it’s someone like LA Knight or Cameron Grimes, I think switching the title is the right move. The North American title needs to be around the waist of someone on the rise now, rather than an already established star.

Jordan Devlin(c) vs Santos Escobar(c)
(Undisputed Cruiserweight Championship)
(Ladder)

A match that we’ve been waiting for forever, and it’s finally happening. I was really excited when Devlin won the Cruiserweight title, but he ended up not doing much with it. It wasn’t his fault, of course, or anyone’s for that matter. The pandemic did what it did, and he was one of the casualties. Escobar was the star that was able to rise in his place, and he definitely made the most of it. Abandoning his mask and former ring name to become a fresh character, the kind of which the Cruiserweight division hadn’t yet seen.

Putting these two together in the ring seems like a recipe for success. At first glance, they don’t seem like they’d mesh, but Escobar has shown how adaptable he can be with the variety of opponents he’s taken on during his title reign. Devlin’s style is less fluid but just as good, and I think as long as these two click in the ring (which I assume they will), we should be in for a treat.

Picking a winner is a bit difficult. Giving Devlin the win would allow him to have the Cruiserweight title reign that I wished he could’ve had when he initially won the title, but Escobar has proved to be a great asset to the division in Devlin’s absence. NXT’s never been one to shy away from an unexpected new star when they come along, but they also like to stick to their plans wherever possible. It’s a tough one because I could honestly see them going either way. My gut says Jordan Devlin, so that’s what I’m picking. This is the one I’m struggling the most with, though.

Finn Balor(c) vs Karrion Kross
(NXT Championship)

This is the match I’ve been waiting for.

I’ve seen people be very critical of Kross’ astronomic rise in NXT, and honestly, I don’t get it. I know his match with Keith Lee was a bit underwhelming, but he was injured for most of it, so I actually think it was bloody good for what it was. On top of that, his character has this indestructible aura around him that we haven’t seen in an NXT Champion since Aleister Black & Tommaso Ciampa were holding the belts. I think he’s got all the talent necessary. His look is incredible, his entrance is even better; how on Earth could this guy do anything else but immediately become the champion?

Kross’ injury was extremely unfortunate, but it gave way to Balor’s run as NXT Champion which has been fantastic and by far my favourite run of Balor’s career. He’s made new stars and put on fantastic matches left and right with a character that has the kind of edge I’d been wanting to see from him since the moment he first showed up in NXT in 2015. I’m excited to see how these two mesh in the ring. Kross’ hoss style is an interesting one, and I think Balor will be able to adapt to it well. Balor’s current character allows him to be a dominating badass and a plucky underdog depending on his opponent, and I think he’ll be able to use both sides to great effect in this match.

I’m pretty confident about picking the winner here, but not as much as I probably should be. I’m going with Karrion Kross because it just makes sense. They gave him a Lesnar-style push to the title when he first debuted, and even though the injury derailed him a bit, I don’t see why they’d abandon those plans now. Balor has been a fantastic champion, and part of me does think they might just want to keep going with him. There’s the seed of doubt in my mind, but I just can’t bring myself to pick Balor to retain; it’d be a dumb move. It’s Kross’ time; let’s hope it can go as planned this time.

NXT Takeover XXX: Every Match Ranked

The 30th Takeover is officially in the record books and well…I definitely enjoyed it. It feels like a notable shift in the style of PPVs that NXT is going to be putting out from now on. It feels like, in order to appeal to the broader USA Network audience, they’re shifting their PPVs to have more or something for everyone, rather than constant, hyper-focused top-quality wrestling matches to please Meltzer’s star ratings. Whether this change is for the better or worse remains to be seen over the next year or so, but if the shows they come out with that like the ones of Saturday, I don’t think I’ll mind.

This was by no means among the best Takeovers of all time, but it was a show that kept me entertained from start to finish, and I can honestly say there wasn’t a bad match for the entire night. Sure, it didn’t blow me away, and I doubt it’ll be remembered all that vividly in the years to come, but sitting here, 12 hours after the show’s finished, I’m feeling positive about it.

6 – Breezango def. Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch, Legado del Fantasmo
(Winners become #1 contenders for the NXT Tag Team Championships)

I was wondering how NXT was going to treat their pre-shows. Whether they were going to give the matches room to breathe and let the wrestling sell the show. Unfortunately, they made the time restrictions even heavier, as they only had 30 minutes for Booker T to bicker with Sam Roberts, instead of the usual 60.

It’s a pretty simple case with this match, it wasn’t bad, all of the action was enjoyable, however, coming in at just under 7-minutes, it didn’t have time to be anything more significant. Especially given that it was a triple threat tag match, it seemed like a really bad decision to cut the time on this one so heavily. That’s the kind of match that needs the time to build to a chaotic climax, but that phase of the match never got the chance to arrive.

What we got was perfectly enjoyable, Legado is doing a great job character-wise in the ring, and I want to see more of them in the near future. Breezango winning is an interesting choice, as they already got a tag title shot recently, but I don’t mind going for round two. As I said in my predictions, they’ve had a new fire lit under them since returning to NXT, and they feel like very different wrestlers to what I knew them as during their first runs in NXT.

5 – Finn Balor def. Timothy Thatcher

Good match, zero build.

There’s honestly no better way to put it in my mind. I think I probably would’ve liked this match more if I had some greater reason to be invested in it. I know Thatcher has been screwing Balor over here and there, but I don’t think it was given nearly enough focus every week on TV. This is one of those situations where it seems like management just wanted to have a Finn Balor match on the PPV, without having any real plan for what he could do.

Regardless of how invested I was in it, the match was of good quality. I’m still not adjusted to Balor’s more muted style, but this was an instance where he had an opponent it played well with. Thatcher is a proper mat-based wrestler, and he knows how to make it look impactful and intriguing (something unfortunately rare in the modern wrestling scene). Balor responded to it well, trying to speed the pace of the match up at every opportunity to stop Thatcher getting one over on him.

The match’s narrative was fairly basic, but it was well-told in this instance. I adored the shot where Balor landed hard on his feet with a missed Coup-de-Gras only for both him and Thatcher to go wide-eyed, realising the opportunity Thatcher has just been given. Sure, Balor predictably came out on top, but I now understand Thatcher’s style and enjoy watching him more than I did going into it, so that’s got to be a positive.

4 – Karrion Kross def. Keith Lee(c)
(NXT Championship)

Sure, this felt more like a main-roster main event, but it was a very good one.

In my predictions, I theorised about the different ways this matches could go. While I pointed to Lee vs Dijakovic for a formula they could try to replicate, that ended up not being the case, and what we got instead had upsides and downsides.

The downsides first, which are mostly to do with pacing. I don’t care who you are, or how in-line with your character it is, ‘working the arm’ by holding it in place for 5 minutes, isn’t entertaining. Putting that spot to early on in the match was a bit of an issue too because it meant I felt out of the match almost immediately, and it had to win me back later on, rather than winning me over straight away and keeping me into it for the rest.

However, once the match left those spots behind, things picked up. The match was never fast, but I don’t think it needed to be, because it was impactful. When you’ve got a guy as big as Lee, and a guy as jacked as Kross, the entertainment value is going to be in the hard-hitting stuff, so that’s what they went for. I don’t feel like it entirely lived up to it’s potential, but I still enjoyed what we got, and I’m not going to sit here crying about how I didn’t get the match I wanted.

The finish was a bit odd. I know the Doomsday Suplex is one of Kross’ signature moves, but it didn’t look all that impressive in this instance. It looks great when he can throw a guy half-way across the ring like they’re nothing. However, with Lee, it looked like any standard middle rope spot – a type of spot that hasn’t won a match in about a decade. It made the finish feel a bit sudden and took the wind out of me a bit when Kross won off of something I wasn’t expecting.

Ultimately, I think he has all the potential to be a fantastic champion, so I’m happy to wait and see on this one.

3 – Adam Cole def. Pat McAfee

Well, it was definitely a lot better than I was expecting.

To point out the obvious, the in-ring action was reasonably basic. McAfee pulled off some impressive stuff here in there, but there wasn’t a great variety in the moves he gave or took (although, he took a picture-perfect Panama Sunrise, so props there). The thing is, the action wasn’t the point of this match, it was never going to be. This was a match all around the drama and the story, and looking at the in-ring storytelling on display here, it was really entertaining.

Pat understood the role he needed to play and played it to perfection. He picked all the right moments to be a cocky jackass and all the right moments to run away scared. I didn’t particularly care for the faction warfare stuff, but it was a good bridge to take us from the 100% drama-focus of the early stages to the latter phase of the match, where action became much more critical to the story.

Cole played off of McAfee really well too. His facial expression on the kickouts and impressive manoeuvres worked into the attitude that they have been presenting each other with. What’s most important is that, when the time came for McAfee to take his beating, he made it look good. Like I said, none of the moves he took (other than the Panama Sunrise) were particularly complicated or impressive, but he made the beatdown on him feel weighty, so watching Cole kick his ass was satisfying.

Nothing about it was a technical masterpiece, but I came away from it in a good mood, having thoroughly enjoyed the match I just watched.

2 – Io Shirai(c) def. Dakota Kai
(NXT Women’s Championship)

Weirdly, despite this being in the number two spot, there isn’t a great deal I have to say about it. It was just a really good match.

I don’t think anyone had any doubts over the result, so my focus around this match was more getting the most out of the action as possible, of which I think both women did a great job. Io looked beatable at several points without ever coming across as week, while Kai got to show off just about everything she can do. Momentum was continually shifting between the two women in this one, which meant we got a great variety in terms of the action. Yes, it had slower spots where Kai worked a limb for an extended spot because it was buried in between plenty of action, I was happy for the match to take a short breather every now and then.

As predictable as it was, I think it’s important to Kai’s story that we hit the obvious beat of Gonzalez getting involved. Given Kai’s insistence that she’s got to where she did ‘on her own’, something like this should sow the seeds of discourse between her & Gonzalez, especially since I’d imagine Kai will find a way to blame Gonzalez for her loss. Meanwhile, I think it’s time for Io to move onto someone else, probably Candice LaRae. Kai could absolutely come back later down the line and challenge whoever the champion is again, but for now, I don’t think we should overplay that hand.

I’m intrigued by the Ripley/Gonzalez tease though. I’m not sure if they want to head in a tag-team direction with that, or whether it’ll be a singles feud. Either way, I’m looking forward to it, and I hope it serves as a coming-out party of Gonzalez as a major player in the NXT women’s division.

1 – Damian Priest def. Johnny Gargano, Bronson Reed, Velveteen Dream, Cameron Grimes
(North American Championship)
(Ladder)

20-minutes of mental ladder-match antics. Perfect, exactly what I wanted.

This one had everything you could want from a multi-man ladder match. It didn’t need much time to warm up, the pace accelerated to maximum pretty darn quickly and stayed there right up until the end. Everyone got a chance to shine, each of them getting their own memorable moments, and somehow, everyone getting a chance to look like they were about to win the match. I honestly thought ladder matches were very limited in terms of pulling off convincing false-finishes, but man, every time someone got to the top of that ladder (which, in the final 5 minutes, was a lot) I thought it was over.

Outside of that, it was ladder-spots galore. Priest running up the ladder to do a dive onto the outside, Grimes holding the ladder on shoulders and smashing everyone to bits with it, Gargano awkwardly power bombing Grimes onto the ladder in a way that made it look even more brutal than intended. We even got a spot I can’t remember ever seeing before in a match like this, where they kept piling up people and ladders into the corner, only for one guy to squish them all together. All of it was a blast to watch, and what makes this match take the number one spot.

Damian Priest was absolutely the right person to win this one. I’m not sure who he’ll feud with first (probably one of the other participants in this match), but I hope he has a long and fruitful reign. He’s been threatening to break through in NXT for a while, and hopefully, a run with the North American title will seal the deal.

And there you have it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this. 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 here this time tomorrow, where I’ll be giving you my review of Summerslam!

NXT Takeover XXX: Predictions & Analysis

NXT Takeover time! A time where we can all rejoice and feel happy that great wrestling is going to be on our screens very soon. Except…this time around, I’m not nearly as excited as I usually am. At least 3 of the matches have unlimited potential, that is true, but weekly NXT TV the past month or so has felt pretty soulless to me. None of the builds to any of the matches have been anything unique or exciting. The only build that’s done things differently ended up being killed dead in the water on Wednesday when Pat McAfee cut the world’s most generic heel promo.

Maybe the pessimism of the world has gotten to me, who knows? Let’s try to stay positive as we break down the matches.

Breezango vs Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch vs Legado del Fantasma
(Winner becomes #1 contender for the NXT Tag Team Championships)
(Kickoff Show)

You know, the NXT Tag Team division became utter barren so quickly, I barely even noticed.

The tag division on NXT has heavily suffered from Imperium very rarely being on TV week-to-week. I like Imperium as champions, and I hope they hold onto the titles for a while, but they were such a bad choice given the current situation. This isn’t like Lesnar with a world title, where him not showing up as much adds to his drawing power, with the NXT tag titles gone from TV most of the time, it just means we stop caring. I want to care about the NXT tag titles, they’ve given us some of the best matches in NXT history, but right now, they’re in serious trouble.

That said, I’m confident this will be a fun match. I’m not entirely sure what the point was on putting this on the pre-show but provided it gets a respectable amount of time, I have no reason to doubt the excitement we could be in store for. Breezango have had a new fire lit under them since returning to NXT, Lorcan & Burch have always been extraordinarily reliable in situations like this, while Legado del Fantasma are the exciting new prospect and still feel quite fresh.

There’s a couple of ways to go in terms of a winner here. My first instinct was that Legada del Fantasmo would win because they’re the fresh guys and even if they aren’t going to win the tag titles, a high-profile match with the champions would be great for them. However, I’m actually going with Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch. My logic behind it is pretty simple, I think they’ve been killing it over the past year, and while their role is mainly to put guys over, I think it would be really cool to see them go for the titles. I don’t think they’d dethrone Imperium, but it’d be great to watch.

Finn Balor vs Timothy Thatcher

This is one of those matches that most people won’t give much thought, but could absolutely tear the house down on Saturday. I’ve still not made my mind up entirely about what I think of Thatcher, but there’s definitely a lot to love about his character. His stuff with Riddle was a great way to bring him to prominence, and I like the idea that he’s someone who slowly crawls his way up through the ranks in NXT over the next couple of years.

I don’t really know what this match is going to be like, these are two guys who have pretty different styles, and that always makes it hard to tell how they’ll mesh. I have faith in them though, so I’m remaining optimistic that it’ll be good. I’m torn for a winner though. As much as Balor’s in a position where nothing will hurt his stock too much in the long-run, I still don’t think he should lose too often. Looking into recent history, he got a win over Damian Priest at the last Takeover, but that’s it, he’s lost to just about everyone else with name value. That said, beating Balor would be an excellent way to turn some heads towards Thatcher.

It’s a tough call, but I’m going with what I think is the more sensible pick in Finn Balor. I just don’t think Thatcher has been built up enough to the point where he could beat someone on Balor’s level. That said, I would certainly be on board if Thatcher won.

Adam Cole vs Pat McAfee

Ok, just to get it out of the way, I don’t know if the radio show blow-up was a work, or a shoot that NXT turned into a work, and quite frankly I don’t care.

I’m of two minds with this feud. There’s the optimistic side of me that says McAfee is going to blow us away. I have no idea how long or hard he’s been training for, so I can’t make a judgement call yet, but he’s been around the industry long enough, and he’s in the ring with Adam Cole, so I think there’s a good chance this could be a killer match. Then there’s the pessimistic side, which says this is going to be like every other time an ‘outsider’ tried to come in and have a serious wrestling match.

The story’s been ok, it certainly had a decent amount of heat to it following the blow up on McAfee’s show, but I don’t think they capitalised on it all that well. Things started alright, with them seeming to patch things up, only for them to come to blows on NXT again, I even liked Cole’s rant about the situation, because Cole can talk with the best of them. What killed my excitement for the match was McAfee’s promo on Wednesday. I alluded to it in the intro, but it was dull and generic, not just with the words he was saying, but the style he delivered them, it was like what a trainee would put out after their first week of promo classes.

I’m a bit torn with a winner because I think there’s a chance McAfee is going to stick around and wrestle semi-frequently on NXT. If that’s the case, then I think he should win, not to mention, with a draft coming later in the year, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cole is leaving NXT sometime soon. That said, this is Adam Cole we’re talking about here, he’s just off the back of a 400+ day title reign and is bouncing back from a high-profile loss. Surely he’s got to win? Admittedly, I don’t think it would do all that much damage to Cole in the long-run, but it just doesn’t feel right to pick anyone other than Adam Cole to win this one.

Damian Priest vs Cameron Grimes vs Johnny Gargano vs Bronson Reed vs Velveteen Dream
(NXT North American Championship)
(Ladder)

Ahhh, a good old fashion multi-man ladder match. These will always be entertaining, regardless of which promotion they take place in. That said, the last time NXT had a ladder match for the North American Championship, it was arguably one of the best multi-man ladder matches ever, so…

That doesn’t answer the question of who wins though, so let’s take a look at the participants.

Velveteen Dream – I don’t think Dream was even supposed to be in this match initially. Given the uncertainty surrounding his return, I think NXT management decided that the only thing they could do with him so close to the PPV was to shove him in this match. On top of that, Dream’s already had a run with the North American Championship. There are indeed a lot more opponents he could face now, but I don’t see what could be gained from it.

Bronson Reed – The case with Reed is that I think just being in the match will be enough to raise his stock. He’s still a fresh face in NXT, and this is the perfect opportunity to show everyone what he can do. That said, I don’t see him winning the title for at least another year, he’s just not been built up enough yet. Hopefully, his performance in this match will go some way to remedying that.

Johnny Gargano –  It’s really starting to feel like the NXT writers have no idea what to do with Gargano. That’s the problem when he’s been in NXT for so long – Ciampa’s got the same problem – as great as he is, NXT doesn’t have as deep of a roster as Raw or Smackdown, so there’s very little for him to do nowadays other than to take high-profile losses to the new guys. That’s not to say he won’t add anything to this match, I think he’ll be fantastic, but much like Dream, there’s nothing to be gained from him winning the title again.

Cameron Grimes – Now we’re getting to the people that I think have a chance of winning this thing. To me, the North American title seems to be the perfect tool for taking someone who’s not quite a huge star yet and getting them over and a main eventer in the eyes of the fans. This is technically the role of any mid-card title, but in practice, it very rarely works out that way. However, Grimes is in the perfect position to pick up a mid-card title right now, if he were to go on a bit of tear for it for 8 months or so, it’d be the perfect launching pad to send him to the main event scene. I’m not picking him to win though, as I think there’s one guy that NXT is more likely to invest in right now.

Damian Priest – Honestly, I think Priest is the only real choice for this one. It’s felt like he’s been on the cusp of breaking through for around a year now, so we’re coming very close to ‘now-or-never’ territory. Priest has all the makings of a top guy in NXT, and I think his feud with Balor was a mini-test of that fact. The way I see it, Priest is a perfect fit for the North American title in his current state. NXT in need of a heel champion, and who better than a man who will probably be one of NXT’s biggest stars in a year.

Io Shirai(c) vs Dakota Kai
(NXT Women’s Championship)

It’s amazing how briefly Charlotte was champion. It already feels like it was years ago.

I’ll speak plainly, Io Shirai has been absolutely killing it since winning the title. I was pessimistic about waiting this long to put the title on her, but all my doubts have since been cleared. Sure, she’s not been wrestling as much, but when it comes to pure force of personality, there is no woman better in NXT in right now. There’s nothing about her character that inherently draws her to a heel or babyface alignment, a fact that I think will be fantastic for her stories throughout her title reign. Dakota’s been on fire too, she grasped her heel persona almost instantly, and since then it’s been built to an incredibly compelling degree.

I honestly think we could be in for one of the best WWE matches of the year so far, I really do. Io has already proven that she can go with just about anyone, and I really get the feeling that we’ve not seen anywhere near the limits of what Kai can do yet. I firmly believe that these two women will have near-flawless chemistry, and we could be in for a fast and fun fight.

That said, I think this is by far the easiest match to predict. Io Shirai is winning this one, her title reign has barely begun and has so much potential. Meanwhile, Dakota’s story can be enhanced by a loss here. She’s already getting a bit too full of herself, so if she blames Raquel Gonzalez for her loss, then there could be months of great TV in that. Not to mention, Io herself is proof that Dakota could easily come back in a year’s time and pick up the title without it feeling any less of an accomplishment.

Keith Lee(c) vs Karrion Kross
(NXT Championship)

Colour me impressed, I really thought they were going to wait on this one.

There’s so much to break down here and so many directions the story could go. First of all, Kross is incredible. He’s the first person in so long that I think genuinely gives off a Lesnar-esque vibe of indestructibility. Not only has he torn through everyone he’s come into contact with, but everything surrounding his persona & characterisation gives him an aura of an unstoppable badass. Meanwhile, Keith Lee is the purest human being on the planet, so watching him being pushed to his mental limits by Kross is very compelling stuff.

I have all the confidence in the world this match is going to rock. Lee’s shown time and time again that he can wrestle any style he needs to for a match. Kross has a wide range as a performer too, so I think there are several ways this one could play out. Personally, I think this will be akin to Lee vs Dijakovic in January, with plenty of big & explosive moves and a pace that refuses to ever let up.

This is where it gets tricky though because honestly, neither man should be losing here. However, I don’t think we’ll get a screwy finish, that’s not the NXT way. The thing is, Keith Lee has only just won the title, he’s barely held onto it for a minute, which, under normal circumstances should mean there’s no way he’s losing the title this quickly. The problem is when you look at NXT’s history, the brand’s biggest babyface always have insultingly short title reigns; Sami Zayn, Johnny Gargano & Drew McIntyre are all clear examples of this. On top of that, Kross has been built up like no-one else has since he debuted. He SLAUGHTERED Tommaso Ciampa, and if that isn’t a sign that he’s destined for stardom, I don’t know what is.

The way I’ve rationalised it to myself is thus: Keith Lee can recover from a loss, a hell of a lot better than Karrion Kross can. Sure, Lee won’t have the title anymore, but people are still going to love him regardless because of everything he is as a person and a performer. Meanwhile, Karrion Kross’ whole persona has been built around his unstoppable nature, so taking such a high-profile loss this early on in his NXT run could be catastrophic in regards to the audience’s view of him. Maybe I’m overanalysing it, but I’m going to go with the logic I’ve laid out and pick Karrion Kross to be crowned our new NXT Champion.

And that’s it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read these predictions. Please, let me know what you think is going to happen on Saturday, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure you come back here this time tomorrow, where I’ll be running down my Summerslam predictions!

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!