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!
The Strong Style Smark 