Hi there Shooters, I'm just over a month overdue on both this one and the WrestleMania one. Swamped crazy by work. But I finally got it done.
NxT Takeover was hands down the best product of the most important weekend of Wrestling and Sports Entertainment. Take quality of wrestling, add exposure, an intimate audience, and endings to various matches that could be both cliffhanger and satisfying, and you have what went down at the Key Bailey Hutchinson Center in Dallas.
Similar to the upcoming Wrestlemania review, I won't break down move for move and commentary for commentary. Rather, I'll give a quick synopsis with a few high points, and what's happened to the combatants since Takeover and how Takeover put them in their current positions.
HERE's THE NXT Takeover Review!
Match 1:Apollo Crews defeated "The Drifter" Elias Sampson (Spin out Powerbomb)
Somewhat not surprising, this match was actually bumped into the "Dark Match" spot, meaning that it wasn't televised with the rest of the event. It ended up as the first post-Takeover episode. The match wasn't anything amazing, but did a good job in re-establishing Crews. Apollo had come off of two major losses, and an impressive victory was exactly what the doctor ordered. Sampson wasn't bad in his first big opportunity, but (compared to the other competitors who have had shots at Takeovers past) he didn't hit the mark. There was a cool snapnare early in the match by The Drifter and 1 nice knee strike, but otherwise he didn't spark a lot. Plus, the pre-match promo exposed his inexperience dealing with a hostile crowd.
Post Takeover, Sampson is trying to recover some momentum. He had his best showing(IMO)during the latest episode of NxT, in a losing effort to someone I'm going to talk about later on.
Apollo Crews had 1 final NxT match, losing in a highly competitive match to Samoa Joe. However, since Takeover, Crews has debuted on the Main Roster and has rattled off an impressive start, with dominating wins over Tyler Breeze, Curtis Axel, Adam Rose, Heath Slater, and Stardust. While those aren't exactly the main eventers of the roster, the momentum for Crews is more than welcomed.
5 out of 10
Here's the main card but there is one catch. I'm not going to review these matches in order of the card, but rather by the significance and the results of both the match and post-match breakdowns.
Therefore
Match 2: "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" Austin Aries def. "The Lone Wolf" Baron Corbin (Rollup pin....I think it was an O'Connor Roll)
No arguments from the viewers and from the writers, this match was a good match that did its job, but compared to the remaining four matches, was not going to be Match of the Night. Corbin was phenominal as the dominant bully and Aries was great as the scrappy underdog. There was very little wrong with this match honestly, but the impact it had on the card for the night was weaker versus the other matches. Having Aries counter the End of Days into the sneaky pin was a great finish that protected Corbin from losing his credibility and gave a smart victory to Aries in his NxT in-ring debut.
Post Takeover-Austin aries continued his winning was on his NxT Debut with a Roaring Elbow victory over Angelo Dawkins. He's still got a bit of a way to go before going after the big headhunters.
As for Corbin, I don't know if he has anymore matches in NxT, but he shocked everyone that didn't watch NxT at Wrestlemania, winning the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal. He's been the arrogant giant that he's grown into on the main roster, and he's feuding with Dolph Ziggler now. The match itself may have been the weakest amongst the televised, but both men left this match in a good standing and have flourished since.
7 out of 10
Match 3: New NxT Tag Team Champions American Alpha (Jason Jordan & Chad Gable) def. The Revival (Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson)(Grand Amplitude)
My God, that was the BEST Tag Team match of the weekend, whether it'd be regular, 6 man, 8 man, 10 man, I don't give a damn! THIS was the BEST tag team match of the weekend and in the history of NxT. The Revival and American Alpha were essentially perfect foils for each other; one being a down and dirty dissecting brawling duo, the other being silky smooth Suplex machines. The crowd was hot all night and both teams were on. DuelingGerman Suplexes and crazy chain wrestling from Gable and Jordan, while the Revival did what they do best: Cheat and isolate! The only major blip was a botched Powerbomb-Doomsday device move by The Revival on Gable. Oh, and for the record, Chad Gable is probably the most entertaining wrestler when it comes to crowd pandering outside of the main eventers. Also, the post match celebration had me in goosebumps. I wasn't always a fan of Jason Jordan, but considering how long he's been jobbing to guys for the past few years and considering how long he's been in NxT/Developmental period, that dude deserved a big time victory.
Post Takeover, both teams have been on a roll. The New Champs immediately faced off against the most popular team in NxT, Enzo Amore and Big Cass, and scored a big victory in a hotly-contested match. It remains to be seen who the next contenders are, but Jordan and Gable should be holding those titles for a good amount of time.
The Revival started their chase back for their titles nicely by defeating former Chikara Campeones de Parejas 3.0 (Scott Jagged Parker....or Jeff Parker and Big Magic Shane Matthews...or Matt Lee) in a one-sided shutout, then immediately attacked fellow contenders the Hype Bros (Zack Ryder and (YUCK)Mojo Rawley).
8.75 out of 10
Match 4: New NxT Women's Champion Asuka def. Bayley ( Asuka Lock
This match would have been ranked higher, but suffered from following flat out the greatest match of the weekend. That being said, the women followed it to the best of their ability and I believe followed it well. It always sucks being in the second to last match on a card, but it was a great match overall. The back and forth was where it was supposed to be. The finish was a little flat (only because of how drained the audience was for cheering throughout the night and also because it was such a shock (kind of)). Bayley passing out was the right move in terms of the result protecting both competitors. The crowd was really pulling for Bayley but warmed up to Asuka being the champion after the initial shock wore off. (Kudos for Bayley going for the Jim Breaks Armbar/Sabre Jr. Special) While this match was amazing, surprisingly it was actually just the 2nd best Women's match of the weekend. (incidently, the only women who could outdo Bayley were her fellow Four Horsewomen Charlotte, Becky Lynch, and Sasha Banks.) That being said, this match deserves to be up there with the other NxT Women's Championship Classics.
Post Takeover, Bayley and Asuka have both started their path towards the next NxT Takeover event. Bayley (not sure when she's going to debut but until then I'll enjoy the ride) defeated up comer Liv Morgan and Asuka (To my extensive pleasure) knocked out Eva Marie. It seems as if Asuka is leading into a feud with Nia Jax.
8.5 out of 10
Match 5 (Main event) NxT Champion Finn Balor def. "The Samoan Submission Machine" Samoa Joe
When a big match occasion comes out, Finn comes out as The Demon. Throughout the match, it was interrupted here and there due to a huge cut suffered by Samoa Joe. Near the beginning and throughout the match, Joe was bleeding like a stuffed pig. Sometimes the medical staff had to pause the match to clean up the cut (which did stop the flow for a bit, and made the crowd antsy) but it made the match grittier and realistic, showing both the resiliency of Joe and the (accidental) sadisticness of the Demon. Honestly, while Finn was the good guy and Joe was the bad guy, Joe came off more like a good guy just due to the fact that he was willing to disregard his well-being to continue the match and go for the gold. This match was their best out of what would end up being the trilogy. The drama going throughout the match reminded me of a really great back and forth boxing match (you know, pre-Mayweather haha). Also, the tribute to Wrestlemania 8's IC title finish was a wonderful way to end the match. Still protected Joe, but gave a second escape for Balor to break Neville's record for longest Title reign.
Post Takeover: Joe defeated Apollo Crews before getting a third opportunity against Balor at a Live Event in Lowell, Massachusetts. With Balor not in Demon Gear, Joe finally got over the hump and won the NxT Championship in match 3 of this trilogy. Only time will tell how long this will continue. Otherwise, congrats to the new Champion.
9 out of 10
In any other case, any of the last three matches could have and would have been match of the night.....but in the middle of the card, one hell of a match showed up.
Match of the Night: Shinsuke Nakamura def. Sami Zayn (Kinshasa/Boma Ye)
First things first: Mauro Ranallo can do no wrong. The Showtime Boxing Announcer and current Play by Play man for WWE Smackdown did the narrative for the buildup video in this match, and like everything else, knocked it out of the park.
From Sami Zayn's entrance to his exit, this crowd was eating up EVERYTHING. Singing along to Sami's theme, the Ole's raining down.....and then Nakamura's theme hits. Swagsuke comes down and the crowd is HOT. Everything from the spastic entrance to the crazy pose, Shinsuke was straight up over and oozing charisma and dare I say....machismo.
Emotion filled with every twist and turn, a perennial game of one-upsmanship from bell to bell. False finishes that didn't expose each others' finishers, so many chants from the Yes! Chant to the one chant that I had yet to hear until now: "FIGHT FOREVER"
If they had fought longer, I wouldn't have complained. You saw why Sami Zayn is one of the best wrestlers in the world: Adaptability, while Nakamura proved that he's more than ready for American wrestling, he's bred for it. Nakamura finally finished off a 20+ minute match with the Boma Ye knee Strike, now known as the Kinshasa. The crowd gave this match a standing ovation for both wrestlers, and had a fond farewell sendoff to Sami Zayn as well.
Wrestling Observer Newsletter writer Dave Meltzer (the guy who is responsible for the Star ratings for every match in the world) gave this the highest rating of all the WWE/NxT matches on the weekend, and deservedly so. (Meltzer gave it 4.5 but I would have given it at least 4.75)
Post match:Shinsuke Nakamura has continued his winning streak with back to back TV victories over The Perfect 10 Tye Dillinger and The Drifter Elias Sampson. It's only a matter of time before A)Nakamura goes after the NxT Championship or B)Gets called up to the Main Roster.
Zayn (who had been called up a month ago) has integrated well into the roster with great matches against Chris Jericho and the Miz. In my opinion, Zayn was the MVP of WrestleMania weekend, with two matches of the night. This one against Nakamura (which could be up for Match of the year), and up until the ending, he stole the spotlight at WrestleMania in his performance at the IC Title Ladder match.
How fitting that his first big singles PPV match (Roadblock doesn't count!) is.....his long time rival Kevin Owens.
Rating:Over 9000 out of 10. (Ok...10 out of 10)
Arguably the Best NxT Takeover, (only Brooklyn could rival match for match) this event could rival not only any PPV done this year, but could be the card of the year. I would put the top 4 matches on this card versus the Top 4 matches of WrestleMania and New Japan's Wrestle Kingdom 10.
Craziest part is that in all 3 cards, both AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura play integral parts in at least 2 of them.
I'd give this NxT Special a 9.25 out of 10 Bullseyes.
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