NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia was a professional wrestling show and WWE Network event in the NXT TakeOver series that took place on January 27, 2018, at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The event was produced by WWE for its NXT brand and it was streamed live on the WWE Network.
Five matches were contested at the event. In the main event, Andrade "Cien" Almas defeated Johnny Gargano to retain the NXT Championship. On the undercard, Ember Moon retained the NXT Women's Championship against Shayna Baszler and Aleister Black defeated Adam Cole in a Extreme Rules match. The event was also notable for the return of Tommaso Ciampa.
Much like the predictions thread, Serena and I decided to do the write-up for this show and Royal Rumble together since we
NXT Tag Team Championship Match - Undisputed Era (Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly; champions) def. The Authors of Pain
ZX: As someone who has followed Fish and O’Reilly’s careers for the past few years in ROH and marked out for their “reDRagon” tag team, I was genuinely disappointed by this match for the most part. They deserved far better opponents than being forced to have to carry AoP through another tag title match at a TakeOver show. I don’t understand why NXT insists on pushing those guys to the moon when we know that they will fizzle out just like the Ascension on the main roster whenever they get called up. I’m guessing they are getting called up sooner more than later because NXT is REALLY getting crowded at this point, despite the fact that I think AoP are greener than grass.
Serena: This match was pretty much 50 Shades of Green. I haven’t really been following NXT for the last year or so, except for an occasional “Glorious” chant or some of Asuka’s work, before she left for the main roster. So, I came in to this with an open mind and love filled heart. Yet, I couldn’t close my eyes and ignore the fact of how lumbered Undisputed Era looked with AoP. The match seemed tedious and sluggish, with one of the most awful tag team move from AoP at the very end. Hey, maybe we just caught these guys on a bad night, I am not sure. But Undisputed Era seemed like they were trying to jump around and make this match exciting, while The Authors of Pain didn’t even seem like they were trying to keep up. Honestly, glad that the champs retained and forgot in minutes that I saw this match.
Velveteen Dream def. Kassius Ohno
ZX: Comparing this TakeOver performance with his one with Aleister Black during Survivor Series weekend, I have to say the latter match was the better of the two. Ohno and Dream have chemistry here, but there was far too much miscues and sloppy execution on spots for my taste. Seemed like they were rushing for time at one point when they were only the second match on this card. Either way, I’m just glad that Dream finally got a win at TakeOver underneath his belt.
Serena: Right before we watched this match, ZX made a recommendation to watch Black vs Dream, even hinting that Dream is definitely one of the strongest wrestlers out there in NXT. Also, the announce team didn’t hold back on hyping this guy up either. So, when the match ended I thought, that maybe I didn’t understand something. This match was so sloppy and wrong. Sure, even in this match you can see that Velveteen Dream has amazing potential and can work a room like nobody’s business. Yet, I don’t know if this was because of a mismatch between him and Ohno, maybe neither one nor the other wanted to put the opponent over, but something was clearly off. Two amazing talents seemed rusty and wooden during this entire thing. So far, Serena is not a happy camper.
ZX: The problem with Ohno is that either he has a really good match on NXT or he just completely fizzes out on execution. Tonight definitely wasn’t his night. Given the fact that they cooked up this match at the last second didn’t do him any favors in terms of preparation either.
NXT Women’s Championship Match - Ember Moon © def. Shayna Baszler
ZX: I really wanted to like this match since I was sold onto the narrative that they were trying to portray here with Ember Moon being the one to put an end to Shayna’s excessive “bullying” of the NXT women since her arrival. At the end of the day, I just couldn’t ignore the poor execution of all of this, especially during the finish. The bad calls by the clueless referee was what really got me here. Shayna’s shoulders were CLEARLY on the mat at times and there wasn’t any count, but he immediately sprung into action when the rollup finish happened. Not to mention that Ember carelessly tapped out too at one point from what it looked like but the referee ignored that too. Just a lot of bad calls all round. It’s a damn shame too to say that this match was promising from the first half. Even the post-match attack by Shayna looked bad because Ember’s selling wasn’t even timed properly when she had her eyes wide open when Percy was shouting on commentary that she passed out. To Ember’s credit, I applaud her for being one of the few people who do high-flying spots to remember to sell their injured limb during execution. She deserves a lot of kudos in that regard to sell that injury from start to finish, plus even in her appearance in the Rumble the next night.
Serena: Honestly, I was beyond excited for this match. I do enjoy seeing MMA fighters transitioning into wrestling, since they bring even more combat sports realism into the sometimes cartoonish world of WWE. So combined the MMA style of Shayna and the amazing high flyer repertoire of Ember Moon, this match seemed stellar on paper. Yet, in reality we got a very green and very limited Shayna and a overacting Ember, who at moments reminded me of a Looney Tunes character. Or no, better yet, she was Nicholas Cage. That’s what she was. Overly campy and theatrical with every hit or submission maneuver she got into. The match wasn’t terrible. Shayna truly shines as the monster heel (early Braun vibes) and Ember has the spunk and charisma to act as the relentless babyface that never gives up. Yet, Shayna still needs a ton of training to reach a level, where she doesn’t have to rely on others to carry the match for her. Just another somewhat sloppy and awkward match. Honestly, I did expect something different, something grander.
Extreme Rules Match - Aleister Black def. Adam Cole
ZX: Can we agree that this was the best match on the PPV? I could have done without this being an Extreme Rules match to be honest as they could have had just as great of a match without a stipulation attached to it. If they wanted to include Sanity and the rest of Undisputed Era in the mix, a simple ref bump would have bought them enough time for what they did here. I was wondering what was the hold up on interference when the match was billed as no disqualification to begin with, but whatever.
Serena: Oh, without a doubt, this was my match of the night. I knew that ZX previously hinted that I will fall in love with Black and his style… Pfft. Not fair, he knows my taste all too well. Seriously, both Aleister Black and Adam Cole stole the show, keeping up the pace throughout and actually making the match look fluid and effortless. Great chemistry between the two.
Honestly, for me more often than not, it is a lot easier to talk about matches I didn’t like, rather the ones I did enjoy. All I can say is that hopefully I will get to see these two square off once more…. Maybe even for any of the big titles. I can definitely see it in their future.
NXT Championship Match - Cien Almas © w/ Zelina Vega def. Johnny Gargano
ZX: Maybe I saw the wrong match but I don’t know where all of these reviews and reports online are coming from that this was the best NXT match ever. Nah, Zayn vs. Nakamura from WrestleMania weekend a year or two ago was just epic. Nothing has been close to that in my eyes. That being said, this wasn’t a bad match at all. The more I watch WWE programming in recent years, along with wrestling as a whole, I’m starting to become more and more unfazed by the 7-10+ near-falls in high profile bouts. I’m more shocked and impressed nowadays by guys actually hitting their finishers ONCE and actually getting the victory more than these near-falls just to have near-falls. It’s done FAR too much in my honest opinion. I used to think that was cool about 10-15 years ago when the “indie style” was new when ROH and TNA were doing this style back in the heights of those promotions before most of that premiere talent migrated over to WWE, but now it’s abused a little too much for my taste. Almas and Gargano have chemistry that’s for sure, but I can honestly do without another match between them for a good while.
Much like the Ember/Shayna match, I wanted to choke the referee here at some points too as he was making some bad calls here. It wasn’t as annoying here as it was in that match, but my biggest issue with this match was the finish was rather anticlimactic given everything that they’ve done up to that point. We all knew that Ciampa was going to ruin Gargano’s moment at the end, but it just seemed odd that he would kick him while he’s already down. Just my humble opinion but it would have meant more either if Ciampa cost him the match or Gargano had his victory celebration ruined by Ciampa. NXT seemed high up on Almas this weekend so they could have went with the first option since they weren’t willing to take the gold off him yet.
Serena: I honestly was very much surprised that this was considered to be the show stealer of NXT: Takeover Philadelphia. After seeing that absolute delight of a match right before (Black vs Cole), I didn’t think Gargano and Almas would top it. Even though, I am a huge Johnny Wrestling fan. His babyface work is reminiscent of Daniel Bryan and I do think that if creatives will swallow that pill, Gargano might be on the road of great success in WWE. Yet, the match, as good as it was, was your regular good, solid wrestling. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing too exciting or groundbreaking. It was simply a good competition between two great workers. But this match had a long way to go in my eyes to be called “Match of the Year” contender.
Again, love Gargano. Zelina Vega seems quite good as Almas' manager, Candice LeRae (Gargano’s real life wife and NXT signee) also was worked into the match nicely. But I just couldn’t see where was all the hype. I’m sorry, throw rocks at me or empty beer cans, but I am sticking to my guns and think that Cole vs Black is the match of the night.
Afterthoughts:
ZX: It’s three days later as we’re wrapping up this write-up and I’m still seeing people talking about that main event online as the best match in NXT history. I forgot I left the Network on my Firestick when I got home last night and TakeOver was on again, so I rewatched a few of the matches. My opinions still haven’t changed in the least. I like Gargano too and I want to like Almas’ gimmick but that wasn’t the best NXT match ever. I applaud them for their performance, but it wasn’t THAT good. I get that everyone likes to set NXT on a high pedestal in terms of quality over the main roster at times, but this is one of the rare occasions where NXT didn’t deliver a “flawless” show that it’s reputation set the standard for.
Serena: I absolutely agree. NXT can make mistakes and makes them just as much as any other wrestling company. For me, this TakeOver was very much a mixed back. The first half of the show was very meh and mismatched, while the main event and the Extreme rules matches redeemed the otherwise weak PPV. Yet, in the end, I was pretty happy to see that after the “veterans” of NXT left, this brand still is strong and full of life with not only the current talent, but also with the new signees as well.
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