NXT TakeOver: New Orleans was a professional wrestling show and WWE Network event in the NXT TakeOver series that took place on April 7, 2018, at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Ladder Match to Crown the First Ever NXT North American Champion
Adam Cole def. Ricochet, Killian Dain, Lars Sullivan, EC3, and The Velveteen Dream
This match was rather nuts - as to be expected, but ultimately left me feeling like everyone else is going to have a hard time following this match.
EC3 was here just to get killed in his debut. There were multiple points in this match where I was going, they better be checking him for concussions or possible broken bones after what he was put through here. Velveteen Dream isn't going to have a hip when he's in his 40s to 50s if he keeps killing it with those Elbow Drops. Wasn't that Rainbow Drop (clearly that's what move from Tekken's Yoshimitsu that he's using here doing that that Cartwheel Death Valley Driver) insane on the ladder? No way in hell I would agree to take that move on a ladder PERIOD nor even suggest that idea. Surprised no one was hurt off that one and the two spots on three people at once by Lars and Dain.
I totally didn't see Adam Cole winning this at all. I had Dream pegged to pick up the win here. Little did I know that this was the beginning of setting up Undisputed Era as the faction/force of nature to beat
NXT Women's Championship Match - Shayna Baszler def. Ember Moon (c)
For the record, I want to say that I loved the narrative that they told here, especially with Ember flipping the script on Shayna's shoulder dislocation spot onto her instead and where Shayna popped her own shoulder back into place by ramming the corner post. I can't place where I have seen that before, but they got points for originality here on that one.
The finish is where this match fell apart at for me. The referee acted like Ember Moon passed out in the hold when I could CLEARLY see her eyes wide open as the hard camera captured it. I wasn't surprised that Ember was going to drop the title to Shayna here, but they could have executed that part better. It's a damn shame too because Shayna's reversal into the hold off the counter to the Eclipse was fucking sick.
Dusty Tag Team Classic Finals - The Undisputed Era (Adam Cole & Kyle O'Reilly) def. Authors of Pain and Roderick Strong & United Kingdom Champion Pete Dunne to retain the NXT Tag Team Championships and win the 2018 Dusty Tag Team Classic
Let's be honest here, after those last two matches, this crowd didn't even care about the vast majority of this match until Strong's heel turn at the end. That was KINDA unexpected, especially when people were calling for it MONTHS ago but NXT never seemed to go with it. Currently, they really have no choice because Strong was struggling to get over babyface so at least we'll get a breath of fresh air with this. I know that I thoroughly enjoyed him heel in Ring of Honor, so I'm anxious to see how he plays this in NXT in the coming months. I love how ironic it is that they've essentially turned Undisputed Era into an ex-ROH faction. They might as well add War
I'm not saying that this match was bad. It was just hard to make this crowd (and I'm sure everyone watching at home) get hyped when we saw just about everything under the sun in the first two matches. The Authors of Pain still come off very flawed to me with Strong, O'Reilly, and Pete Dunne carrying them most of this match. I hope they know that they won't have this kind of treatment on the main roster in the least. By the time that this article goes up, I'm sure people will have seen that they have debuted on the main roster and thrown Paul Ellering to the curb. A good friend of mine pointed out that was probably the best choice, given Ellering's age and no desire to hit the road on a full-time WWE schedule.
NXT Championship Match - Aleister Black def. Andrade "Cien" Almas (w/ Zelina Vega) to become the NEW NXT Champion
I'd be lying if I said that I had faith in Almas retaining the belt here. As soon as they made this match official, I knew that Black was getting the title because NXT has made a habit of keeping him out of the title hunt or getting sidetracked for quite some time now until the perfect moment. Black has had a great run of stellar bouts at these last few TakeOver events and it's appropriate for him to pick up the NXT Championship going forward. Almas has proved his worth over the last few months and risen up to the occasion to fill in the shoes of the brand's headliner after Drew Galloway's unfortunate injury. Fate was rather kind to him and with Zelina Vega (who I jokingly refer to as Rosie Perez on social media among friends) he's elevated his stock as a pairing. If Almas is getting called up in the Superstar Shake-Up next week, I hope him and Zelina doesn't end up like Rusev and Lana where they split up their act then act like they don't know what happened when their stock goes down individually. Don't get me wrong... Rusev's over huge solo, but Lana? Not so much. I say Almas shouldn't be cutting his own promos as they sound abysmal without Zelina doing the talking (when she's not trying to put on a fake as hell stereotypical Latina accent) while Zelina would be jobbing harder than she was in her limited appearances on NXT prior under her real name against Asuka and other heavy-hitters if anyone thinks those hit or miss Hurracanranas she does look good. What I'm getting at here is that together they cover up each others' weaknesses.
Perfect example? When Zelina half-assed that Rana Driver/DDT on Black halfway into this match, Almas was right there to pick up the pieces and salvage the spot anyway. Most people probably didn't catch that, but that really stuck out in my eyes. The best spot for this entire match (honestly annoyed me that they recycled a few from Gargano/Almas at the last TakeOver) was Zelina's help backfiring at the finish that caused Almas to catch her out of the air like Austin Aries held a gun to his head and told him nothing better not happen to his girlfriend in his employ, setting him for the Black Mask for the win for Black. I couldn't think of a better way to end Almas' title reign with Zelina's tricks and foul play backfiring on them both.
I've seen a lot of podcasters and fans on social media mention this and I'm inclined to agree - with Impact Wrestling's recent firing over Alberto Del Rio, Vince needs to just keep that clown FAR away from WWE and look towards Andrade Cien Almas as his Latino star that he wants to build/market around to that demographic. Hell, the guy's already off to a great start.
Non-Sanctioned Match - Johnny Gargano def. Tommaso Ciampa to reinstate his NXT contract
I'm going to be honest here and say that I wasn't too keen on this match like everyone else seems to be raving about. I won't argue that the good versus evil narrative was amazing and timeless here, once again proving that these feuds can still work in modern wrestling with a clear cut good guy vs. bad guy motif. My issue is that it felt like it dragged on and on during the first half of this match until they got going. After everything building up to this, you would think Gargano would come out here on fire like a shot out of a cannon but the opening phase of this match was a far too tame for my taste. I guess they were saving their stamina for the long haul, but they could have done just as well with this match if shaved off like the first ten to fifteen minutes off of it.
The thing that confused me over the weekend and week prior was that people were dead set on believing that Gargano was going to lose and stay fired. What else are Gargano or Ciampa going to do? Ciampa wouldn't have nothing to go off of after that outside of the massive heel heat he has and that would vanish in a few weeks if Gargano just magically appeared on the main roster. In my opinion, Gargano isn't going anywhere near the main roster as long as Daniel Bryan's healthy since they would be given the same treatment/push, especially when they could milk this Gargano/Ciampa thing for another TakeOver or two. Besides, if you can find a heel female they want to build up they can get a few mixed tag matches out of this too if they want to couple Gargano and his wife Candice LaRae up together after she debuts.
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