NXT TakeOver: War Games II -- Results & Afterthoughts

NXT TakeOver: WarGames (2018) was a professional wrestling show and WWE Network event that took place on November 17, 2018 in the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. The event was produced by WWE for the NXT brand that is streamed live on the WWE Network.

Five matches were contested at the event. In the main event, Pete Dunne, Ricochet, and War Raiders defeated The Undisputed Era in a WarGames match. In the penultimate match, Tommaso Ciampa defeated Velveteen Dream to retain the NXT Championship and Aleister Black defeated Johnny Gargano.

Note: Much like my Survivor Series 2018 write-up, I'm not covering this show in order that the matches played out.

WarGames Match
NXT Champion Ricochet, WWE U.K. Champion Pete Dunne & The War Raiders def. The Undisputed ERA

I don't remember much of the old WCW WarGames matches and I kick myself every year for not revisiting them with adult eyes, but I never was too crazy about this match type when TNA/Impact Wrestling did their own spin on it with their Lethal Lockdown annual matches in this format. Boy, did NXT make me a fan of this match type over the past two years though. Honorable mention goes to MLW doing a stellar WarGames match earlier this year too by the way.

Amazing - that's the best way to describe this match during it's final quarter. I hate the first part of these matches like this because you know nothing good is going to happen until all 4 members of each opposing team are in the match and the cliched gimmick to this match is that the heels always have the advantage until that point - not to mention that Pete Dunne was dealing with a real life injury but you couldn't tell that from too much as he was protected for the bulk of this affair. Despite all of that going on, everyone involved managed to keep things interesting.

This was the coming out party for the War Raiders. This was giving me flashbacks to their feuds with Fish and O'Reilly as reDRagon during their War Machine days in Ring of Honor. For a big guy, I find myself always surprised at how mobile and agile that Hanson is. If he wasn't above 205 lbs., I'm sure WWE would have found a way to push a guy like him with the cruiserweight title.

NXT Championship Match
Tommaso Ciampa (c) def. Velveteen Dream to retain the title

I felt sorry that these two had to follow Black and Gargano on this card, but to my surprise, this match delivered big time as well. They had me fooled, just like everyone else, with the near fall after the Macho Man Elbow Drop. I thought they were going to have Ciampa drop the title to Dream there for sure. Then they did the "injury" finish and that moment of excitement went completely out of the window. I guess they really are keeping the NXT title on Ciampa until WrestleMania weekend. I honestly don't see anyone dethroning NXT's top heel anytime soon, especially while Gargano is doing this "crazy" gimmick for a while. He should look at what Eddie Edwards did in Impact over the past year and take notes of the mistakes of running that angle too long - people are going to stop caring and start tuning out. I'm anxious to see where they go with Velveteen Dream from here because it's not like a loss here is going to hurt his stock value. The fans still dig him and I'm sure Triple H and the rest of his NXT staff are fully behind the guy. I'm hoping a North American Championship run/title shot in the cards soon. His first encounter with Ricochet may have been in a loss but it wouldn't hurt to have his rematch result in a win. If I were to suggest a match, how about a triple threat between him, Adam Cole, and Ricochet with the gold on the line if you don't want to keep Dream in the NXT title conversation.

Aleister Black def. Johnny Gargano

Black and Gargano put on a masterclass showcase here as they showed off how to make your strikes look as vicious and stiff as possible without legit injuring your opponent. I hope Nia Jax took notes. Great storytelling here from start to finish and I thought the right man won here. Black was robbed of his opportunity to regain the title that he lost mistakenly to Tommaso Ciampa, thanks to Gargano's obsession, and he got his payback here.

As it currently stands on NXT programming, they are set to have a rematch at the next TakeOver special during Royal Rumble weekend, but I honestly don't see a point. Black beat the piss out of Gargano here. Doing a rematch in a steel cage isn't going to make me to expect any other different result. I'll give Gargano credit where it's due though - every match that he's had at TakeOver events for 2018 have been nothing short of amazing from bell to bell. The only downside is that as great as those matches are, he never wins when it matters. He keeps this up and people really are going to be calling him Johnny Failure. The one I think back to fondly is the one against Ciampa where he came out decked out in the Captain America Avengers: Infinity War gear and flat out lost. I just found that to be comical given to the events of that film.

NXT Women’s Championship 2-out-of-3 Falls Match
Shayna Baszler (c) def. Kairi Sane to retain the title

While I enjoyed this match, my biggest issue with it was the feeling like they were rushing for time. The first two falls went by extremely too fast for my taste, but they made up for it on the third. I marked the hell out watching this live when Io Shirai showed up to make the save and honestly rolled my eyes into the back of my head at Dakota Kai coming out to even the odds against Marina Safir and Jessamyn Duke helping out Shayna. I get why they put Kai in there as payback for all of her months of getting bullied and jobbed out to get Shayna over as a heel, but I felt that they could've added Mia Yim for that last bang that this faction needed.Then again, Dakota Kai needs something to sink her teeth into too and it wouldn't hurt to have her into a high profile program like this to erase the stigma of her being merely enhancement talent and finally ascend to a prominent role on the NXT brand instead of just being filler air time on both the NXT TV tapings and even the recent NXT UK episodes that aired to boot.

As for Shayna's title reign, I don't see anyone beating her for that title before WrestleMania weekend, unless they really plan on fast tracking a suitable challenger for the title by then. I read the spoilers and I'm already aware that Bianca Belair is going to challenger her next at the next TakeOver special, so that should be interesting there. Much like the Velveteen Dream, Belair is really talented, but I personally feel like she's missing something before moving up as NXT's face of that division. I just can't put my finger on what it is.

Matt Riddle def. Kassius Ohno

This was an impromptu match to kick off the show following a promo from Riddle calling out Ohno. As soon as the bell rung, Ohno did the job here, getting KO'd literally for Riddle to pick up the win. To say that Ohno's current gimmick is him being upset that he's welcoming mat for the newest NXT signees, he sure didn't do anything here to argue that point. Great way to introduce Riddle, but did absolutely nothing for Ohno here. So much for his moniker as a "Knockout Artist" when he's the one who got knocked out (laughs).