NXT TakeOver: Portland (Feb. 16, 2020) -- Results & Afterthoughts

NXT TakeOver: Portland was a professional wrestling show and WWE Network event produced by WWE for their NXT brand. It took place on February 16, 2020 at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon.

Six matches were contested at the event. In the main event, Adam Cole defeated Tommaso Ciampa to retain the NXT Championship. On the undercard, Rhea Ripley retained the NXT Women's Championship against Bianca Belair, Keith Lee defeated Dominik Dijakovic to retain the NXT North American Championship, and The BroserWeights (Matt Riddle and Pete Dunne) defeated The Undisputed Era (Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly) to win the NXT Tag Team Championship.

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NXT North American Championship Match

Kevin Lee (c) def. Donovan Dijakovic

I was shocked and delighted to see this match open the card. At the same time, this proved to be a tough act to follow for the rest of the show. I liked everything about this match, save for the anticlimatic ending where it just seemed like Dijakovic's back gave out (twice for that matter) and Lee just put him out of his misery to end it. It's insane what these two big guys can do in that ring together. Glad that they finally had a chance to do this on one of these TakeOver specials in front of a sizable crowd too.

Street Fight Match

Dakota Kai def. Tegan Nox

I was surprised that Tegan didn't break her tail bone from that nasty landing from the running senton in the corner to Kai. It looked like she was gun shy about using her legs for the Shiniest Wizard at the last second and just didn't commit to it.


What rock was Reina (now Raquel) Gonzales hiding underneath all of this time since the Mae Young Classic?

I know I can't be the only one who thought this Raquel (@GabrielaRio10) when Reina Gonzales came out there. Oh well, wishful thinking.

I'd be shocked if Tegan doesn't have a concussion from that table bump though. #NXTTakeOverPortland pic.twitter.com/owQC3LmMt5— Let's Talk Wrestling (@LetsTalkWrestle) February 17, 2020


If anyone to get as your heavy/bodyguard, I would've gotten that tall ass chick from The Great Khali's school. She wasn't bad at all during her appearance(s) in the Mae Young Classic, but I guess Gonzales is a decent consolation prize in that regard. I wonder who Tegan is going to get into her corner to back her up in the next match in this feud.

(Snaps fingers) Oh wait, it's going to be Candice LeRae... Ugh.

On a side note, I hope Tegan's alright after that table bump. That thing didn't give at all and smacked her on the head after her awkward landing behind it. Even Kai almost broke character for a second with a look of concern during that spot, despite the fact that those two were going all in on the spots here, knowing each of the others' history of injuries as of late.

Singles Match

Finn Balor def. Johnny Gargano

This started off slow and took it's time to build to a crescendo. This was easily two masters of their craft working together here. Lots of back and forth action and near-falls from what we've come to expect from these TakeOver performances from Gargano. At the end of the day, the right man won with Balor going over here. I don't know if this is the last time we're going to see them one-on-one (especially after how the main event ended), but I wouldn't mind seeing them do this again.

NXT Women's Championship Match

Rhea Ripley (c) def. Bianca Belair

From the way that the commentary team were talking up how Bianca's parents were in attendance to watch the match and how WWE loves their token title wins of color for Black History Month, I was convinced at one point that Rhea could potentially lose the title here. I'm glad to say that I was wrong in that prediction. NXT already shot themselves in the foot by getting ahead of themselves with already having Charlotte Flair starting to appear on the show, along with Rhea Ripley throwing down the gauntlet weeks in advance to this match. I felt that was a disservice to Bianca though, as it was essentially what Charlotte said - Rhea was overlooking her to look at the bigger threat to her title in the Queen. What's going to be interesting is where do they go from here. They could do a 1v1 match between Rhea and Charlotte at WrestleMania when they have clearly set the stage for a triple threat now. I'd be surprised if they go that route as it would be two back-to-back WrestleManias where Charlotte would be in one of those in some capacity.

In either case, it's going to make for some interesting television on NXT for the next couple of weeks.

As for this match as a whole, I can't say that this was the best outing for either of these women. As athletically talented that Bianca is, she's got some pretty sloppy looking Military Presses and Tosses going on in her arsenal. I wouldn't say that they are Ultimate Warrior level bad, but it's definitely noticeable.

NXT Tag Team Championship Match

Broserweights (Pete Dunne & Matt Riddle) def. The Undisputed Era (Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly) (c)

In my predictions on Facebook earlier that day, I mentioned that the Broserweights would more likely get the tag titles since their act has been pretty entertaining for the last few weeks. I'm sure people would like to see them stick together for a bit longer. I wouldn't run this in the ground though as reDRagon (Fish & O'Reilly) could easily win the titles back to put over the next big team that climbs up the ranks. As it currently stands, they don't have many teams to work with in that regard unless you lump in the NXT UK folks into that conversation too.

This match wasn't bad at all. It just suffers from the same issue as a lot of modern tag team matches have - too much shit going on with little to no tags to build-up to the drama of the back and forth. It's like everyone has to be in the ring at all times to hit all of their best shit 24/7 in terms of double teams. To be fair, AEW has thrown most of the tag team book out of the window in comparison to NXT who keeps it up for the most part. I just have to point it out here too when I see it.

NXT Championship Match

Adam Cole (c) def. Tomasso Ciampa

This match was roughly 33 minutes total in length. My only complaint is that they could have had just of a great match with half of that time, especially with the run-ins before the finish. Ciampa has to be next level stupid to be taking bumps onto his neck/shoulder area like that, even if it's protected. The guy just came back from God knows how many neck surgeries total in his career. He's on borrowed time as is and he wants to continue playing his luck on that? That being said, Cole's relentless assault on that area added to the drama of the match to their benefit, so in that regard, I give them two thumbs up for psychology here. I just firmly think that they shouldn't make a habit out of it.

As for the finish, that took me completely by surprise that Gargano would screw Ciampa out of reuniting with "Goldy". Okay, they are even now, but we all know this isn't going to be the end of it. We're looking at another set of months of Gargano and Ciampa matches, whereas I was fed up with them doing everything underneath the sun and then some in every match. I personally saw Undisputed Era losing everything by the end of the night, but NXT definitely proved me wrong and that was a good thing. At the end of the day, this was an excellent show. I wouldn't go as far as saying Show Of The Year like Meltzer and so many others are already pegging it as, but it's definitely one worth checking out. At this point though, these TakeOver shows being good is a given, especially with the talents involved. They haven't shit the bed royally like the main roster since starting these events and I doubt they will anytime soon from the wealth of talent they have to showcase on this brand.

NXT TakeOver: WarGames (Nov. 23, 2019) -- Results & Afterthoughts

NXT TakeOver: WarGames (2019) was a professional wrestling show and WWE Network event produced by WWE for their NXT brand. It took place on November 23, 2019, at the Allstate Arena in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, Illinois. It was the third event under the WarGames chronology, and the first to have a women's WarGames match, as well as the first to have two WarGames matches on the same night; it was also the second NXT TakeOver event in history in which the NXT Championship was not defended (the first being NXT TakeOver: Respect in 2015), and was the first which saw no title defenses on the card.

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Kick-Off: Angel Garza def. Isaiah "Swerve" Scott

Team Rhea (Rhea Ripley and Candice LeRae) def. Team Shayna (Bianca Belair, Io Shirai, NXT UK Women's Champion Kay Lee Ray, and NXT Women's Champion Shayna Baszler)

Mia Yim got taken out in a backstage attack at the end of the kick-off show and was replaced by Dakota Kai on Team Rhea, but if you didn't tune into the show until the main show started you wouldn't have known that at all since the commentary team failed to mention this. When it came for Dakota to enter the match, she snapped and savagely assaulted Tegan Nox to turn heel. Bayley needs to take notes from Dakota here. This is how you own a heel turn. Even though I think most people saw it coming from the moment that she was "buttering up" Mia Yim before her ladder match a few weeks ago after she wasn't picked for Team Rhea. My only problem with it was why go after Tegan? She didn't do anything. Rhea was the one who picked her last like the nerds nobody wanted on their team in gym class.

And it was at that moment, KLR realized she fucked up.

Kay Lee Ray definitely took a beating in this match.

Io Shirai with the dive of the night.

While Rhea was unsung hero in the match while coming across as a wrecking machine, MVP award goes to Io Shirai. I'm surprised Io didn't break her legs after that Moonsault from off the top of the cage as it looked like she tried to land on her feet from the landing but her legs hit the ropes anyway in the impact. There's absolutely no way she wasn't feeling that in the morning. I'm still not too keen on Candice LeRae's bottomless amount of endurance (despite her non-disclosed history to WWE fans that she used to fight men regularly) like her husband. WWE has to be careful about how hard they push her just because she's Johnny Failure Gargano's wife as it will come across forced and there's going to be a fan backlash. NXT UK's own Women's Champion Kay Lee Ray wasn't no slouch either as she took some truly gnarly bumps in this match that she sold like pure death.

Finn Balor def. Matt Riddle

This match was originally set between Johnny Gargano and Finn Balor, but Gargano had to miss this TakeOver event due to an injury - first time that he's missed one of these events since debuting for the brand actually. Fortunately, Matt Riddle was able to fill in for Gargano as an impromptu replacement, but had to bow out as the original 4th man for Team Ciampa in WarGames. For Finn Balor's first TakeOver match back on the NXT brand, he had to win here. It's not like going back to the main roster to lose to the Fiend again was going to do him any favors, especially after his great heel turn a month ago. Riddle put up a good fight but like I said earlier, the right man went over in this contest.

Pete Dunne def. Damien Priest and Killian Dane to earn NXT Championship Match against Adam Cole the next night on Survivor Series

Even though this match was pulled out of their asses at the last possible second mere days before this event, I thought this was a fun match and we finally got a payoff for these feuds that Dunne has found himself in the middle of for the last few weeks. The best thing about this match for me was all of the various combinations these guys were doing on each other to hopefully bulldoze the competition. Pete Dunne (AKA NXT's Roger Klotz)

Team Ciampa (Keith Lee, Donovan Dijakovic, Tommaso Ciampa, and Kevin Owens) def. The Undisputed Era (NXT North American Champion Roderick Strong, NXT Tag Team Champions Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly, and NXT Champion Adam Cole)

The kicker in this match was that everyone was wondering who the mysterious 4th man was going to be to join Team Ciampa since they came to the match without even announcing who they got to their 4th man. I knew they weren't going to rehash the Women's WarGames finish where it was the babyfaces dealing with overwhelming odds as that would have been redundant at this point and I like to think that NXT has better minds in their think tank in terms of booking and mapping out storylines. In the back of my head, I had three possible outcomes for the 4th man - John Morrison, Kevin Owens, and CM Punk. As of this posting (Dec. 4, 2019), John Morrison literally just signed his new contract with WWE, so that wasn't happening at that point. CM Punk would have driven that crowd absolutely bonkers if he was the 4th, but Kevin Owens made a lot of sense, given his ROH history with all of those involved along with the fact that he would have wanted payback for what the Undisputed Era did when they invaded Monday Night RAW.

The match ended with an insane Project Ciampa off the top of the cage through two tables. If that bump wasn't insane enough (especially for Ciampa who just came back from neck surgery and Cole who has been wrestling with a fractured wrist for the last month or two), the cameras got a reaction shot of AEW's own Britt Baker (AKA Adam Cole's girlfriend) watching from the crowd, clearly mortified from what she has seen just transpire.

Yep, that's Britt Baker alright.

I don't blame WWE for doing this either as it was her own stupidity to coming to a rival promotion's PPV and sitting in the crowd. Don't show up at the show if you don't want to be shown on TV. I have to agree with Cornette on his remark about she should have been fired if she didn't clear it with AEW firsthand. Of course, AEW didn't do anything other than parody it on their own programming the following week...

My reaction to AEW and all of their callbacks and cheap knocks to WWE...

My only issue with the events of this TakeOver event was that it didn't affect anything the following night on Survivor Series, which we'll get into in the write-up on that event, but at least we got a proper follow-up on NXT Wednesday night.