NXT TakeOver: Toronto (2019) was a professional wrestling show and WWE Network event produced by WWE for their NXT brand. It took place on August 10, 2019, at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Seven matches were contested at the event, including two taped for the following week's episode of NXT. In the main event, Adam Cole defeated Johnny Gargano in a two-out-of-three falls match to retain the NXT Championship. The undercard saw NXT Women's Champion Shayna Baszler, NXT North American Champion Velveteen Dream and NXT Tag Team Champion Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) retain their titles.
Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) (c) def. The Undisputed Era (Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish) Tag team match for the NXT Tag Team Championship
This was easily the best match that I have seen the Street Profits compete in their entire NXT careers to date. Going into this show, I was convinced that they were dropping the titles to the Undisputed Era since they have been seen hanging around on the main roster backstage for the last few weeks now. They haven't been wrestling any matches, so I guess WWE figures that they can juggle both roles without any problems for the time being.
Montez Ford might want to look into wearing a singlet for his gear as his "odd" looking nipples are a red flag for possible steroid usage. So yeah, he might want to hide that. He's got that same look going on that Jinder Mahal had a while back. Dude's got a bigger chest than his damn wife (Bianca Belair FYI). That being said, he's easily the star of this act. The Street Profits could split up tomorrow and Ford could be EASILY pushed to the moon as a singles act with his charisma and in-ring ability. Angelo Dawkins isn't bad - it just seems like that dude is moving in slow-mo half of the time. Besides, I would like to see these guys against teams who don't have a record of excellent performances under their belt for I can truly determine whether or not they are that damn good or the former members of reDRagon along with other noteworthy NXT tag teams have been making them look better than they actually are.
There was a brawl between Matt Riddle and Killian Dane at one point of this show, but it didn't result into a full blown match between the two. Riddle got the jump on Dane for once and it ended after Dane jumped off the stage with Riddle still latched on his back with a sleeper hold applied while performing a STO on one of the poor unfortunate security guards in his wake.
Io Shirai def. Candice LeRae by technical submission
Throughout this match, I couldn't buy into the beating that Candice LeRae was on the receiving end for, especially when I have seen her take FAR worse punishment from opponents of the opposite sex. At the same time, I was not ready to see her "hulk up" like Cena or Hogan and turn around to win this thing either. Her husband does enough of that bullshit where he's kicking out of a million and one finishers and getting up for more. I don't want to see them rehash the same thing for her. I'm sure the Full Sail crowd doesn't want to either.
Heel Io going over was the right decision and I'm glad that NXT went that way, even though I thought her turn was stupid to begin with. Too bad Asuka isn't around for we could have seen that feud in NXT.
This was arguably the best match on this entire card to be quite honest.
Velveteen Dream (c) def. Pete Dunne and Roderick Strong Triple threat match for the NXT North American Championship
I popped for that trip down nostalgia lane for The Mountie's theme before this transitioned into a performance by the Toronto Raptors' dance crew to see Velveteen Dream down to the ring. We better enjoy these elaborate entrances for him now because we know that they are going to neuter that the second he gets called up. Just look at what they did to Aleister Black's entrance and Finn Balor's. I can count how many times we have seen the Demon on the main roster on one hand.
This match was a lot of fun, but ultimately, it felt like it was missing something before you could regard it as something truly phenomenal. Without a shadow of a doubt, we all know that these three men are amazing individually, but sue me for expecting a little more here. Plus, they really lost me during the finish where they telegraphed that someone was going to screw the other out of the pinfall. That was my biggest knock against this match.
Shayna Baszler (c) defeated Mia Yim by submission Singles match for the NXT Women's Championship
Without a shadow of a doubt, this was the weakest match on this card. From her tenure in Impact Wrestling as Knockouts Champion and various bouts in the indies, I know that Mia Yim possesses the ability to be a threat for Shayna's NXT Women's Championship, but she hasn't been built up as such in NXT thus far. This whole story seemed hastily put together and this match suffers as a result as Yim is setup as the one with everything to lose here.
To be fair though, I did enjoy the psychology of this match with Yim systematically wearing down Shayna's arms so she couldn't use the Clutch, but Shayna's technical savvy and experience led her to improvise by using her legs to secure the win regardless.
After another successful defense for the Queen of Spades, I pose this question - who is left for Shayna to beat or beat her? She's gone through just about every big name that they have on that roster and then some. They have to be ready to call her up to the main roster at this point. She can remain undefeated too if they want to sweeten the deal.
Adam Cole (c) defeated Johnny Gargano 2–1 Two-out-of-three falls match for the NXT Championship
I feel like a broken record when I bring up my issue with these Johnny Gargano main events on these TakeOver specials. He does FAR too much in his matches. In this case, he and Cole took the cake and then some in that regard. We already seen Adam Cole and Johnny Gargano do a Best of Three Falls match in the past and they are just recycling the same concept with different stipulations for each fall. I have absolutely no idea what they were thinking in the first fall when they blew through most of their big moves and near-falls right off the bat and turned the match into a bunch of nothing until Gargano got himself disqualified like a moron. That played into the next fall being into his favor with it being a Street Fight, but it just came off stupid to me since they kept doing more and more spots and not trying to get any pinfalls off of it. When a babyface gets himself/herself disqualified in multi-fall matches like this, it's to quickly get the next fall and even things up. Nope, that wasn't in the playbook at all here. The match quickly spiraled into doing shit just to do it until FINALLY Gargano got the fall to tie things up.
When I saw the barbwire steel cage, I honestly busted out laughing as they had it decorated like the last round/finale of Impact Wrestling's Lethal Lockdown Match, save for the Hell in a Cell style roof on the top. (Laughs) NXT ran out of early 2000s (and some current) Ring of Honor stuff to rip off and now they are moving onto Impact Wrestling's catalog. Can't say that I blame 'em at this point. Just when you thought this match was going to probably end soon, it didn't. This dragged on for what felt like an eternity as Cole and Gargano scaled the cage walls gingerly to each bring down each of the marquee weapons hanging up on display on the side of the cage walls until Gargano thought it was a wise idea to cut off a piece of barbwire (using the wire cutters that were in a bag that I'm sure the crowd was fooled into thinking had thumbtacks, broken glass, or something vile to use within). For some reason, this scared Cole up onto the platform setup on top of the cage with Gargano in pursuit. The two then shoved each other off the top and through the two tables that were setup below. Unfortunately, they only hit one of the tables (barely at that...) and Cole was the one fortunate enough to roll over onto Gargano to get the pin and retain the title.
(Laughs) I guess Johnny Failure came out to play after all.
I'm sorry, but this whole match from start to finish gets a huge "Meh" from me. After all of that and it ends with essentially a draw to (hopefully) close out this feud? In the post-match video that WWE shared on social media, Regal was raising Gargano's arm and the crowd was cheering as if this is the last time that we would see him on the black and yellow brand. If this match was his swansong, then whatever I guess, but he's got more than enough "good" to "great" performances to hold his head high about on his resume as he heads up to the main roster.
