NXT TakeOver: Chicago -- Results & Afterthoughts

NXT TakeOver: Chicago was a professional wrestling show in the NXT TakeOver series that took place on May 20, 2017, at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois.The event was produced by WWE for its NXT brand and streamed live on the WWE Network.

Roderick Strong def. Eric Young (w/ SAniTy)

Both of these guys are solid workers but I couldn't really invest into this match when it's apparent that they merely shoehorned Strong into the same position that Tye Dillinger was in before he got called up to the main roster. Both Sanity AND Strong deserve to move onto better feuds than this. This is getting neither of them nowhere. There were a few cool spots in this match and a brutal sequence by Strong to end it, but overall, it all felt very "meh" to me... After that stellar bout between Itami and Strong on NXT a few weeks back, you would think that they would have this guy in a better program elevated higher onto this card. And if Sanity isn't in the tag team division then what's the point of them just being a big faction when all of this ganging up on people isn't getting them nowhere. I'm just sayin'...

WWE United Kingdom Championship Match - Pete Dunne Def. Tyler Bate (c)

It kills me that the UK title is the coolest looking belt in the company right now. You would think that WWE would put a stronger effort into making the rest of their belts look legit like this.

I joked about it on Twitter during the UK title special last night, but Pete Dunne looks like Roger Klotz from Doug to me. I can't help but think that every time I see that guy.

That being said, this was easily the showstealer at this point. I felt sorry for anyone who has to follow this match. I thought this match would have been a showstealer even without the series of dives and flips towards the end by Tyler Bate. The sequence of counters, reversals, and pure mat/technical wrestling was more than enough to blow me away. These two guys are easily going to be the top stars of that UK show whenever WWE gets it off the ground. With the title on Pete Dunne, they easily elevate it more with a top heel putting babyfaces like Bate and Wolfgang into the chase.

If I had one complaint about this match it was the referee CLEARLY stopping at 2 during the pinfall to allow Pete Dunne to kick-out afterwards. That was facing directly towards the hard cam and I know I wasn't the only one who saw that. That was the only thing that was stopping this match from being flawless in my eyes.

Triple Threat Match for NXT Women's Championship - Asuka (c) def. Nikki Cross and Ruby Riot

I'll be blunt here, but this was was the weakest TakeOver bout that Asuka has defended the title to date. I thought that Fatal 4 Way was bad a few months go, but this took the cake for me. That being said, Ruby and Nikki put up a great effort as they carried Asuka throughout this bout instead of the other way around with a few interesting spots here and there, but the sloppy execution at times just made me keep shaking my head and took me out of the moment.

I just felt bad for the girls having to follow that stellar UK title bout in the shit stain/piss break spot here. The crowd tried to stay with them too but it was hard to stay hyped after the previous match blew everything they've done here out of the water.

I guess this is just filler until Ember Moon recovers from her injury to get her rematch at TakeOver: Brooklyn or maybe WWE are saving Asuka's first defeat for Io Shirai or Kairi Hojo's debuts later this year. (Shrugs) Who knows, but whatever they have in mind I hope they know that this women's division is dead in the water until Asuka is dethroned or called up.

NXT Championship Match - Bobby Roode (c) def. Hideo Itami

It was hard to care here and I don't feel sorry that they were robbed of the main event spot. This was the exactly the same as Roode's last few bouts with Nakamura, with him going for a redundant injury angle on a body part. Where does Itami go from here now that Roode beat him CLEAN in this match? The two DDTs for the finish was lame (and rather overkill)to say that Itami had him beat prior to that before he rolled out of the ring.

Much like everything else on this show after the UK title match, I felt like they just phoned it in here as they were under the impression that they weren't going to top that act.

Ladder Match for NXT Tag Team Championships - The Authors of Pain (c) w/ Paul Ellering def. DIY

I know I'm in the minority here, but I watched this match twice and didn't see too much here that blew me away. If I'm perfectly honest, I felt that DIY did a bit TOO much here to say Ciampa was allegedly injured. I think both him and Gargano injured themselves at multiple occasions here, but if they didn't, they have to consider themselves to be extremely lucky. That being said, this has to be the best AoP match they've had to date. I'm still not too fond of these guys, but I have to give them props here.

To say that they gave this main event spot to the tag team division was the clear signal that they were planning something post-match for me. Otherwise, NXT likes to end with the NXT title match, save for that one exception with the Ironwoman match between Sasha and Bayley. I was honestly more surprised that Ciampa stayed babyface this damn long as I was more accustomed to him being heel back in Ring of Honor prior to his WWE debut. I thought it was proven during the CWC series last year that DIY could make it as singles stars, but I think they are jumping the gun on splitting them up right now. What is even weirder to me is that if both of them are on the bench, then why do this angle now for people to forget about it in a few weeks/months while they are at home recovering?

With DIY on the shelf and split up, then who's next for AoP to feud with? TM61 are still injured and everyone else other than Heavy Machinery are straight job squad filler, so I don't know what they are going to do. They could feud with Sanity but that would make AoP the babyfaces in that feud and I doubt that NXT is going to go that route. Much like the women's division, it seems like that NXT's booking has backed them into a wall.

NXT TakeOver: Orlando (April 1, 2017) -- Results & Afterthoughts

NXT TakeOver: Orlando was a professional wrestling event in the NXT TakeOver series. It took place on April 1, 2017, at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida, as part of the WrestleMania 33 weekend festivities. The event was produced by WWE for its NXT brand, the event was streamed live on the WWE Network.

Five matches were contested at the event. In the main event, Bobby Roode defeated Shinsuke Nakamura to retain the NXT Championship. On the undercard, Asuka retained the NXT Women's Championship against Ember Moon and Authors of Pain retained the NXT Tag Team Championship against #DIY (Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa) and The Revival (Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder). The event also saw the debut of Aleister Black. Also, all of the championships were given new belt designs.
Note: This article was posted AFTER my WrestleMania 33 write-up, so I'll be mentioning stuff from after the fact.

SAnitY def. Tye Dillinger, No Way Jose Kassius Ohno, Roderick Strong & Ruby Riot

You guys can go back to one of the earliest entries I've wrote about women's wrestling for here or for the archives from Let's Talk Wrestling, but DAYUM Heidi Lovelace/Ruby Riot isn't easy on the eyes. She's even uglier to me in HD. That being said, it was cool to see what she brought to the table against Nikki Cross. I still feel like she needs to change her ring gear as it looks like she belongs in Sanity instead of against them. Her and Cross didn't do much other than deliver their own unique brands of crazy while the guys did most of the work.

No Way Jose was written off in an injury angle during the preshow so Kassius Ohno was made to be his replacement. Thank god he changed up his ring gear to some more flattering colors to hide his fat. That white NBA jersey wasn't doing him any favors. Now you can focus on his offense instead of seeing his gut and cellulite jiggling around during everything that he does. Can someone tell Roderick Strong to SLOW THE FUCK DOWN? This isn't Ring of Honor anymore so he doesn't have to go a million miles per hour in his matches. I'm sure one of the coaches/road agents chewed him out about that post-match. A part of me hopes Dillinger gets called up just for he doesn't have to be burdened with this feud much longer. I rather see NXT go in a different direction with everyone involved here (except for Ruby and Cross) out of the guys as it just seems to be redundant at this point.

This wasn't a bad match at all and definitely got everyone hyped to kick off the show, but I rather see most of the guys on Dillinger's team in singles feuds than in a huge stable war against Sanity, who could be in the tag team division conversation, especially in a division that's going to be lacking bodies once Revival get called up.

Aleister Black def. Andrade “Cien” Almas

I had no idea who this guy was supposed to be from the vignettes until I read up on message boards and social media to find out that this is the debut of Tommy (FUCKING) End in NXT. The guy definitely lived up to his reputation and I appreciated that NXT presented him like a megastar right off the bat. That's something I'm still shaking my head at how they failed to do with Roderick Strong. That guy was a fucking main eventer for Ring of Honor (which you can pretty much call an unofficial feeder system for WWE nowadays) and they just brought him in like a regular guy with little to no fanfare. Some of the Full Sail folks knew who he was but it wasn't made into a big deal like End's debut here. I've seen Almas work matches at NXT house shows, so he was the perfect opponent to put End over in his TakeOver debut.

If memory serves, isn't this the same guy who had that stellar exhibition match against Neville during the UK Championship Tournament?

NXT would be crazy not to push this guy to the moon. Then again... this is the same company that's deadset on doing NOTHING with guys like Sami Zayn, Cesaro, Dolph Ziggler, etc. at a main event level...

NXT Tag Team Champions The Authors of Pain def. #DIY and The Revival

I've been hearing people call this a MOTY candidate all weekend and I don't know about that. I'm usually biased towards the Revival's matches because they are that damn good at tag team wrestling, but at the same time, this wasn't as flawless as Revival's last few TakeOver outings. Don't get me wrong, Revival and DIY made the Authors of Pain look like a million bucks by enduring their arsenal of moves being laid on them, but the second DIY got eliminated this match went to shits. The Authors of Pain went back to being sloppy and green as grass. You could see that in how sloppy they finished off the Revival for the win here. Everything up to that point was superb though from DIY and Revival.

I was personally pulling for Revival as three time NXT Tag Team Champions but whatever, if they want to keep pushing AoP, I hope they learn something from Paul Ellering in the long haul as they got a LOT to learn about tag team wrestling.

I'm sad that we didn't get a special one night only appearance of Jim Cornette managing The Revival since he raves about them so much on his podcast.

NXT Women’s Champion Asuka def. Ember Moon

This was a great back and forth match with Ember Moon matching and one-upping Asuka move for move and counter for counter. They have fought each other previously prior to signing with WWE, so this was a highly anticipated rematch of sorts for fans who have followed both the former Kana (Asuka) and Athena's (Ember Moon) careers up to this point. I was ready to call this the match of the night until the finish.

I get that NXT are toying with the idea of making Asuka a heel but it really doesn't work when everyone is going to cheer for her anyway when she's beating the shit out of everyone thrown her way. Besides, it doesn't make much sense that she has to cheat when her whole gimmick to this point has been she's been an unstoppable striking machine. The whole referee bump spot just seemed like a cop out since they want to milk this feud until the next TakeOver event or even longer. I seriously doubt they are calling up Asuka to the main roster any time soon anyway. From the way it looks currently, I wouldn't be surprised if they call up Ember Moon before they call up Asuka.

That being said, NXT needs to do something drastic to pull this women's division out of being on life support. I was hoping that this Ember/Asuka feud was going to be the shot in the arm that it has needed since all of the Four Horsewomen left, but I was kinda let down here. Sure, Ember was the first opponent in a long time where she could go all out against instead of holding back (looking at all of you - Eva Marie, Aliyah, Liv Morgan, Billie Kay, and Peyton Royce), but it seemed like they were told to not play all of their cards at once. I don't know what it is about NXT and wanting to wear out something good (the Joe/Balor feud, any feud involving Revival, etc.). Start doing some one-off feuds and a rematch tops after a title change. No need to force feuds to go on and on to bore people to no end. Besides, NXT has a TON of talent that hasn't even debuted on TV yet, so you would think they would be trying to cycle in as many people as possible to get them TV ready for the main roster before they raped clean like last year's draft again.

NXT Champion Bobby Roode def. Shinsuke Nakamura

I'm going to be in the minority here and I'm starting to get bored by these bouts between Nakamura and Roode. They are both amazing wrestlers, but this is getting stale to watch. It's starting to bore me as much as the Nakamura/Joe and Balor/Joe feuds where they blew their load on everything that you can expect them to do. This match felt like the Asuka match before it whereas it's starting to become a chore to watch these repetitive rematches since audiences have become used to what to expect from these two. At least Ember Moon/Asuka was something new, but this was the exact same thing that we saw at the previous TakeOver event without the whole injury angle at the end. I'm honestly ready for both Roode and Nakamura to move onto other things. Wouldn't be surprised if Nakamura gets called up to SmackDown! tonight. At the same time, I don't see why they wouldn't call up Roode for either brand. You got an instant main eventer here that can talk and work solid bouts, so why keep him in NXT? He's not getting any younger.

I forget which podcaster said it best, but WWE need to start worrying about how many guys they have on their roster that are mostly "entrance props" and that's it. The more it carries on, I fear that Roode's music will be more over than he actually is in the eyes of WWE fans. Wrestling fans that have seen him elsewhere in TNA and GFW know better, but I'm skeptical that he's just over because his music is freakin' awesome.

I have to ask at the end of this NXT TakeOver review, but where do we go from here? Solid show as usual that we've come to expect from these events, but what's next for this brand in terms of storylines? It just seems like a lot of feuds have stagnated.