NXT TakeOver: Toronto (Aug. 10, 2019) -- Results & Afterthoughts

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.

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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.

NXT TakeOver XXV -- Results & Afterthoughts

NXT TakeOver: XXV was a professional wrestling show and WWE Network event produced by WWE for their NXT brand. It took place on June 1, 2019, at the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was the twenty-fifth event under the NXT TakeOver chronology.

Seven matches were contested at the event, incuding two taped for the following week's episode of NXT. In the main event, Adam Cole defeated Johnny Gargano to win the NXT Championship. The undercard saw NXT Women's Champion Shayna Baszler and NXT North American Champion Velveteen Dream defeating Io Shirai and Tyler Breeze respectively to retain their titles, and Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) won the vacant NXT Tag Team Championship in a Fatal Four-Way Ladder match.

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Match Results: 

Matt Riddle defeated Roderick Strong

I felt that Riddle/Strong was a strong (no pun intended) opener for this show. I was completely fine with Riddle going over here. That one sequence of tons of strikes to the near-fall was what me and my best friend used to call Roddy's "ROH Special" to end matches back there on his comeback. I had little to no issues with this match, even though it got a little spot-fest heavily towards the end.

Ladder match for the vacant NXT Tag Team Championship

Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) defeated Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch, The Undisputed Era (Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish), and The Forgotten Sons (Wesley Blake and Steve Cutler)

This tag team ladder match was good but over the the course of the match, I was getting more pissed off than being entertained by it from the sheer number of moronic spots. I get these guys have something to prove here, but it seemed like they were intentionally trying to injuring each other at one point. Kyle O'Reilly was dying for our sins in this match from the sheer amount of punishment that he was putting his body through here. I hope Bobby Fish is alright too because his arm was in a sling when he came back out later in the night to celebrate with Cole after his title win. 

I think everyone, including Ray Charles, could have seen that the Street Profits were going to win here (even though I would not have been opposed to putting the straps back on Undisputed Era). In terms of booking, they could have done that when the Street Profits "almost" beat the War Raiders/Viking Experience/Viking Raiders (or whatever the fuck Hanson and Rowe are calling themselves) a few weeks ago on NXT programming in the first place instead of vacating the titles and still did the tag team ladder match. 

NXT North American Championship

Velveteen Dream (c) defeated Tyler Breeze

I thought that Dream/Breeze wasn't anywhere as good as Dream's last few TakeOver matches, but it was a great reminder of how good Breeze is. I'm glad to hear that he's sticking around on the brand and not sticking around being wasted sitting in catering every week on the main roster. Dream being so extra got a ton of laughs from me here too. I guess they could do more with this feud, but I'm fine with it being a one and done. No need to drag this out further.

Prince Pretty was Velveteen Dream back when Patrick Clark was sitting in hot tubs on Tough Enough 😏

— Walmart (@Walmart) May 30, 2019

Shoutout to Jason Solomon (@solomonster) for pointing this out on his podcast and bringing it to my attention. That definitely got one hell of a laugh from me.

NXT Women's Championship

Shayna Baszler (c) defeated Io Shirai by submission

I definitely didn't care for Shayna going over Io here but it's obvious they are setting up another rematch. This was okay overall - I'm being generous here - but the same ol' shit from Shayna in terms of her title matches. It's starting to get stale really fast. Shayna does the same song and dance in almost all of these title defenses, only for her entourage to come out and save her ass in the end. You cannot tell me that they don't have other women in developmental that they can't be building this division around instead of Shayna and the rest of Ronda Rousey's friends. 

As much as I would hate to see the main roster misuse and mismanage Shayna, I think it would have been a good idea to call her up post-WrestleMania to feud with Becky Lynch since Ronda Rousey was going to be on the bench for a while with a broken hand. I mean really, anything is better than her feuding with Lacey Evans at this point. Like why the hell did they call up Lacey Evans of all people over Shayna anyway? Lacey was just getting into the groove of this Southern Belle character and they called her up to the main roster, yet people are surprised that she's under-performing in that position? C'mon, it's Dana Brooke all over again. 

Another travesty? Calling up Kairi Sane, teaming her up with Asuka with Paige as their manager, and not doing jackshit with them while the IIconics somehow still hold those Women's Tag Team titles. Seriously, who are those girls banging in the back to keep those titles without doing absolutely nothing of merit?

NXT Championship

Adam Cole defeated Johnny Gargano (c)

At one point in this match, I was beyond rolling my eyes at all of the near-falls and kickouts. I kept saying, "C'mon end this already. You've done enough spots for 3 matches." Gargano's awesome without a shadow of a doubt but that's what I cannot stand about his TakeOver matches. Dude does FAR too much.

For the main event, y'all saw my earlier tweet. I have nothing against Gargano's in-ring ability nor ability to tell a story with his matches but I just can't stand how he does a million and one things in these TakeOver matches. I didn't care for it when the Young Bucks & Kenny Omega did it last weekend either. I didn't care for it when Lucha Underground did that one main event where Pentagon Jr. "broke" both of Brian Cage's arms, performed a curb stomp through a stack of cinder blocks, did that Piledriver on top of 4 chairs spot, before ending it with a Pentagon Driver off the top rope or some shit. It's really getting to the point where people are doing far too much in these matches, not just in NXT but in modern wrestling as a whole. I truly think it's becoming a problem.

That being said, Gargano and Cole had a great match here. They could have done a FRACTION of what they did there and still it would have been a barn burner. All I'm saying is modern wrestling as a whole needs to be reminded that less is more in terms of matches

I want a screenshot of that disheveled look of Gargano looking sad at ringside during Cole's post-match celebration. Johnny FAILURE is back, BAYBAY.

Oh yeah, there's one more thing that I want to bring up. In my honest opinion, the biggest thing AEW needs to take notice of from NXT tonight is their presentation/production style. From the moment this show started, you knew it was NXT from the unique lightning & presentation. It instantly distinguishes itself from the rest of WWE's programming from it's mere presentation and lighting alone.

I love how they didn't have any of those random/rapid fire camera cuts like the main roster stuff. The lighting focused on the ring, NOT the goofs in the crowd. This makes what is going on in the ring much more special and intimate and plays a massive part of giving NXT their identity. That's what AEW needs - a visual identity.

NXT TakeOver: Phoenix (Jan. 26, 2019) -- Results & Afterthoughts

NXT TakeOver: Phoenix was a professional wrestling show produced by WWE for their NXT brand and streamed live on WWE Network. The event took place on January 26, 2019, at the Talking Stick Resort Arena in Phoenix, Arizona. NXT TakeOver: Phoenix was the twenty-third overall show held under the NXT TakeOver banner and the first to be held in 2019.

Five matches were contested at the event. In the main event, Tommaso Ciampa defeated Aleister Black to retain the NXT Championship. In the penultimate match, Shayna Baszler defeated Bianca Belair by technical submission to retain the NXT Women's Championship. Other matches included War Raiders defeating The Undisputed Era to win the NXT Tag Team Championship, and Johnny Gargano defeated Ricochet to win the NXT North American Championship.

NXT Tag Team Championship Match - War Raiders (Hanson & Raymond Rowe) def. The Undisputed Era (c)

A solid opener, but I felt that this was deja vu to a few years ago when these guys where in Ring of Honor. Replace Roderick Strong with Bobby Fish and you couldn't have told the difference between this or any of their previous encounters during their days as War Machine and reDRagon in Ring of Honor for those coveted tag titles. That being said, it wasn't a bad match at all. I say it time and time again, but damn, Hanson's agility surprises me every time. Him and Rowe really play off each others' strengths and it shows brilliantly. Roderick Strong and Kyle O'Reilly were the perfect guys to bump around for them and take that punishment while simultaneously reminding everyone why they have held the NXT Tag Titles for so long.

The title change here was a little jarring since Undisputed Era made that declaration that they would be holding all of the gold in 2019, but I can see them getting it all back come WrestleMania weekend. If I'm perfectly honest, I can't see Undisputed Era collectively staying in NXT past Summerslam/Survivor Series this year. I'm sure that WWE Creative would love to shoehorn them into a Survivor Series elimination match this year. I mean c'mon... they can't be in War Games THREE years in a row. That would be overkill at this point.

Matt Riddle def. Kassius Ohno

This was my least favorite match on this entire card if I'm perfectly honest. After the quick KO (no pun intended...) during the last TakeOver special, I didn't need to see them go at it again, especially in a long, drawn out match like this when they had a similar match on NXT programming a few weeks ago. No offense to the talent involved, but this match did absolutely nothing for me. That's not a knock on the talent either as I've seen both Riddle and Ohno in some stellar bouts. I just felt like this was a slight mismatch of talent - not to mention that Ohno is sitting on a pile of losses here in terms of TakeOver appearances.

NXT Women's Championship Match - Shayna Baszler (c) def. Bianca Belair

After the NXT episode over the past week, I was a little surprised that the Full Sail crowd were actually turning on Bianca a bit after Shayna's "overrated" comment. Outside of her performance in the initial Mae Young Classic, I honestly don't see all of the hype behind Belair and her husband (Montez Ford on the Street Profits) from a lot of podcasters and journalists, touting them as the "future" of the product. Let's be real here... the Street Profits will go down as another failed Cryme Tyme clone, just like the Primetime Players before them. Ford might see some gold in a singles run, same for Bianca down the road, but there's far too many other noteworthy talent that can and will overshadow them in the meantime. Don't forget that NXT, along with the main roster, is STACKED with talent that they've raided from the indies and every other promotion that isn't AEW. It's hard to say that WWE's "homegrown" prospects will be allowed to shine over the more seasoned and more experienced "indie darlings" as how Triple H used to refer to them before he started making a profit off of them.

In relation to this match, I saw it as make it or break it time for Bianca. The first half of this match wasn't bad at all with Bianca enduring everything that Shayna was throwing at her. Then the ref bump happened and this match seemed to fall apart in a sense. Maybe it was nerves, but Bianca hit one of the worst and weakest looking slams on Shayna during this entire show for what was supposed to be the cliched "near-fall" but the ref was still down. Marina Safir and Jessamyn Duke race down to make the save and they took some awful (as in execution) looking bumps to the mat. I'll give Marina a pass as she was wearing a facial protection mask as she must've gotten roughed up training but geez, her and Jessamyn don't seem to be taking to this wrestling thing as well as Shayna and Ronda have.

The match continues a bit longer after the ref bump, only for Bianca's "undefeated" (insert ghetto ass claps for each syllable) streak to end after she passes out in Shayna's hold to retain. I still want to know what was in Bianca's weave whip thingy to make it cut Shayna across the abdomen like that.

As for this post-match comment/rebuttal aimed at Sam Roberts, who apparently went "heel" shooting on Bianca Belair not deserving to be in this match and Shayna having nothing to be afraid of, I can't tell if they trying to get an angle going out of this or what. I tend to tune out a lot of what Sam Roberts says nowadays since he's wired into WWE's bubble, so you can't trust if he's working people or trying to be legitimate anymore. That being said, I didn't think Bianca was ready for a title match either, but at the same time, I'm not going to bury her like he did there, saying that her match belonged on the preshow. Bianca's not ready for that spot now, but that doesn't mean she won't pick up steam down the road. Remember Sasha Banks' rough beginnings on NXT? It wasn't until she refined what "The Boss" character was down there and picked up in stride to get the ball rolling where she was force to be reckoned with on NXT. Just give it time. Baby steps.

NXT North American Championship Match - Johnny Gargano def. Ricochet (c)

When this match started during the introductions, I joked to a friend that I wanted Gargano to lose here just for everyone can say that shit hasn't changed for Johnny Failure. Everyone on social media seems to be raving about the actual ring work in this match, but I was more impressed by the narrative from bell to bell. The story here was that as good as Gargano THOUGHT he was in terms of keeping up move for move, counter for counter with Ricochet, it wasn't enough. All of 2018, Gargano would put his all into these TakeOver performances, earning the moniker of "Johnny TakeOver" as printed on his trunks here tonight, but ultimately, he would fall short of the victory every single time, causing many people - notably Velveteen Dream, to refer to him as Johnny Failure. Johnny Failure wasn't going to chuck up another L in the column tonight as he did what he thought he would never do and crossed the dark side to cement his victory over the One and Only.

While Ricochet did some impressive stuff here in this match, I wasn't losing my mind about it (double goes for Gargano's ring work) when I've seen the guy work in New Japan, Pro Wrestling Guerilla, and Lucha Underground doing similar theatrics. I'm more surprised that they would take the title off Ricochet so soon, but I guess they must have plans for him to capture the NXT Championship sooner more than later. There seems to be talk/rumors floating around about a title for title match to be the finale in the Gargano vs. Ciampa series during the NXT TakeOver special during WrestleMania weekend and I hope that's not the case. I rather see a multi-man match for the title instead of another played out Gargano/Ciampa match.

That being said, this was easily the match of the evening without a shadow of a doubt.

NXT Championship Match - Tommaso Ciampa (c) def. Aleister Black

This match had an interesting narrative about it too, but nowhere as great as the one in the match that proceeded it. Ciampa was at his worst of his villainy here, doing everything in his power to cripple Aleister Black. He targeted his knee and lower calf for the majority of this match. Boy, after tweaking BOTH of my knees/lower calf within the span of a week I couldn't help but sympathize with Black's pain and agony here. Aleister Black did put up a good effort in this match, but ultimately fell short to recapture the NXT Championship. They fooled me for sure with that near-fall (or rather no fall after Ciampa rolled onto his stomach) off that sickening SMACK off that one Black Mask from out of nowhere. I thought that was it for sure. It was a nice touch to have Ciampa troll Black by raising his head off the mat with his foot like how Black did to Gargano at the previous TakeOver special.

I know people are convinced that Aleister Black is pretty much a lock to be moved to the main roster, but I'm not buying into that. He still has unfinished business in NXT. He hasn't repaid both Ciampa and Gargano properly after their unofficial DIY reunion in the steel cage match and I wouldn't mind seeing him get one more crack at the NXT Championship before being called up. I think we deserve an Aleister Black vs. Velveteen Dream rubber match for the NXT Championship before either one of those guys get called up and it would stupid not to book that match sooner more than later.

All in all, I thought this was a solid show, despite a few hiccups with the NXT Women's Championship Match and that Riddle/Ohno bout. As always, I'm anxious to see where they go from here. They got three months of NXT tapings to layout the ground work for the next TakeOver special during WrestleMania weekend, so it should make for some good TV.

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).

NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn IV (Aug. 18, 2018) -- Results & Afterthoughts

NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn 4 was a professional wrestling show and WWE Network event that took place on August 18, 2018, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The event was produced by WWE for the NXT brand that was streamed live on the WWE Network.

Five matches were contested at the event. In the main event, Tommaso Ciampa defeated Johnny Gargano in a Last Man Standing match to retain the NXT Championship. In the penultimate match, Kairi Sane defeated Shayna Baszler to win the NXT Women's Championship and Ricochet defeated Adam Cole to win the NXT North American Championship.

The Undisputed Era (Kyle O'Reilly & Roderick Strong) def. Mustache Mountain (Tyler Bate & Trent Seven) to retain the NXT Tag Team Championships

This was arguably the best match of the show. Even though I expressed my distaste with the finish to their match on the NXT tapings a few weeks ago, I can't take away anything against these two teams' natural chemistry to perform well with each other and bring out their best in each outing. I don't think we've had tag team matches this good on NXT since American Alpha and The Revival were still down there.

I really hope that Triple H and the rest of the higher ups in WWE realize the diamond in the rough that they have in Tyler Bate. The kid is still young and performs like the best of the best, while he looks like something out of Greek mythology. I can't wait to see him throw down against someone like Cesaro in the future. That kid is just going to be money, no matter what he does in the business in terms of match quality. I hate to say it but Trent Seven is just there to ride off his coat tails. I can't see Mustache Mountain getting the tag team titles back until the NXT UK show debuts and they went those set of tag titles anyway. I saw this match as just a means to keep those guys on the radar before that show debuts whenever. I don't know what the hold up is when they've already filmed a few episodes for that brand about a month or two ago.

I wasn't too crazy about the War Raids laying out the Undisputed Era after the win when they are supposed to be the babyfaces. It just came off odd that they had to do something "cheap" here when Undisputed Era was already spent from wrestling Mustache Mountain. Great, they wanted to show that they are up next to get a shot for the tag titles, but there was a better way to do that instead of trying to blow their load for the Brooklyn crowd. I mean seriously, you can't get more Ring of Honor comparisons here from Undisputed Era feuding with War Raiders when this is going to be reDRagon versus War Machine all over again from about 2-3 years ago in that company.

The Velveteen Dream def. EC3

The first half of this match was a snoozefest until both men found their legs, somewhere around that first big neck bump EC3 took in this match. I can't say I was crazy about this match as much as Dream's other matches or what EC3 has been capable of prior to debuting in NXT. I busted out laughing at the "CALL ME UP VINCE" sign printed on Dream's gear as there's guys on the main roster who should be wearing "CALL ME DOWN TO NXT" on their gear. Someone needs to tell Dream that a main roster call-up isn't something he should be begging for, especially after Vince's track record with these call-ups as of late.

Ricochet def. Adam Cole (c) to win the NXT North American Championship

My best friend and I were talking about this during RAW last night and we both agreed that we could have sworn that we've seen Fenix do the same Super Kick out of the air during the Moonsault spot that everyone freaked out/marked out on during this match back in Lucha Underground. While it was VERY impressive, it irked the hell out of me that Ricochet didn't sell that a bit longer. They definitely had me fooled with the near-fall when that wasn't the finish of the match. If Ricochet could learn anything from his time in NXT at the Performance Center, he needs to learn selling and how to slow down. That's the only thing in my eyes that holds him back from being truly flawless in WWE's system and one thing that both Seth Rollins and AJ Styles - arguably WWE's two best workers in the company up on the main roster - have over him in terms of the overall in-ring package.

Kairi Sane def. Shayna Baszler (c) to win the NXT Women's Championship

Very creative finish here that allowed Kairi Sane to capture the gold. It simultaneously made it look like Kairi outwit Shayna instead of flat out beating her, while making both women look strong. I think this was arguably the best NXT women's match in quite some time from bell to bell, especially from the reversals and submission/grapple chains. I wouldn't be surprised to see them call up Shayna to the main roster before Evolution or build to another match between her and Kairi Sane at that event.

Tommaso Ciampa (c) def. Johnny Gargano in a Last Man Standing Match to retain the NXT Championship

I'll give them props on the creativity of the finish story-wise but at the same time, I thought it was stupid that Gargano beat himself in this match instead of the other way around. They left the door open for more Gargano/Ciampa matches, whereas I felt that they are beating a dead horse at this point. Move onto something else before people turn onto this feud much like the Randy Orton/John Cena feuds from days of old. As far as I'm concerned, Johnny Gargano has had MULTIPLE opportunities at the NXT Championship. While those matches have been good (or rather VERY good depending on who you ask), they have all be losing efforts for the guy. I would like to think that NXT has better booking logic than the main roster when Roman Reigns did the same thing, challenging for title despite multiple losses until he finally got lucky and sneaked out a win.

NXT TakeOver: Chicago II -- Results & Afterthoughts (June 16, 2018)

NXT TakeOver: Chicago II was a professional wrestling show and WWE Network event that took place on June 16, 2018 at the Allstate Arena in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, Illinois. The event was produced by WWE for the NXT brand that was streamed live on the WWE Network.

Five matches were contested at the event. In the main event, Tommaso Ciampa defeated Johnny Gargano in a Chicago Street Fight. On the undercard, Aleister Black defeated Lars Sullivan to retain the NXT Championship and Ricochet defeated Velveteen Dream.

Solid match to set the mood for this show. I dare say it was the best match of the night, even though there wasn't a second I bought into Undisputed Era dropping the Tag titles to Lorcan and Burch. I kept saying to myself that if any team currently on NXT deserve a "Dusty finish" it's those guys. We see Lorcan and Burch as the regular work horses week-in and week-out on their NXT, but never capture the big one. Tonight would have been a great spot for that tease that they won, only for the referee to reverse the decision on their mistake and keep the titles on Undisputed Era. Besides, the Chicago crowd wasn't going to have it anyway. Undisputed Era were over like Rover in that town. 

Definitely not as good as Dream vs. Aleister Black last year, but nowhere as bad as Dream vs. Kassius Ohno from a few months ago. This match seemed to drag on and on at points where Dream was intent on doing Resthold City for the bulk of the first half, but things turned around for the better by the end of it. It just seemed like a mismatch of opponents here for both men. Ricochet needs someone who can keep up with his stamina as it seemed like Dream was gassed at points of this match while at the same time, Ricochet needs someone who can play off his strengths better.

I wanted to like this match, I really did, but honestly couldn't get into it. Between whatever what was going on in the crowd (I'm sure someone who was live at the show could detail what that was about...) and them struggling to get something going, I ultimately found this to be the weakest match on this card. I appreciated the callback to WCW-era Raven with the finish though as Cross was smiling as she passed out within the hold and went to sleep. Nice touch there in that regard.

Outside of that botch that I'm sure everyone has seen the video footage of at least a hundred times now, this wasn't a bad match. I honestly wouldn't have put Lars Sullivan into a title match this soon - at least not a title match for the NXT Championship, especially if he's going to lose. He just lost at the last TakeOver for the North American Championship. I thought him and Adam Cole could have had a real slobberknocker in that regard if Cole were to play up the chicken shit heel act.

Hear me out on this, but I honestly don't see these Ciampa vs. Gargano matches as Match of the Year candidates. I thought this was redundant as their match on the last TakeOver as it seemed like they did this match (along what felt like 2-3 more) better than this. The only things that I thought were really well done here was the reverse callback to the injury angle that sidelined Gargano when Ciampa first went heel (Ciampa spitting on Gargano's wedding ring was a nice touch) and the finish with the exposed floor boards.

NXT TakeOver: New Orleans -- Results & Afterthoughts

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 Machine Raiders in there while they are at it (laughs).

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.

NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia (Jan. 25, 2018) -- Results & Afterthoughts

NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia was a professional wrestling show and WWE Network event in the NXT TakeOver series that took place on January 27, 2018, at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The event was produced by WWE for its NXT brand and it was streamed live on the WWE Network.

Five matches were contested at the event. In the main event, Andrade "Cien" Almas defeated Johnny Gargano to retain the NXT Championship. On the undercard, Ember Moon retained the NXT Women's Championship against Shayna Baszler and Aleister Black defeated Adam Cole in a Extreme Rules match. The event was also notable for the return of Tommaso Ciampa.

Much like the predictions thread, Serena and I decided to do the write-up for this show and Royal Rumble together since we 

NXT Tag Team Championship Match - Undisputed Era (Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly; champions) def. The Authors of Pain

ZX: As someone who has followed Fish and O’Reilly’s careers for the past few years in ROH and marked out for their “reDRagon” tag team, I was genuinely disappointed by this match for the most part. They deserved far better opponents than being forced to have to carry AoP through another tag title match at a TakeOver show. I don’t understand why NXT insists on pushing those guys to the moon when we know that they will fizzle out just like the Ascension on the main roster whenever they get called up. I’m guessing they are getting called up sooner more than later because NXT is REALLY getting crowded at this point, despite the fact that I think AoP are greener than grass.

Serena: This match was pretty much 50 Shades of Green. I haven’t really been following NXT for the last year or so, except for an occasional “Glorious” chant or some of Asuka’s work, before she left for the main roster. So, I came in to this with an open mind and love filled heart. Yet, I couldn’t close my eyes and ignore the fact of how lumbered Undisputed Era looked with AoP. The match seemed tedious and sluggish, with one of the most awful tag team move from AoP at the very end. Hey, maybe we just caught these guys on a bad night, I am not sure. But Undisputed Era seemed like they were trying to jump around and make this match exciting, while The Authors of Pain didn’t even seem like they were trying to keep up. Honestly, glad that the champs retained and forgot in minutes that I saw this match.

Velveteen Dream def. Kassius Ohno

ZX: Comparing this TakeOver performance with his one with Aleister Black during Survivor Series weekend, I have to say the latter match was the better of the two. Ohno and Dream have chemistry here, but there was far too much miscues and sloppy execution on spots for my taste. Seemed like they were rushing for time at one point when they were only the second match on this card. Either way, I’m just glad that Dream finally got a win at TakeOver underneath his belt.

Serena: Right before we watched this match, ZX made a recommendation to watch Black vs Dream, even hinting that Dream is definitely one of the strongest wrestlers out there in NXT. Also, the announce team didn’t hold back on hyping this guy up either. So, when the match ended I thought, that maybe I didn’t understand something. This match was so sloppy and wrong. Sure, even in this match you can see that Velveteen Dream has amazing potential and can work a room like nobody’s business. Yet, I don’t know if this was because of a mismatch between him and Ohno, maybe neither one nor the other wanted to put the opponent over, but something was clearly off. Two amazing talents seemed rusty and wooden during this entire thing. So far, Serena is not a happy camper.

ZX: The problem with Ohno is that either he has a really good match on NXT or he just completely fizzes out on execution. Tonight definitely wasn’t his night. Given the fact that they cooked up this match at the last second didn’t do him any favors in terms of preparation either.

NXT Women’s Championship Match - Ember Moon © def. Shayna Baszler

ZX: I really wanted to like this match since I was sold onto the narrative that they were trying to portray here with Ember Moon being the one to put an end to Shayna’s excessive “bullying” of the NXT women since her arrival. At the end of the day, I just couldn’t ignore the poor execution of all of this, especially during the finish. The bad calls by the clueless referee was what really got me here. Shayna’s shoulders were CLEARLY on the mat at times and there wasn’t any count, but he immediately sprung into action when the rollup finish happened. Not to mention that Ember carelessly tapped out too at one point from what it looked like but the referee ignored that too. Just a lot of bad calls all round. It’s a damn shame too to say that this match was promising from the first half. Even the post-match attack by Shayna looked bad because Ember’s selling wasn’t even timed properly when she had her eyes wide open when Percy was shouting on commentary that she passed out. To Ember’s credit, I applaud her for being one of the few people who do high-flying spots to remember to sell their injured limb during execution. She deserves a lot of kudos in that regard to sell that injury from start to finish, plus even in her appearance in the Rumble the next night.

Serena: Honestly, I was beyond excited for this match. I do enjoy seeing MMA fighters transitioning into wrestling, since they bring even more combat sports realism into the sometimes cartoonish world of WWE. So combined the MMA style of Shayna and the amazing high flyer repertoire of Ember Moon, this match seemed stellar on paper. Yet, in reality we got a very green and very limited Shayna and a overacting Ember, who at moments reminded me of a Looney Tunes character. Or no, better yet, she was Nicholas Cage. That’s what she was. Overly campy and theatrical with every hit or submission maneuver she got into. The match wasn’t terrible. Shayna truly shines as the monster heel (early Braun vibes) and Ember has the spunk and charisma to act as the relentless babyface that never gives up. Yet, Shayna still needs a ton of training to reach a level, where she doesn’t have to rely on others to carry the match for her. Just another somewhat sloppy and awkward match. Honestly, I did expect something different, something grander.

Extreme Rules Match - Aleister Black def. Adam Cole

ZX: Can we agree that this was the best match on the PPV? I could have done without this being an Extreme Rules match to be honest as they could have had just as great of a match without a stipulation attached to it. If they wanted to include Sanity and the rest of Undisputed Era in the mix, a simple ref bump would have bought them enough time for what they did here. I was wondering what was the hold up on interference when the match was billed as no disqualification to begin with, but whatever.

Serena: Oh, without a doubt, this was my match of the night. I knew that ZX previously hinted that I will fall in love with Black and his style… Pfft. Not fair, he knows my taste all too well. Seriously, both Aleister Black and Adam Cole stole the show, keeping up the pace throughout and actually making the match look fluid and effortless. Great chemistry between the two.

Honestly, for me more often than not, it is a lot easier to talk about matches I didn’t like, rather the ones I did enjoy. All I can say is that hopefully I will get to see these two square off once more…. Maybe even for any of the big titles. I can definitely see it in their future.

NXT Championship Match - Cien Almas © w/ Zelina Vega def. Johnny Gargano

ZX: Maybe I saw the wrong match but I don’t know where all of these reviews and reports online are coming from that this was the best NXT match ever. Nah, Zayn vs. Nakamura from WrestleMania weekend a year or two ago was just epic. Nothing has been close to that in my eyes. That being said, this wasn’t a bad match at all. The more I watch WWE programming in recent years, along with wrestling as a whole, I’m starting to become more and more unfazed by the 7-10+ near-falls in high profile bouts. I’m more shocked and impressed nowadays by guys actually hitting their finishers ONCE and actually getting the victory more than these near-falls just to have near-falls. It’s done FAR too much in my honest opinion. I used to think that was cool about 10-15 years ago when the “indie style” was new when ROH and TNA were doing this style back in the heights of those promotions before most of that premiere talent migrated over to WWE, but now it’s abused a little too much for my taste. Almas and Gargano have chemistry that’s for sure, but I can honestly do without another match between them for a good while.

Much like the Ember/Shayna match, I wanted to choke the referee here at some points too as he was making some bad calls here. It wasn’t as annoying here as it was in that match, but my biggest issue with this match was the finish was rather anticlimactic given everything that they’ve done up to that point. We all knew that Ciampa was going to ruin Gargano’s moment at the end, but it just seemed odd that he would kick him while he’s already down. Just my humble opinion but it would have meant more either if Ciampa cost him the match or Gargano had his victory celebration ruined by Ciampa. NXT seemed high up on Almas this weekend so they could have went with the first option since they weren’t willing to take the gold off him yet.

Serena: I honestly was very much surprised that this was considered to be the show stealer of NXT: Takeover Philadelphia. After seeing that absolute delight of a match right before (Black vs Cole), I didn’t think Gargano and Almas would top it. Even though, I am a huge Johnny Wrestling fan. His babyface work is reminiscent of Daniel Bryan and I do think that if creatives will swallow that pill, Gargano might be on the road of great success in WWE. Yet, the match, as good as it was, was your regular good, solid wrestling. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing too exciting or groundbreaking. It was simply a good competition between two great workers. But this match had a long way to go in my eyes to be called “Match of the Year” contender.

Again, love Gargano. Zelina Vega seems quite good as Almas' manager, Candice LeRae (Gargano’s real life wife and NXT signee) also was worked into the match nicely. But I just couldn’t see where was all the hype. I’m sorry, throw rocks at me or empty beer cans, but I am sticking to my guns and think that Cole vs Black is the match of the night.

Afterthoughts:

ZX: It’s three days later as we’re wrapping up this write-up and I’m still seeing people talking about that main event online as the best match in NXT history. I forgot I left the Network on my Firestick when I got home last night and TakeOver was on again, so I rewatched a few of the matches. My opinions still haven’t changed in the least. I like Gargano too and I want to like Almas’ gimmick but that wasn’t the best NXT match ever. I applaud them for their performance, but it wasn’t THAT good. I get that everyone likes to set NXT on a high pedestal in terms of quality over the main roster at times, but this is one of the rare occasions where NXT didn’t deliver a “flawless” show that it’s reputation set the standard for.

Serena: I absolutely agree. NXT can make mistakes and makes them just as much as any other wrestling company. For me, this TakeOver was very much a mixed back. The first half of the show was very meh and mismatched, while the main event and the Extreme rules matches redeemed the otherwise weak PPV. Yet, in the end, I was pretty happy to see that after the “veterans” of NXT left, this brand still is strong and full of life with not only the current talent, but also with the new signees as well.

NXT TakeOver: War Games (Nov. 18, 2017) -- Results & Afterthoughts

NXT TakeOver: WarGames (originally NXT TakeOver: Houston) was a professional wrestling show and WWE Network event in the NXT TakeOver series that took place on November 18, 2017 at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. The event was produced by WWEfor its NXT brand and streamed live on the WWE Network. The event's name is derived from the match of the same name that was originally used in the National Wrestling Alliance and later, World Championship Wrestling.

Lars Sullivan def. Kassius Ohno

HULK SMASH! 'Nuff said. That's all what really needs to be said about this match. Ohno got some good hits in but ultimately went down swingin'. First match where it didn't look like a complete squash for whoever the poor sap was facing Lars.

Aleister Black def. Velveteen Dream

Dream looking like he was thinking "Black you taking this feud WAAAAYYYY too seriously, homie."

Arguably one of the best matches of this entire show.

Dream does that move but he's out more than Black was from the impact.

I think people are going to be BEGGING 2K to put in whatever that Modified Flow-Over DDT that Dream towards the end. I know some of my e-fedding friends were already calling for that move as their new signatures and finishers. It was over like Rover - along with Dream himself, after this showing tonight.

That's what made this story great (even though savvy WWE historians will be quick to inform you that this feud was a clever nod/throwback to The Undertaker and Goldust feud from the Attitude Era) is that Velveteen Dream didn't even need to win to get over here. The whole feud here with Aleister Black was about proving himself to his rival that he finally acknowledges him by name. I've had people tell me on social media time after FUCKING time that great stories don't matter, but here in 2017 we have a PERFECT example of that statement being painfully false as BOTH men got over here in this scenario, thanks to this powerful narrative, in and out of the ring.

Get the fuck out of here if you believe otherwise.

Fatal 4 Way for NXT Women's Championship - Ember Moon def. Kairi Sane, Peyton Royce, and Nikki Cross to win vacant championship

This wasn't a bad match, I just felt that it was too spot-heavy for my taste. It was obvious that they were using this as one of two cooldown matches before the War Games main event, along with the NXT title match. I loved a lot of the two and three woman spots in this match, especially the double Eclipse to end it. Can't say that I'm surprised Ember Moon took the win. They were putting that win off since before WrestleMania to be honest. I'm glad that Kairi Sane didn't win it in her first "proper" match on one of the NXT Takeover shows too. I know some people were sad that Nikki Cross didn't pick up the win, but give it time. I doubt they are calling up Sanity to the main roster until after WrestleMania anyway, so they have time to give her a chance to shine. Double goes for Peyton Royce, who was sporting new ring gear that looks MILES beyond that wannabe Batman '66 villainess garb.

Dat sell by Peyton LOOOOOL!!!

NXT Championship - "Cien" Almas (w/ Zelina Vega) def. Drew Galloway (c) to become the NEW NXT Champion

I think everyone called this match for Galloway to win this one no problem, until he suffered an injury mid-match. Otherwise, I saw no reason to do that near-fall spot with Zelina hitting that Hurracanrana Buster on Drew followed by Almas' finisher. The reports are all saying that Galloway's going to miss at least 6 months minimum to bounce back from a bicep tear. I think even Almas was legitimately shocked that they had to pull the audible here for the finish. I don't see him keeping the belt past the next Takeover event though. Rosie Perez... err Zelina Vega has been a massive improvement for his character and total package, but I still don't see that dude as championship/main event material for this show. Don't get me wrong. I think Almas is one hell of a worker but he's just not working for me as a whole. Hell, if I'm perfectly honest, this match like the bulk of Almas' matches tend to bore the hell out of me.

War Games Match - The Undisputed Era (Adam Cole, Kyle O'Reilly, and Bobby Fish) def. Sanity (Eric Young, Alexander Wolf, and Killian Dane) and The Authors of Pain & Roderick Strong

I can't speak for everyone else, but after they laid out the rules for this match, it felt just like one of TNA/Impact Wrestling's Lethal Lockdown matches, just with three teams of three members instead of two teams of four to five members like in the WCW vs. nWo days. Sue me, but even after all of the crazy spots and everything that went down in this match, I wasn't really impressed nor blown away here. It was just pretty much what I expected from these three teams in a multi-person match like this. I still don't get what was the reason for War Games with THREE teams. What's even stupider? The tag titles weren't up for grabs, despite the champions (Sanity) were in this match to boot.

I don't shit on these teams' efforts here though. We got some classic ROH action from Adam Cole and former members of reDRagon hitting their signatures spots, including a Chasing the Dragon. Killian Dane cleaned house on EVERYONE and then some for Sanity while the Authors of Pain were doing what they do best and just was throwing people around like lawn furniture. (Whistles) Wolf got busted open the hard way halfway into this match and the medics had to cut open a section of the cage to stitch him up on the spot while the rest of the match continued. The cameras made sure to hide most of that while the action took place in one of the two rings (which really wasn't really justified when they could have done this same match in normal cage match with nine guys). It would've been a tight fit but it would've worked with some creativity.