Going into NXT TakeOver: Toronto, I was expecting a specific set of circumstances to happen with a predictable outcome for every match, making it easy to decipher what WWE had mapped out for the yellow brand all the way up until WrestleMania’s TakeOver.
After this show ended, I was proven wrong on two of those three accounts, so for this edition of the 3-Count Review, I want to adjust those predictions and look back on what just transpired and how things have shifted.
NXT Tag Team Championship
It definitely seemed like the two tag team matches on the card would depend on each other as far as who would win it. My thought was TM-61 would defeat The Authors of Pain, which would really boost their credibility up to a brand new height and allow them to ask for a title match against The Revival, who would be successful in defending against #DIY. Everything looked like it would line up that way, as Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano were set for the cruiserweight division and 205 Live is debuting next week, so clearly, they wouldn’t be able to pull double duty and be tag team champions on NXT as well, right?
Wrong.
Once The Authors of Pain won the finals of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament, it seemed like we were in for new champions to balance out the equation. Instead of the babyface team winning the tourney to set them on a road to dethrone the heel champions, now it looks like we’ll have the heel tournament winners continue their path of destruction where they’ll take the belts off Gargano and Ciampa.
TM-61 had a great showing tonight, though, and I think the story has changed where their redemption against The Authors of Pain will come when they finally defeat them and win the Tag Team Championship from them sometime in mid-2017, possibly at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn III.
NXT Women’s Championship
While I was wrong about the two other belts, tonight made me more confident than ever that my prediction for the NXT Women’s Championship from July is still in tact: a heel Asuka will lose the belt to Ember Moon and nobody else stands a chance whatsoever.
Spoiler alert for next week’s tapings, Moon was the one to stand out in the six-women tag team match when she got the pin for her team of Aliyah and Liv Morgan over Daria, Billie Kay and Peyton Royce. Ember Moon has been protected more than any woman on the roster save for Asuka herself, who continues to get cockier and disregard the traditional signs of respect that kept her from being a heel before. By not shaking Mickie James’ hand and flaunting her belt instead, it was a clear sign that she isn’t going to be suddenly upset by Kay or Royce and then have to fight her way back as the fan favorite. Someone needs to teach her a lesson and put her in her place, which is where Ember Moon comes in.
Likely, this will happen in Orlando, which might leave just enough room for Asuka to come up to the main roster quickly after WrestleMania unless they want to put a pin in that and hold off until a rematch can happen. By Money in the Bank 2017, I expect Asuka to have lost the belt and to be on Monday Night Raw while Ember Moon is the new queen in NXT.
NXT Championship
With Samoa Joe winning the championship back from Shinsuke Nakamura, I’m completely at a loss for how things will go from here. It seemed like such a logical progression to have Nakamura retain and then to fill up the next two or three months with a feud against Andrade “Cien” Almas until Bobby Roode could earn a title shot, where he’d take the belt off Nakamura. In order for that to happen, Nakamura would have to win the belt back from Samoa Joe at this point, which just seems odd as WWE typically doesn’t play hot potato with the NXT Championship.
I also thought Samoa Joe was a shoe-in for a surprise Royal Rumble entrance and that this would be his last hurrah on the brand before moving up to Raw or SmackDown—most likely SmackDown, as I think WWE wants to have him feud with John Cena somewhere down the line. That could still happen in 2017, but now I’m not as sure about it as I was before. Unless Nakamura wins the belt back on an episode of NXT in December or January, this feud can’t go on all the way until WrestleMania as it’s already been a thing for a few months, but who else is there on the roster who could challenge Joe? There aren’t any babyfaces save for Tye Dillinger who aren’t complete jobbers, so either a new acquisition is coming up that we’re unaware of or WWE has completely different plans in store for Nakamura and Joe going into next year.
It’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds during the upcoming set of tapings, as that should be a better indicator of what WWE’s end game is, but now, it’s all up for speculation.
For more opinions on the show as a whole, check out the latest edition of the Smark Out Moment wrestling podcast SMACK TALK.
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