Kyle O’Reilly (C) and Roderick Strong (C) def. Tyler Bate and Trent Seven – NXT Tag Team Championship
I’m starting to run out of adjectives to describe The Undisputed Era. I thought The Revival was on another level of tag team wrestling, but the bar that they have set for tag team wrestling has been absolutely incredible. Of course, it helps that Strong and Kyle are individually talented, but they are the definition of iron sharpening iron. They just compliment each other’s styles so well. However, I think we need to give Tyler Bate a standing ovation. He’s as old as I am (21), but he’s so well-polished. In this match, however, the energy he brought was absolutely infectious. He was all over the place, showing his fast pacing, and his strength. I hope Cesaro is filing a trademark for that swing. I believe that the pacing he brought towards the match, especially during his portions, carried the match along quite nicely.
What I also appreciated a great deal was the storytelling. I loved how Seven noticed that Bate was caught in a bad way once again and that The Undisputed Era, had him in the middle of the ring with a submission. Seven wanted to throw the towel yet again, but he realized he didn’t want it to end the same way. He trusted that his partner would find the strength to push through, and his faith was rewarded. There were so many times I thought the match would be over, especially with all the double team moves that were hit on Kyle. Unfortunately for Moustache Mountain, The Undisputed Era just kicks too much ass. The way they know what the other is going to do, how they are both technically gifted and how resilient they are is something I’ve rarely seen. The War Raiders making their presence felt with quite the ambush after the match also has me excited for the next feud over the tag titles. I loved every single bit of this. I feel bad for EC3 and Velveteen who will probably be coming after this. I’d put this on par with their match at Full Sail. Unbelievable start to the show. ****1/2
Velveteen Dream def. EC3
I think the one mistake, if any in this match, is by having this match go around the same length of the tag team match. Now, it must be said that not only is Velveteen Dream extremely talented, but he is extremely bold. On his trunks, he had “Call me up Vince”. That being said, knowing how many NXT talents have been pilfered on the main roster over the years, perhaps he should be hoping that he doesn’t get called up too soon so that Velveteen doesn’t end up being another member of No Way Jose’s conga line. Anyways, we knew this would probably be the odd match out on the card, seeing as how this is the only non-title match here. This was quite the obvious choice to come after the tag team bout.
I did like the change in pace as we went from high-flying, technical action with the tag teams to a ground and pound style between EC3 and Velveteen. I couldn’t help but notice that there was a sharp contrast in the match in regards to how the crowd perceived both men. While the crowd was clearly behind Velveteen, everybody appears to be split on EC3. That is probably because EC3 lacks the charisma and top-tier talent in order to be considered in the top 1 percent as his theme song claims. Velveteen carried the hell out of this match, and when he did, it was special. He just has a unique way of engaging the crowd. The DDT to the steel steps on the outside, the Death Valley Driver to the hardest part of the ring (if the announcers didn’t already tell you), and the elbow that finished it off all got tremendous reactions out of the crowd. He is something truly special. I really didn’t think EC3 added a lot other than some taunting and basic physical moves, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. My expectations weren’t high for this match, and I’m thankful to say it more or less met them. The greatest victory is that the crowd wasn’t completely drained of energy after the opening match. It also needed to rely heavily on character work, but well, they made it work. ***1/4
Ricochet def. Adam Cole (C) – NXT North American Championship
Ricochet has had himself quite the start to his NXT career, with signature performances at each Takeover he’s been involved in so far. Coming into this match< I was fully expecting a clash of styles. It was Adam Cole’s ingenuity and opportunistic offense against Ricochet constantly throwing caution to the wind with his high-risk, high-reward style. The story coming into the show mainly revolved around whether or not Ricochet was on Adam Cole’s level, and who can outdo each other, and I absolutely loved how they conveyed that in the ring.
The back and forth sequences were so well done, and one little subtle thing I noticed was after they were kicking each other’s asses, Adam Cole landed accidentally on Ricochet and he almost picked up a lucky win, which pretty much describes his character. Opportunistic. Meanwhile, Ricochet’s seemingly effortless manner in pulling off high-difficulty moves remained unconscionable. With all that being said, I’m sure everyone will remember the spot of the match which required tremendous precision and timing. And that was Ricochet dodging Adam Cole’s superkick, just to get whammed in the face mid-moonsault, for a heart-pounding near fall.
I want more of this two in the ring together, just because I think their opposite styles correspond with each other so perfectly and effortlessly. There were great near falls, great back and forth, and a tremendous story told. I enjoyed myself a great deal here. Solid action. ****1/4
Kairi Sane def. Shayna Baszler (C) – NXT Women’s Championship
Color me surprised. Next to EC3/Velveteen, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this match. This is primarily because I didn’t think Shayna had much to offer in the ring outside of her submission acumen. I don’t think she really has a lot of personality, and that she needs someone else with an infectious energy in order to carry her matches. That being said, I was certainly wowed in this match. The key for me here is that these two actually have a history going back to the Mae YoungClassicc. This added an emotional and nostalgic element to the match to give it that extra kick. However, I was beyond impressed with Baszler’s storytelling here. Did you see the way she was twisting Kairi’s right leg. I was legit disturbed at times because I never knew the human anatomy can be so flexible if you make it so. That’s where mixed martial arts training comes in, I suppose.
Kairi’s selling of the knee was what made it work for me, because she showed how it was able to somewhat limit her offense while making it an easy target for Shayna throughout the match. I loved all of the ways that Kairi had to compensate for her injury, and she had to be smart with her moves in order not to cause further damage. The finish of the match? Absolutely clever. Kairi knew that she only had maybe a split second to reverse Baszler’s submission into a pinfall attempt. If she missed her chance, then she would have lost the match. But right as Shayna got onto the ground, Kairi was able to roll upright and use Shayna’s leverage against her. If she didn’t take advantage of that brief opening, she would have surely lost. It was a great finish because it protected both women. It was a lot like when Finn Balor defeated Samoa Joe by countering his submission by running to the ropes and flipping upside down.
I must say that I was fearful that Shayna would only have another passable, but unmemorable performance, but she brought the goods here, and Kairi was more than game. A match that surpassed my expectations and had me thoroughly entertained. An extra treat tonight considering what I thought the marquee matches would be. ****
Tomasso Ciampa (C) def. Johnny Gargano – NXT Championship (Last Man Standing)
Honestly, is there anything these two haven’t done to each other? Their first two matches were essentially the same kind of match but just called different names. This, again, was essentially the same type of match, but this time, the match didn’t need to end in pinfall or submission. There’s only so many times that two men can do the same thing over and over again before it gets dull, but with these two, they always manage to do the same thing without making it feel repetitive. They found ways to be creative and switch things up. For example, after Tomasso ran with a knee right to Johnny’s knee through the barricade, Tomasso put a freaking unconscious human being on top of Johnny for the count.
Last Man Standing matches can be a tricky thing to grade sometimes, primarily because there are a lot of external factors that can influence how great it can be. It can range from the way the referee can make the counts to the frequency with which the counts are made. Fortunately, the counts were consistent and Ciampa and Johnny were allowed to do significant damage to each other before any count was made. There really isn’t much more I can say about the match that I didn’t about their matches in New Orleans and Chicago other than that these two once again tore each other apart, and it was awesome to see.
Now, with that being said, this was probably the weakest of their trio of matches, and don’t get me wrong in thinking that’s an insult. The two have just set a ridiculous standard for each other, and the margin of error was razor slim if they wanted to replicate another five star outing. Like I said before, there’s only so many times when similar spots and similar action begin to get repetitive to watch. However, Johnny and Tomasso are at a level where they can still keep it entertaining and fresh in a way, unlike John Cena and Randy Orton. I just wasn’t particularly on the edge of my seat like I was in their previous matches. In addition, Johnny letting his unsatiable anger and range cost him another match is starting to become a running gag. I was positive Johnny wasn’t winning here because Tomasso just won the title, but you’d think that WWE would learn not to make faces look so stupid. How do you lose a Last Man Standing Match when you have your opponent handcuffed and all you have to do is kick their ass to the point where they can’t stand. Instead, Johnny decided to run as fast as he can, ignoring the potential dangers behind Tomasso if he missed, and surely he did, and he somehow managed to lose despite having an advantage one can only wish for in a Last Man Standing bout. All that said, come now, this was still an incredible match. Not as incredible as New Orleans or Chicago, but considering this was an impromptu match for a Triple Threat that was supposed to take with Aliester, no one should complain. ****1/2
Conclusion:
The sky is blue, the grass is green, I’m 21 years old, and Takeover dominates once again. All of the title matches passed the four-star mark, we had some title changes, and the crowd was more or less into each match. I see no way Summerslam can top this, but then again, with NXT, this is starting to become a formality. Thumbs all the way up.
