NXT TakeOver: WarGames 2 11/17/18

We went to the NXT Tapings/House Show in San Jose on Thursday, had a great time, and have dug every single TakeOver I've watched so far. Plenty of potential on this card.

Matt Riddle vs. Kassius Ohno

ER: Well this was not quite how I was expecting to start off TakeOver, but Ohno *did* sound pretty whiny on the pre-show, so he kinda had it coming. Mauro says the match lasted "about as long as a Hollywood marriage" which was probably a pretty hot reference when Drew Barrymore married some bartender 25 years ago.

Kairi Sane vs. Shayna Baszler

ER: Bummed I didn't get to see Shayna live on Thursday, but she was there with her Horse Girls. I'd never seen Duke or Shafir wrestle (and have no clue how much they have wrestled), but they were fun. I knew they would get involved here but wasn't expecting it so soon, and I do like the trope of a heel getting an immediate pinfall advantage in this kind of match. 2nd fall was fun with Baszler attacking immediately with a knee to the chin, and the knee looked good enough that I thought they would be running two incredibly short matches in a row. Baszler always looks good in control, although Sane isn't an interesting seller, just kinda flops and rolls around no matter what happens. But things ramp up when Baszler eats a crazy DDT on the ring apron, really planting that head in a great visual. I also liked the Horse Girls interference backfiring, especially Duke missing a kick and hitting the ringpost, and Sane doing her wild elbow off the top onto all of them. Things get pretty silly from there with the match basically serving as the background for Dakota Kai and Io Shirai running out and taking out the Horse Girls. Kai looked good, really booting Duke in the face, but Shirai does that super dumb thing where you run out to save your friend, and instead of attacking them when they're 4 feet away, takes all the time in the world to slowly climb to the top and hit a moonsault onto all of them. The visual looked good, but it's really dumb when you think about it for one second. The finish I don't think worked at all, with Sane hitting her elbow but Baszler immediately rolling her over for the crucifix pin. I don't get how the elbow can finish all her matches, but also be instantly ignored and reversed into a pin. Maybe it wasn't supposed to hit and it was supposed to look more like Baszler catching her? Whatever it was, it didn't work, and this whole thing underdelivered. I guess they're focusing on this as a trios match instead down the line, which is a match up that can be fun.

Johnny Gargano vs. Aleister Black

ER: They start with a bunch of cat and mouse that feels directly inspired by Low-Ki/Red or like they were jacking Anderson Silva highlights, but I thought it was cool, Gargano using head movement to dodge jabs, eventually getting caught when Black faked a jab to get Johnny to duck and then nailing him with a kick. Also liked Black doing his little yogi pose and Gargano running right in to kick him. The whole first several minutes are a bunch of fun bullshit, but a modern indy twist on stoogey bullshit, using a lot of constant movement without really gaining ground. But it's tougher to make that kind of swing dancing bullshit work when you're getting into the meat of the match, as you start taking big bumps that then get kind of immediately ignored for more ladies night square dance spots. Black eats a crazy DDT off a Gargano tope, and then back in the ring eats another DDT that leaves him suspended vertically on the mat for awhile, but seconds later they're back do-si-do'ing and springboarding into superkick trade-offs. A lot of it looks cool, but a lot of it also feels like total nonsense. Sometimes I find really fast spotfests exhilarating, but this feels like they need to be letting some of this breathe a bit. A lot of the stuff would still look great if it was slowed down a bit, and things do get better when Gargano stops Black with a couple of big flying knees. But there's just not a lot of space here. We go into a formula strike exchange that ends with Black teeing off on Gargano, but Gargano immediately shoves him to the floor, and Black immediately no sells a bump to the floor by kneeing Gargano out of the air on a tope. Again, a lot of the stuff they're doing looks cool, and almost all of it feels completely hollow. Even the finish seemed to come almost out of nowhere, as Gargano had been running around the whole damn match barely fazed by anything, but then goes out like a light. They went for go go go, and a lot of it just went went went in one ear and out the other. Also, I'm trying to write more 1980s Gene Shalit punchlines in my reviews now.

Velveteen Dream vs. Tommaso Ciampa

ER: Dream's 1998 Hollywood Hogan gear is fly as hell. He was Macho Man when we saw him Thursday, and did a ton of great Macho axe handles including a great one to the floor. I mean he's clearly a Savage acolyte anyway so it's a pretty lateral transition. And as I'm typing that I'm realizing that means we might see him doing a bunch of Hogan cosplay here and....and  man that sounds lame. But Dream is one of my absolute favorites this year. I think he's improved incredibly in the past two years and if he can make some Chikara horsehit work then he might be top 25 in the world. It's a big if though. And there is some Hogan cosplay, but mainly with a legdrop and boot, which is something you can work into your offense. He's not out there working a death days Charlie Haas gimmick or anything. And I like a lot of this but really loved the moment where Dream locks in a ringpost figure 4 on Ciampa's chronically bad knee. Not only because ringpost figure 4s fucking own, but we get a surprising tap from Ciampa while the ref isn't looking, and it's cool because maybe he did it to break the hold, maybe he did it because Dream beat him. Once Dream starts working the knee it gets really good, and I liked the figure 4 drama, liked the big dramatic spill on the floor...but fully expected and was fully annoyed by Ciampa limping around on one leg, but still doing every single bit of his offense that involves dropping Dream onto his own hurt knee. "Oooooooo my kneeeeeee!!! Whelp, time to powerbomb a guy onto my knee!" The finishing stretch was both hot, and kind of long winded. There were some awesome moments and awesome nearfalls. I loved how all of the DDTs were set up: Dream jumped off the top but stopped short and caught Ciampa's boot, got kicked to the floor and got planted with the DDT coming back in. Great set up for that DDT. On the floor both flew over the announce desk but Dream caught him with the rolling death valley driver and rolled him in to plant the elbow for a great nearfall. The Dream DDT on the belt looked great, we got Dream crashing and burning to the floor on a crazy missed elbow, tremendous bump, and the match finishing hanging DDT on the metal joining the two rings was an awesome use of a ring. That metal grating is never there otherwise, and it feels like a great Finlay idea to utilize that into a unique finish. But I think there was some unnecessary excess and wasted time, and I think we had some unrealistic kickouts instead of creating actual drama. I don't think this was far from being a really good match, and I thought Dream looked fantastic (getting a little bored with Ciampa's whole thing at this point), but I don't think this quite got there.

WarGames Match: Undisputed Era vs. War Raiders/Pete Dunne/Ricochet

ER: Man those shark cages are dorky as all hell. And Adam Cole was not at all the guy I wanted to see wrestling this entire match. But at least they're smart and put the heels up 2 to 1. It's insane how often that gets screwed up. Everybody screw over Roderick Strong on his entrance, doing all of their selling at the same time in the ring farthest from the cage door. So Strong runs in like a house on fire and has to run through a fucking Double Dare obstacle course to get to everybody standing around watching him like an idiot. And this whole match is just a reallllllll...slog. First off, you know a WarGames with no blood is just always going to be lame as hell. One of the first VHS wrestling tapes I rented from the video store was the big beautiful Great American Bash '87 clamshell, with two different WarGames: THE MATCH BEYOND matches. I was WWF only at this point in my life, and the wrestling I was so used to was so much more...grimy and violent than I was used to. I knew most of the wrestlers in those '87 matches, most had been in the era of WWF that was my first wrestling, but it felt so different than the wrestling I had been watching. This didn't feel grimy or violent. It felt like a series of uninterestingly laid out spots. It had some of the sloppiness of a big CZW cage match, but without any of the grime or violence. There are always going to be good moments from something like this, but my god I was so young when this match began. Mauro says "It must be a nightmare for all involved" and it's the only time he's made sense tonight. This match is a neverending nightmare of a match. If I was King of the References Mauro Ranallo I would say "This match is such an unending nightmare that I'm begging for Freddy Krueger to appear and rip me apart asshole to throat!" Ricochet had some big flying spots (including 7 guys managing to miss catching him on his huge backflip senton), and there was an awesome moment where Rowe alley-ooped Fish into a killer Hanson powerslam, but man did this whole thing draaaaag. I can't decide if the stupid 8 man dude Christmas tree powerbomb off the ropes was really really stupid or just really stupid, but I was laughing hard enough that it didn't really matter.

ER: This was easily the worst TakeOver that I've watched, with few positives. Velveteen Dream delivered huge, but a lot of the match structures felt like they failed huge. And really, Mauro turned in a show long atrocious performance. He stinks.

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