NXT TakeOver: New York 4/5/19

Didn't actually get to see or watch this show live, but I also don't actually know anything that happened on the show, so I'm back home and figured why not watch some TakeOver?

War Raiders vs. Aleister Black/Ricochet

ER: So this is one way to open up a TakeOver! This starts as very much a sexy dance fight learned behavior match, that I was ready to dislike for being too dance-y but then they just kept going and pulling out bigger and wilder things, and by the end I thought this was a fantastically paced out tag. We had some early tape studying spots, fun stuff like Black anticipating a Rowe knee, or Rowe anticipating a Black kick by catching it with his head and neck. And as the train really starts leaving the station the match's charms become a bit impossible to ignore. There were still some silly dance fighting spots - namely Ricochet running 4 steps across the ring to leap into getting handspring elbowed by Hanson - but this was some well done go go go. The dives we built to were great, with Rowe hitting a tope, Ricochet naturally flipping in several ways, and peaking with Hanson flying off the top like a falling piano. This whole tag had a ton of moving parts and the pace they kept was really impressive. We got smart use of saves, with Rowe certainly getting beat before Hanson crashes everybody into them to break up the pin, and Black getting an awesome surprise pinfall save by landing a double stomp off the top. Ricochet was a fun ham throughout, getting knocked around plenty of times by the Raiders, but also hitting all of his stuff tighter than he's looked ever since getting called up to Raw. And the chained spots can be a real impressive thing when they're done as fluidly as they did here. Everything was mapped out and executed at high speeds, so that you feel like you're seeing a lot, while also feeling like a big Hanson tope is still treated as a big deal. Not many events will be able to start off this hot.

Matt Riddle vs. Velveteen Dream

ER: I really liked this, with Riddle going on dominant runs, catching Dream in submissions and nasty throws, with Dream scrambling just to keep up. Riddle broke out some increasingly brutal stuff: rolling gutwrenches, exploder, building up to Riddle catching Dream on an axe handle to the floor and dropping him with a slow German, and then going beyond that to Riddle dragging Dream up over the ropes and hitting a suplex into the ring from he middle rope. All of these were awesome visuals. Dream looked like he was scrambling the whole time, even when he was in control. He was still cucumber cool, but Riddle was going for constant strikes and submissions, and even when Dream would counter one it would end with Riddle elbowing him as punishment. I like the Riddle match structure where he is dominating but kind of cockily distracts himself thinking things should be over. I love moments like Riddle catching Dream's big elbow or Riddle breaking out a new twisting moonsault, the latter really helped give this a bigger match feel. The finishing stretch is real quality, with cool trading, Dream stunning Riddle out of the triangle but getting hit with another knee and German. I'm not sure how I feel about the finish, I liked that Dream flipped his desperation switch into panic mode and went for the last pinfall he could get, but also think Dream should have controlled for a bit more earlier in the match. When this was all over it practically felt like Riddle bullied him around at every turn of the match. I loved the personality in this and the work looked spectacular, would love to see this run back again. I'll have to watch it again to see how much Riddle dominating affects that for me. Still, these two matched up great together and I dug it.

[sorry, started writing up NXT and then got incredibly sleepy and zonked out AT the computer. Writing up the rest of this before Mania]

WALTER vs. Pete Dunne

ER: Rachel, wholly unfamiliar with WALTER, looks up as he's walking to the ring and asks, "Did they give someone an SS officer gimmick??" She's not wrong. Also, it appears referee Drake Younger is working a full blackface ref gimmick. This match was kind of weird for me, as Dunne has had this belt 700 odd days, and I don't think he ever looked like he really belonged with WALTER in there. This match got a ton of time 25 minutes, and at no point did it look like Dunne should be hanging with WALTER. And really, he didn't. Any time he did start to pull away from WALTER, he would do a light enziguiri or something that looked like it shouldn't be sold that much by WALTER. I liked stuff with Dunne avoiding the big chops, and his only chance looked to be targetting WALTER's fingers (and smashing his hand on the ringpost was a good moment), but I don't think any of the finger work went anywhere exciting. I don't think it ever even slowed WALTER down outside of the precise second it was happening. This felt like a similarly structured match to Dream/Riddle, only those two looked like they belong in the ring against each other. By the time they got to the inevitable strike exchanges it kind of felt ridiculous. WALTER just crushed Dunne the whole match, big kicks, nasty sleeper suplex off the top that felt like something you end a match on (but instead leads directly to Dunne doing a German and crucifix bomb that felt entirely like WALTER doing the moves to himself), big lariats, and of course that superbomb/splash combo to finish it. WALTER came in and definitely, the whole match, looked like a guy who should be the champ. So I'm glad they gave him the belt. If/when they do the rematch, I'm interested in seeing how they actually make Dunne look on WALTER's level.

Kairi Sane vs. Bianca Belair vs. Io Shirai vs. Shayna Baszler

ER: I thought this ruled. It felt tidy and like they could have gone longer but I'm happy they did it, just kept it at 15 minutes of fast action and no overkill. A lot of this was worked as the Sky Pirates working against the other two, while Belair and Baszler were against the other three. The 4 way brawling could have been an absolute mess but I loved how the Pirates crossed up the rope running and used that misdirection to sneak in their shots. Belair's hair is such an integral part of her matches and it's great when she uses it, and great when it's used against her, like when she gets whipped into the corner by her braid. And I LOVED the early ringpost spot, Baszler tossing Belair around the post and holding her braid to pull her into it, only Belair got her boot up to block and used the power of her thick ass amazing braid to yank baszler into the post instead. Mauro says, "Bring back any memories, Nigel?" To which Nigel should have humorously replied "No...actually. None at all." Belair is great at showing her power, hard shoulderblocks and catching a crossbody for a fallaway slam, big spear right at the chest, huge press slam to the floor, she totally looks like a boss. I also thought Shirai looked more explosive and violent than I've seen from her. She usually looks flimsy and nothing connects, here she hits a missile dropkick and the corner knees land hard, and I dug the way they worked themselves into the match (their acting got a little melodramatic at points, acting like saving a pinfall was the most physically exerting thing they'd ever done, but joshi gonna joshi). The corner suplex/powerbomb spot actually looked good and they kept the set-up brisk, the flying to the floor looked cool, Shirai's moonsaults actually hit hard for once, the pinfall saves were all expertly timed, Belair's KOD on Baszler looked great, and THEN she got to plant the Sky Pirates with one, Sane's elbow slammed hard into Baszler, Baszler had a cool counter of Belair's double chickenwing into the clutch, really the whole thing was a blast.

Johnny Gargano vs. Adam Cole

ER: Totally serious here, but are these the two smallest guys to ever be fighting for a WWE World Title? Did Rey ever defend against someone similar sized? And you know, I really liked this. I was expecting to not like this very much. I figured it would go long, and figured there would be tons of wide eyed heavy breathing shocked kickout faces. Both of those things happened. The latter happened a lot. And there were little things I didn't like, such as the way Cole threw the most half-assed missed clothesline right before he hit the knee to end the first fall. It's when guys halfass their way through things like that, where you can really see they were just not focusing on step a and only thinking about step b. It's an ugly trend but it's been where we're at for awhile. I also don't think I'll ever get used to the "I'm dead, I'm dead, I can't move, also I'm up and sprinting" brand of selling, and we got plenty of that. I also will forever laugh at how outright stupid Adam Cole's finisher looks. That little bunny hop off the middle buckle never ceases to crack me up. It's so isolated and never part of a smooth turn into the flipping piledriver, possibly the dumbest and silliest any big league wrestler has ever looked setting up a move.

But again, I liked this match. This was the match where Johnny Gargano fulfills his destiny and finally pulls out the big win, overcoming the numbers, defying the odds, all things that could have been insufferable. But they built a nice match with some memorably wild moments, and I was impressed at Gargano's timing throughout. This kind of match hinges on timing, hinges on guys being in the right place at the right time, and I don't think this came off as dance-y as it could have. Gargano's big spots looked big, the spear through the ropes, the slingshot DDT, big flatliner, big Air Raid Crash, and even more importantly he helped uberwuss Cole actually look dangerous. Gargano bumped around spectacularly for Cole, especially impressing me with two consecutive ringpost bumps. He really flew into ringposts in the classic Lawler post bump style, my personal favorite post bump, running in fast with the face and throwing the legs up high on the back bump. His ringpost shots looked great and I liked that we got some Gargano color, and later on Gargano tops his ringpost bumps by flying over a table and then getting pulverized into the top of said table by the Devil's Wings (my god is anything about Adam Cole cool?). That table was the true heel of the match, as good lord that unbreaking table must have hurt like hell. The finishing run of the third fall felt like smart use of non-falls and bullshit. Gargano hitting the reverse rana and superkick only for Cole to fall out of the ring is a great way to not burn kickout, and I actually liked the involvement of UE as a way to make fans flip even harder for Gargano. Once O'Reilly was ripping at Gargano's face to break the Escape, I found myself actually annoyed in that "No! Not like this!" kind of way. Gargano fighting off UE and getting the Escape tap was very satisfying, really feels like they need to get far away from emo wrestling as there's nowhere else they can go with it.

ER: Even with Dunne's performance not resonating with me (apparently that match was called match of the weekend at one point, which never approached that for me), this was still a really great show. I loved the tag, thought Riddle/Dream was fantastic, and thought the women's match was one of the hottest women's sprints we've seen in WWE. The main event delivered the best version of what I was expecting, and there was nothing approaching "bad wrestling". TakeOver's are a thing I always look extremely forward to, and that's because they've just rarely let me down.

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