NXT TakeOver: In Your House 6/13/21

We still can't rewind or start from beginning on Peacock, and I had Sunday errands. Why is Peacock this bad? Remember when we complained about the Network? Nobody wants to talk about it but this is clearly digital pro wrestling slowly turning into the lamest I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. I'll go back and pick up the stuff I missed once it's actually online. It's going to be really nice watching one of these with a decent crowd. There are so many of these acts who have barely played in front of people, and right on first sight this show has a great "packed local indy" energy to it. [Edit: Was I actually on time for this? I assumed it was 4:00 PM but if it's 5:00 then I guess I made it?]

Legado Del Fantasma vs. Bronson Reed/MSK

ER: I came into this one an unsure number of minutes, but it's one I was excited about on this card. Wilde and Mendoza are a pair of underrated in ring players right now, and you could say the same but lesser for MSK. The Dusty Classic was the best TV period for WWE this year and the energy hasn't been as good since that ended. The whole thing was great, and nearly every single participant has felt lost since. This whole thing is really great, as even when WWE has matches with actual luchadors in it, they don't always connect as actual lucha matches. But this really had the feel of a really strong lucha trios, and it's a shame we don't get more TV matches with the Legado del Fantasma trio. This is the best I've seen Reed look all year, a guy who appeared to be suffering from New Keith Lee syndrome. Here he was the great lucha wrecking ball, a large presence that could flattens someone to peak a sequence, like big Super Porky spots without any jokes attached. MSK were really fun getting set up over and over but LdF, and LdF's timing and rhythm were firing hard here. Reed acting as the big cut off to LdF's runs was a good way to lay this out, and I have no doubts that they could have worked a really good 2/3 Falls match (and there's no reason they still can't, ehhhhh?). Wes Lee is a good FIP and I just love Wilde and Mendoza do their thing. Mendoza was great at taking everyone's offense, getting just leveled by a Reed avalanche and having some great vocals and facials after getting flattened with more. Reed crashing Escobar through the hockey barricade looked like convenience store footage of a compact car crashing into the front beer display. Great moment. This match is literally only the 2nd time this year we've gotten the full trios version of Legado del Fantasma, and that needs to change, because this quality can't be denied. 

Mercedes Martinez vs. Xia Li

ER: I'm probably 2-3 months behind on NXT TV so I always see TakeOvers way before the set up, so I don't know how we got here, but I really like the energy that they take into it. Pretty early we settle into Li convincingly bullying Martinez around the ring and ringside, and you need a lot of ring confidence to bully Martinez. I'm a fan of Li's current thing, a little more Lucha Underground than the typical NXT gimmick. She runs Martinez into the ringpost and the turnbuckles, bends her around the post, and eventually throws a nasty high kick right into that same damn post in a great spot. Not only does the spot look great, but it changes the total energy of the match in a cool way, as now Li is the underdog babyface and Martinez is never more interesting than when she's stalking prey. Li is compelling when desperately fighting out of slams, and Martinez drops her with some nasty suplexes and slams. I like Li as a brow furrowed ass kicker, and I like her as a big bumping babyface. If you're taking a high backdrop on the floor on a show I watch? I am into you. I love how they had Li's big spinkick be the clean finish, made it feel like a huge singles win. This went the exact right length, and this is probably the best we've seen look in a longer match. Martinez gets a lot of credit, but Li now looks like a super confident performer who can work face or heel, and her look is excellent. Really loved the energy they sustained. 

LA Knight vs. Cameron Grimes

ER: I cannot help to love how Grimes moves to his To The Moon entrance song, it just fits. I'm pretty over ladder matches at this point, but I liked what these two did with the played out ladder match. Knight especially was great at turning non-spots into big moments, with strong stuff like trying to slam the ladder on Grimes and missing. To the Moon is a great way to get fans into it, and Knight was an old indy pro at keeping it a strong rallying cry. The build was really good and they knew how to start with bullshit, build to fighting around the ladder, then throw in your painful bumps. Knight has been at this game practically as long as AJ Styles, and he felt like a great AJ Styles heel here. Knight had a killer backdrop bump onto the ladder, and a Lawler level face first run into the top of a ladder. He was great at stooging to set up all of Grimes' comebacks, snapping over on Grimes' ranas (in ring and to the floor), and fed perfectly into two nice Grimes punts. Grimes gets crazier the longer the match goes, scaling a ringside ladder and escaping to ringside rigging, then does a sheer drop onto Knight with a crossbody. He tops that with a crazy CZW type spill, getting tipped in gross fashion from the top into the entrance ramp. I liked the Knight win, but that might be just because I really liked Knight in this match. Definitely exceeded my expectations. 

 

Raquel Gonzalez vs. Ember Moon

ER: Raquel has been such a wonderful presence in the women's division, a role that seemed like she might have been rushed into and yet all it did was make her immediately grow into the role. She is so good at selling for smaller opponents and is so good at pacing things out. She knows how to be dominant while leaving openings, and then her selling during those openings is so good that she seems actually beatable, before she slams the doors shut again. She uses her long limbs very effectively, lashing out with big clubbing shots and reaching out with kicks to the stomach, but when she's in close she unleashes different attacks. Her elbows really rock Moon, and she does this awesome over shoulder backbreaker while bending at Moon's neck and chin (then flipping her hard to get her back to the mat), and when Moon makes her big press back I loved how she paid Raquel back for all of the specific things she did. Moon hits a fantastic running clothesline, and Moon must love Raquel as an opponent as you can always tell she throws her offense even harder than usual and Raquel just leans right into it. Moon kicked things up a level when she locked in a deathlock variation and yanked Raquel by the ponytail, mouth, and throat to pull her deeper into the submission. Moon has complicated offense and I'm impressed she almost always manages to pull it off better than it could be pulled off, but Gonzalez is again someone who has an uncanny ability to take complicated offense, so, well. Ember Moon got to hang with Gonzalez and look like she belonged, Dakota Kai was a treat at ringside (I love the dynamic of the Raquel/Kai partnership), and I love how Raquel's wins are always big exclamation marks. Dominant champ who can sell, then wins definitively, is a simple formula. This could be absurd hype with a year of hindsight, and I wouldn't expect him to touch his peak, but she's progressing in a way that could be as impressive as Brock's initial rise. The potential is right there. 

Kyle O'Reilly vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Pete Dunne vs. Adam Cole vs. Karrion Kross

ER: Here's the one on paper landmine on the show, and the way they start does not make me optimistic that they'll escape landmine status. I think it will all depend on the runtime. But I did not need to see Kross work his Karate Rockette routine while everyone else busies themselves on the floor, really not liking how Kross is the denominator for all the early stretches. Everyone else waits their turn to go one on one or two on one with Kross and the Kross show is the weakest routine in the match. And you know what? This match wasn't totally for me, and it almost surely wasn't ever going to be. So, knowing that, you go in hoping that it will at least be good for what it is, and it was. If you are the kind of person who sees these 5 names in a main event and assume it's going at least 30, and you are EXCITED for it, then this definitely gave you every single thing you could have wanted. It went too long (obviously it was going to go too long) but was laid out well once they moved past the Kross one on ones. 

This is modern wrestling based around constant counters, constant commentary talking about the counters, and constant guys looking over the shoulder waiting for the timing to be right. It's distracting, but it's tough to time things perfectly with an odd number of guys, and if you were a fan of late 2000s PWG main events then I'd be surprised if you didn't enjoy this. I have no interest in going through 30 minutes of spots, but O'Reilly and Gargano took some heavy bumps (loved O'Reilly getting shoved off the top to the floor and basically cannonballing to the floor), Gargano got powerbombed into the edge of the apron by Kross in what looked like the worst possible landing, both guys really kept this pumping. Gargano went really wild here, my favorite stretch of the match was when he was flying all over the place. He hit a fast bullet tope that almost sent him straight into the announce table, and his tope tornado DDT on Dunne was a real feat for both. I also found myself rooting for O'Reilly when he had that sick Volk Han leg lock sunk in. Also a big fan of the timing it took for the double superkick to actually look good on Dunne's moonsault. This spots are an inch either way from either murdering a man or looking awful, and this one looked great. I think anyone would have taken that over a continued Reign of Kross. But hey, if you already wanted to see this match, you are happy, and that is what's most important. This is about the best this style can get for me, which means it was technically my least favorite match on the show, but it didn't tank the show at all. 

ER: This was a great show, every match delivered what people excited for that match would want. Seeing  Legado del Fantasma as a trio was a treat, Xia Li stepped up into the spotlight nicely, Raquel and Ember tore it down (Raquel has delivered on big NXT shows this year like literally no other person on the roster), and the ladder match was strong. Great show, kept a great pace, only really felt like it was dragging during some stretches of the main. Highly recommended show. 

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NXT TakeOver: Stand and Deliver Night One 4/7/21

NXT has been my favorite mainstream wrestling program of 2021, so I figured why not check out their two night TakeOver special, despite being a few weeks behind on programming and not actually knowing anything that is on the card. Will I be rewarded for going into this blind? We'll see!

Pete Dunne vs. Kushida

ER: This was a real nice fast pace for a show opener, and also, I hated most of it! I really, really hated most of the offense that made up this entire match, a match filled with arm break and finger break spots without a single moment of somebody selling an arm or finger injury. Dunne tossed out so many finger break spots that were used to transition Kushida immediately back to offense, just an incredibly stupid usage of an already stupidly used spot. They traded arm break spots, and every time they did, all that happened was the other one would then do their own arm break spot right after. The match threatened a few times to go to interesting places, but since no move in the match was ever sold seriously, those interesting places became only "what ifs". Kushida was really good at setting up Dunne's offense, took a big suplex on the apron too, but it's like they had some odd agreement that once one got to do a move, then the other could get up and immediately take back over with his own move. There was one compelling nearfall, where I thought a Kushida small package might have ended it early, but maybe that was me in hindsight just wishing that had ended things early. This was a lot of fast movement that lead absolutely nowhere, and everything was run through so quickly that I guarantee none of it will be remembered in a day. 

Gauntlet Match

ER: I don't really like gauntlet matches where guys enter on a time limit rather than after an elimination. It never plays to anyone's strengths, too many guys have to disappear when things get too clogged, and they're never as satisfying as just a trios match would have been. Hell, give me a couple of singles matches between any of these guys, guarantee it will be better than a timed gauntlet match. Nobody in this got much time to map out anything interesting, as a Ruff/Scott singles match could have been a really cool 8 minutes, as soon enough it was two guys bumping for Bronson Reed and ignoring everything that had happened in their own match, and that's how these things go. Pretty soon you have guys no selling spots because they need to be in position for the next chain spot, so Isaiah Scott gets flipped inside out with a Reed clothesline, but is back hitting a meh superkick on Grimes 4 seconds later because that's how the move chaining works. A gauntlet match like this is really great at making six guys all come out looking worse, either by getting pinned way earlier than they should have been (Grimes, Lumis), or having to rush through your routine because everyone else is fighting for attention. Even a silly 6 man multiman would have worked better than a new guy awkwardly integrating himself into the match every few minutes, but the format we got is not conducive to a good match for anyone involved. Did LA Knight need to be in this? Did Lumis? Just a poorly laid out idea all around. 

7. Tommaso Ciampa vs. WALTER

ER: THIS was more like it, just a big throwing bomb fest that was more than just bombs. This never felt like two guys out there trying to get This Is Awesome chants, it felt like an actual big main event title match, with one guy the clear underdog who was going to take as much punishment for as long as he possibly could. WALTER and Ciampa both turned in great performances, with WALTER turning in a ton of appropriate selling and Ciampa actually working like a guy with a size disadvantage, always feeling like a guy hanging on who MAYBE had an outside chance of winning the belt. I loved how the worked in some vulnerabilities for WALTER, and having him hurt his hand by overhand chopping the announce table in half is a great way to set up a hand injury. WALTER was super punishing with his offense, all of his kicks really found their way right underneath Ciampa's chin, and he was able to be punishing while not forgetting about what happened to his hand (something that nobody else on TakeOver has been able to do). 

WALTER's best bit of selling was when he was taking a dozen lariats from Ciampa, as it's incredibly difficult to sell on your feet while waiting for someone to hit you repeatedly, yet I thought he made it look fantastic. Ciampa's lariats weren't strong enough to put the big man down, but I liked how they knocked him into the ropes, loved how he stumbled before getting turned around, loved how the next one hit him in the back of the head and made him fall into the ropes for a bit, thought he turned what could have been an extended silly moment into an excellent stubborn refusal to go down and save himself from more punishment. Ciampa is a real hard chopper, and WALTER's chest was getting nicely purple by the end of this, and the harder Ciampa hit, the harder it made WALTER come at him with full force lariats and straight kicks. WALTER's powerbombs looked great too, and I loved how he was using his weight and size to just try to hold Ciampa to the mat. I loved the spot where WALTER hopped onto Ciampa and almost tricked Ciampa into bridging up on his neck, that extra bit of temerity that seemed immediately like a bad idea, and lead directly to WALTER crushing him back on their feet. Ciampa's selling down the stretch was great too, barely escaping out of a rolling powerbomb, dead man walking getting back to his feet when he clearly shouldn't have been standing, only to be put down for good with one last chop. Several guys on NXT have really taken a lot of the stupid melodrama out of their selling and it has only made these title match epics sing. With no bullshit morality acting or shocked kickout faces, the matches seem far more streamlined and intense. 

PAS: I thought this was a good stiff match, which flirted with great, but didn't get there. I thought the spot with WALTER smashing the table with a chop was a clever idea, executed well and really gave the match some structure. WALTER did a great job of selling constantly trying to adjust his attack with that probably broken hand. I also thought the multiple lariat spot was clever, although I really wish they looked better. It would have been a bigger deal if WALTER had kept standing with a dozen hard lariats, rather then just standing through a dozen B- ones. I thought the finish run had the problems that these matches often have, where they ended a couple of beats too late. The actual finishing spot looked way less nasty than the couple that proceeded it, and it came off flat. I would have liked the match a lot more if it ended on the powerbomb. Still for this style of match it had some real highs, and I enjoyed lots of it. 

MSK vs. Raul Mendoza/Joaquin Wilde vs. Grizzled Young Veterans

ER: I thought the Dusty Classic (Men's and Women's) was really good, tons of memorable matches and really made me want a legit focused tag division. This tag three way was everything the earlier match with six people wasn't, a super fun tag with a few surprising spots and a quick pace, felt more like a tag you'd see on early 2000s Jersey All Pro, and I can't think of a bigger wrestling compliment I could give over the past 20 years. Just like on those old JAPW tapes, I'd spend entire matches constantly switching who my favorite was, made me just root for all of them and seek out more. You'd flip for a big Ghost Shadow bump, then flip for the Hit Squad crushing Azrieal, then lose it for Rainchild. It was a roster I loved through and through, and everyone worked well together. I have a feeling this would have played well at the Bayonne Charity Hall. Wes Lee had this section where he was throwing out spin kick combos and leg sweeps as everyone in the match attacked like a ninja, then he pasted Gibson with a hard hitting tope, and followed that up with a huge tope con giro on Legado del Fantasma. Mendoza and Wilde are great at getting into position for things like that, and I like how they played kind of a lower key highspot role so MSK could shine with their cool double teams. Wilde stuck to hard corner clotheslines, Mendoza stuck to high dropkicks, a missile dropkick to break up a submission, and both took crazy spots on the floor to help get over the other teams. Wilde took a flat out insane looking Doomsday Device, with Drake running off the ramp to send Wilde to the floor, and Mendoza took basically a safer Burning Hammer on the floor with a slingshot double stomp from Lee to kick it off. The MSK "best buds stuff fighting for their dream" stuff can get a little hammy (though it would probably be fine if only they weren't constantly talking about it on commentary, but this is the kind of tag match you put on to show off that your tag division is really cool right now. 

Raquel Gonzalez vs. Io Shirai

ER: This was the complete opposite of what I thought it was going to be, worked totally different from what I was expecting, and I loved it. I thought this would be Gonzalez dominating, with Shirai coming back in not belieavable ways and pinning Raquel with a bad moonsault. Instead, it was somehow Shirai taking 90% of the match, which on paper sounds preposterous to me. But Raquel Gonzalez is getting really good, and it kind of snuck up on me. She is a really strong base, and not just in the kind of way that someone so much larger and taller than their opponents should be. She was so good at taking Shirai's offense and so great at setting all of it up, all of it building nicely to each stage of the match, that it felt like Shirai was organically keeping not just one step ahead of Gonzalez, but believably dominating her. They were really smart about how much offense Gonzalez took, having her block several ranas, avoid Shirai's rope feint kicks, and it was the only way this was going to work. Shirai just doing nothing but offense for 90% of the match would have come off brainless, but with Gonzalez fending off much of it, it just made Shirai come off as relentless. Dakota Kai's interference and immediate dismissal came at a good time, and I like how all it did was stop a Shirai moonsault, not turn the tide for Gonzalez. It was super impressive how they kept Shirai in control and Gonzalez staggering, but I really got into it. Gonzalez kicking out of the moonsault felt like a big deal, and the crossbody off the entrance ramp looked like a deranged Shirai throwing her body harder and harder into the monster that won't stay down. I thought it was great how suddenly Gonzalez took over, nailing Shirai with a great low cut clothesline that resulted in Shirai hitting one of her best moonsaults (this clothesline could not have flipped her over harder on her stomach). I'm really happy for Raquel's title win. There really wasn't anything left for Shirai to do as champ, and Gonzalez is someone intriguing to have on top against a bunch of interesting babyface contenders. I had this match in my head as something very different than what we got, and I'm glad, because I loved what we got here. 

ER: Those first two matches really stunk, and I was starting to regret the idea of doing this show the night of. But WALTER/Ciampa (it landed on our 2021 Ongoing MOTY List) was great and the show never slowed down from there, thought the last three matches of the night stand up next to any three match run from any TakeOver. 

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Three Months, Three Oney Lorcan Matches

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Joaquin Wilde/Raul Mendoza 205 Live 9/11/20

ER: This has been part of an ongoing 205 Live feud that includes Ever-Rise, and it's something I always enjoy seeing. I think they should start mixing up the feuds with singles matches, but for a promotion that's been traditionally more about tags than singles they've been rerunning tags a lot more. Wilde is someone who I like a lot more in tags than singles, and think he's really come into new strengths within the short span of Legado del Fantasma. I dug his headlock/headscissors takedown exchanges with Lorcan to start, with Lorcan working the kind of engaging holds that he works best and Wilde tossing in some nice color with a hand stomp and a dropkick. Lorcan gets his arm worked over by LdF, takes a cravat from Mendoza, and I like how sometimes these combos of teams work actual long heat segments, and then this time they'll keep them quicker. Lorcan getting worked over isn't the match, he gets to Burch fairly quickly and then Burch runs wild on Mendoza for awhile. There's enough mileage to these pairings to run them back the next week only work the match around Burch taking heat.

But Burch and Lorcan working over Mendoza is fun for this one, with them hitting a double suplex, Oney grinding in a facelock, Burch throwing big uppercuts, and Mendoza eventually coming back to hit a nice enziguiri and springboard crossbody. They're a fun group to keep going back and forth on each other, and it's a neat way to change out 2 on 1 pairings. LdF hit a double spinebuster and sandwich Burch with a basement dropkick, and there's good energy kept in the match at all times. It all builds to the most energy, and everyone knows that means an Oney Lorcan hot tag. Oney hits one of his big clotheslines that take him and Mendoza to the floor, comes back in with chops, big uppercuts, and a hard blockbuster to Wilde. Ever-Rise come out to interfere, and AGAIN I hope and hope and hope this leads to something more interested than a 3 way tag match. Those always blow, and it would be far more interesting to bring another team into the mix and work that way. Or, force Ever-Rise to work face with Lorcan/Burch and find a 4th member for Legado del Fantasma. I want that. Add Brian Kendrick into this feud as a total wildcard gun for hire. They're keeping it fresh, but 205 Live has been bad at feud blowoffs. So far so good.

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Tyler Breeze/Fandango NXT 10/21/20

ER: Well I've been saying for several years that I have just been waiting for them to actually give some kind of big win to Oney Lorcan, and now they've finally done it. Was it perfect? No. Did they only win because of interference from the returning Cole Carrier Pat McAfee? Almost certainly yes. The match was a little disjointed and the in ring story was all over the place, but within story perhaps that makes sense as neither of these teams expected to be facing each other. Lorcan worked some cool headlock takeovers and I dig the slow burn start, but we get one of those annoying commercial breaks where you get the sense something interesting may have happened while we weren't watching. We went to break with Breeze starting to work over Burch's knee and wrap it around the ringpost, and when we come back Lorcan and Burch are working over Fandango. That has to be one of my biggest pet peeves in wrestling TV: leaving with one man in control and coming back to the exact opposite. Fandango matches up nicely with Lorcan and Burch, throws some heavy clotheslines, hits a nice guillotine legdrop (less style and grace than others, but a nice heavy landing) and we build to a moment where Oney gets stopped during a dive attempt, crashing to the apron and floor. Lorcan and Burch tried working Breeze over with a crossface/half crab combo and we get a couple pinfall saves (though even one of those seems overly planned, the fashionable kind of pin break where you tackle your opponent into the pin and everybody dogpiles). McAfee (under a Doom mask) shoves Fandango off the top and Burch lowblows Breeze behind the ref's back, then they hit the elevated DDT to win the tag belts. Obviously we'll find out more and see where their apparent heel turn is going, but I don't think they needed the lowblow in addition to interference. Let's at least make it look like they could have maybe beaten Breezango of all teams. A Burch headbutt or a leveling Oney uppercut would have been an excellent way to set up the DDT win, and would have had them KOing the champ with one of their own signature strikes, not a shot to the balls. Was this role originally going to have been filled by Ridge Holland? I don't know, but I'm happy for the new champs. I wish they could have won the belts in a bigger match on their own terms, but I've also thought they've been the clear best men's tag team in WWE for some time now and deserved these belts. 

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Drake Maverick/Killian Dain NXT 12/23/20

ER: I liked the dynamics of this street fight, the fun size difference of Dain and Drake playing out in fun ways. It had that WWF street fight problem of the action slowing down for some spot set up, meaning the match was built into a series of crash landings instead of those spots being worked a little more organically into the match. Also, they weirdly decided to settle the match down into traditional tag rules, which at least kept things from completely devolving into a series of prop set ups. Things were at their strongest when Lorcan and Burch were isolating Maverick, as Dain would come in as wrecking ball, and someone like Lorcan is great at getting wrecked. There was a sick spot where Lorcan took a backdrop kidneys first over a couple set up chairs. The Dain/Maverick drop toehold senton combo is nice, and Lorcan's wild blockbuster on the floor felt extra crazy considering that bump he had just taken across the chairs. Dain gets to crash through and off of tables and bodies, sticking up for his little buddy, hitting avalanches and a big powerbomb, getting knocked off the apron that bounces him off a table instead of through, which leads to a great final Maverick blowout. Maverick comes in with low blows, takes off his belt and whips the hell out of the champs, including a belt shot literally across Lorcan's face. WWF are idiots because they don't have enough awesome belt whipping in their No DQ matches, instead opting for played out cane shots. Maverick's belt shots were really great, and I love how Lorcan responded to that belt to the face by paying back the low blow, before the champs absolutely stuff Drake with the elevated DDT. Cool stuff. 

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NXT TakeOver: XXX 8/22/20 Better Late Than Never Blog

Breezango vs. Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Raul Mendoza/Joaquin Wilde

ER: A match that had some of the typical problems of any triple threat match, meaning we got a lot of different guys lying around for far longer than they should have been. If I focused on how many guys were lying around, and the moves that caused them to stay down (often just "guy gets thrown through ropes to floor", which happened a lot) it would be a silly match. But just trying to ignore the dumb match type and there was a ton of good action. Raul Mendoza looked awesome whenever he was in, loved him slipping through the ropes to the apron to catch Fandango with an elbow, and his rope run tornillo looked insane. Wilde is a big bumper and worked that well into the match (took a big lariat on his shoulder, got dropped with a Burch/Lorcan double DDT), Burch had a decent hot tag, there were a couple of nice offense chains (dug Lorcan hitting a flying uppercut only to eat a Breeze superkick), and a decent nearfall save. I would have rather seen either team other than Breezango win, but oh well.

Finn Balor vs. Timothy Thatcher

ER: Strong match, and it was stronger the closer they were. All of the grappling was really really good, and a match focused solely on that would have been awesome. The stuff I liked less was whenever it tilted a bit more into a Balor match with move reversals and a little stand and trade. The former made up a far higher % of the match, and the latter was worked in well. But the grappling was so strong that I just wanted it to be the whole match. Thatcher went after Balor's leg, and I love how Thatcher gets a tight leveraged grip on his single leg crab, locking his elbow crook in Balor's knee pit and absorbing boots to the face just to do some more damage. I like seeing Thatcher work guys who typically don't do matwork, as it forces them out of their comfort zone and usually makes them look cooler than their normal style. Balor didn't get clowned on the mat, even while Thatcher was bending at his arm and working to lock on chokes, or stomping on inner thigh to open up the left leg to a target. And I liked how they came back to the leg when Balor missed a stomp. Thatcher smelled blood and swam in. Some of the Balor offense felt like it went away from the cooler story they were telling, and I always wish guys were better about adjusting their offense game depending on what their opponent had been working, but I still liked this alot.

Damian Priest vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Bronson Reed vs. Cameron Grimes vs. Velveteen Dream

ER: Not only does Dream get to talk about "getting a second chance" during the pre match video and gets the last entrance, looks like the books are closed on that one. Bronson Reed is wearing a rad Bam Bam Bigelow singlet, and I am into it. And this match was odd, as I didn't really care for the match itself, but it had some pretty spectacular crash landings. Matches with odd number participants are usually off, and a lot of the stuff based around climbing ladders here was actively dumb. There are only so many ways to climb a ladder, and we're pretty far past the point of finding clever new ways to climb ladders. The cuter they get, the lamer it gets, and almost all of the stuff revolving around guys climbing was dumb. Guys also disappeared for odd stretches of time, sometimes after a bump that should keep someone disappeared, other times not. Plus, this thing was too long. We don't need to run past 20 in these stunt shows, just makes it feel silly the longer guys go surviving these crashes. The dive train was strong, especially liked Reed's big tope and Priest's wild tope con hilo after running up a ladder. Grimes did the splits between two ladders but the payoff was kind of weak, the ladder bump crashing over the barricade was wild, and my absolute favorite thing was Bronson splashing Gargano off a ladder with Candice on his back. The rest of the Candice involvement felt way too shoehorned, too out of place and Grimes looked silly selling any kind of offense from her. But a fat man hitting a superfly splash while wearing a tiny woman as a backpack is always going to fucking rule.

Adam Cole vs. Pat McAfee

ER: I LOVE matches with non wrestlers. I always get excited for them. I watch so many damn matches with guys who are trained specifically to do professional wrestling, that it is always exciting to see what someone - especially athletes from other sports - "gets" about wrestling. Sometimes it's Jay Leno doing an arm wringer a few times, but sometimes it's fucking Floyd Mayweather! I've seen Hijo del Santo live more than once, but how cool are those people who were at one of Marcus Dupree's first indy matches? What about those people who got to see Lawler and Dundee each teaming with local Tennessee pediatricians? I love non wrestler matches. And I think this was one of the greater non wrestler performances we've seen.

Pat McAfee was a real natural, and I'm not sure what it says for NXT that he was so much better at wrestling acting than Adam Cole? The match has a weird heel vs. heel vibe to it, that kind of works for the match overall. Cole isn't the guy defending the honor of pro wrestling against an invader, and McAfee isn't the local babyface star from another walk of life playing star in another sport. They're both heels, with McAfee a deservedly cocky loudmouth, and Cole a little brat who feels like the worst guy to be a public face of pro wrestling. The heel vs. heel vibe got me into it, something more fun about two unlikeable guys hurting each other (though I was rooting for McAfee obviously, who wouldn't root for him over Cole). They're smart with smoke and mirrors, and McAfee ramps things up appropriately, showing more and more athleticism and grasp of wrestling. He hits a dropkick, has a nice grounded chinlock, and then takes things to the next level with a tope con hilo into a crowd of plants and wrestlers. McAfee keeps looking more and more like a natural, and by the time McAfee did a backflip off the top, then leaping back to the top with no hands, to superplex Cole off. It was a great superplex, too. But once they start working the match around McAfee being an actual high level punter, this goes from a great non wrestler performance to a great match.

McAfee goes to punt Cole on the apron, Cole moves, and McAfee boots the ring steps. It looked great, and I love the idea about the great distance punter injuring his foot. We get a great moment of Cole kicking out his kicking leg on a charge, playing up the hurt foot and knee that he's had a few surgeries on. McAfee punts Cole in the balls and honestly, the McAfee punting Cole right in the chest and yelping at his hurt foot was one of my favorite wrestling moments of the year. Cole is a little too Edge Acting for the finish - again, McAfee shouldn't be able to play his character than Cole - but McAfee taking the flipping piledriver is a bonkers thing for a new wrestler to be taking. I am always going to be excited for a non wrestler match, and this one was one to seek out.

PAS:  I thought McAfee was incredible in this match and Cole was awful. If you showed someone this match in a vacuum, and asked which one of these guys was an untrained amateur there is no way they would pick McAfee. Everything cool in this match was on him, the tope con hilo, the backflip into the high jump superplex, and everything around his punt of death totally ruled. Meanwhile Cole is making dramatic acting faces and did maybe the worst hockey fight in the history of wrestling, swinging his tiny little T-Rex arms into something resembling a punch. Cole has to be 5'6 with a 4'11 wingspan. I am not sure how he wipes his own ass. That dramatic teased removal of the knee pad was embarrassing. There is a reason I don't watch this community college Death of a Salesman shit anymore.

Dakota Kai vs. Io Shirai

ER: I liked a lot of this, and yet a lot of it left me hollow? Even the stuff I liked kind of felt hollow as it never felt like it had grave consequences. Example: I thought Shirai's double knees and knee strikes  looked uniformly great throughout...and yet she did SO MANY of them to Kai that she made her own offense look ineffective. If something looks like a kill shot, but is sold similarly to a hard bodyslam, by the end of the match I don't care about it. The match was filled with hard knees and double stomps, but the only thing really sold as damaging was a so so moonsault. I liked Kai's work on Shirai's arm, and really thought the struggle by Shirai to get to the ropes made it even better. Shirai was good at selling her arm, and it slowed her down an appropriate amount while not getting too in the way. Kai's strength is stringing together semi-complicated sequences and making them turn out plausible, like when she slid to the floor, spun Shirai out onto the apron, and delivered a yakuza kick. Those kinds of sequences can come off too dance-y but Kai actually makes them look as intended. I think it went too long and they went back to certain things too many times. You cut this 16 minute match down to 10, thus cutting out some of the move spamming, and I think it hits.

Karrion Kross vs. Keith Lee

ER: This didn't work for me. It felt like they were moving in slow motion right out the gate. I'll take this kind of match over the Lee/Dijakovic style of main event, but this was not a match with 20+ minutes of material, and didn't need to be. Lee is bizarre to me. He is an incredible athlete who almost always plays against his strengths. He should be doing things to maximize his size and speed, and yet ever since joining NXT he almost always just comes off as everyone's equal. He's not a good striker, and yet he always does these stand and trade sections that remove any wonder. It would be like Vader working an equal strike exchange with someone 50 lb. (or more) smaller than him, it would look odd and make Vader look far less impressive. Imagine if Lee worked more like a larger, more spry Masa Saito?? Instead he's someone who works to minimize his size, and I don't get it. I was a big fan of Kross vs. Ciampa on the last TakeOver, and that match was worked with an immediacy that made Kross look like a killer without hurting Ciampa. This match had none of that immediacy, and instead was worked like at a slogging pace. I get they are saying that Keith Lee is a big man and takes a long beating to wear him down, but I don't think this did either man any favors. Keith Lee just got slowly worn down over a too long match, and he kept striking to comeback, which paints him in the least favorable light. He needed to just slam his body into Kross on every comeback, and that just didn't happen. I did like the Kross suplexes, and the whipping Saito suplex off the top was a cool finish, but even with the title win this match felt like a step back for Kross, and Lee has felt like he's been spinning his wheels on NXT all year.


ER: Weird show, my feelings for this one are a real rollercoaster. The show felt like a solid TakeOver show, but I really didn't like any of the matches other than the McAfee show. The pre-show match was fun but too short (considering every other match on the show got way too much time, they really could have used more balance), and Thatcher/Balor approached being a really good match but I didn't like the ways Balor took away from their own narrative. Ladder matches don't really move my needle any longer, they just happen far too frequently. The main event didn't work for me, and I was left with a former NFL punter carrying this entire show for me. And yet it felt like an overall good show? And yet it also felt like it went way way way longer than its actual run time. I'm torn on this one. But of one thing I am certain: Pat McAfee rules, and is a far more interesting performer than a large % of the NXT roster. That should be a major look in the mirror moment for the NXT brand. It likely won't be, but it should be.

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