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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Mae Young Classic 2018 Episode 6

Zeuxis vs. Io Shirai

ER: Zeuxis had a better showing here than her 1st round match, and this match had the potential to be a good match, but Shirai is a joshi babyface who transitions back from a beating by suddenly deciding that the beating she has been taking isn't as bad as it seemed, and starts running and screaming and hitting offense again. The Shirai arm injury was set up with quality timing and a nutso bump from Shirai: Zeuxis caught her with a forearm in the middle of a Shirai springboard spot, then hit her with a baseball slide that sent Shirai crashing violently to the floor off the apron. Awesome looking spot, and I liked Zeuxis working her over and bullying her around the ring after. But at a certain point Shirai just decides that she isn't all that hurt after all, and then the running starts. Anybody who hates Hulkamania Hulk must hate joshi babyfaces, those unkillable T-9000s but with cool hair. I knew Zeuxis wasn't advancing, which is fine, I don't have a problem with Shirai advancing. But once she just got up sprinting from a beatdown I knew she was definitely going to win, and the rest of the match would be no looking back. Her overshooting the moonsault for the finish was icing on the cake, and as an accountant I like that she netted out, since she sloppily whipped ankles first into Xia Brookside in the first round. This could have been better, it really wouldn't have taken much more.

Deonna Purrazzo vs. Xia Li

ER: I liked the pace they went with here, and while there were things that didn't hit cleanly I still liked what they were going for. Purrazzo goes after the arm but keeps getting caught with various Li kicks, including a nice dropkick off the top (I mean, it was one of those ugly RVD dropkicks, but it looked like it had some impact), and I liked how Purrazzo kept going for the arm and using any kind of offense to eventually get to the arm. Hit a lariat, go for the arm, Russian leg sweep, go for the arm, oh and also hit Li with some nice thumping chops; doing that opened up some nice counters for Li, a nice cradle reversal, a really fun layout. There was some timing that was off, or some things that took a bit or set-up, but pace and layout were strong.

Nicole Matthews vs. Tegan Nox

ER: This was good enough, and really didn't overstay its welcome, but more to their detriment. There haven't been too many under 4 minute matches in the tournament, and they probably could have easily stretched this out twice as long. Matthews was nice and mean, really bullying Nox around after elbowing her out of a dive attempt and hitting some hard kicks on the apron, and I dug how Matthews kind of walked through Nox's stuff to continue pounding her. Throw some kicks at me? Yeah, I'm just gonna elbow you and hit a nice northern lights. But the finish really felt like they just got a sudden call to wrap it all up, as Nox just gets up from what had been a fairly one-sided beating, throws some iffy uppercuts - maybe better than her 1st round ones, but those looked like she was intentionally missing her opponent - before just hitting a cannonball and a so-so shining wizard. Color me unimpressed with Nox, both because she hasn't looked impressive, and because Michael Cole just will not shut the fuck up about her.

Mia Yim vs. Kaitlyn

ER: Well this ruled and I wasn't really expecting Kaitlyn to be my favorite not-Meiko gal in this tourney. In the first round Yim had a bad version of a match she'd had a dozen times with Allysin Kay, with the announcers selling her hand pain for her in lieu of Yim actually selling it herself. Here she has her hand taped up and immediately hurts it with a chop. Kaitlyn hits a bunch of legdrops and a great cannonball, then works an awesome body vice. Kaitlyn was a powerlifter and always had strong legs, really made the body vice look legit and I loved Yim grinding her elbow into Kaitlyn's leg to get out of it. Yim starts working over Kaitlyn's leg after Kaitlyn misses a baseball slide, slams it into the apron, dishes hard kicks to the hamstring, and works an awesome standing figure 4 (almost like a figure 4 and a stump puller, looked painful as hell). Things get really great when Kaitlyn baits Yim into punching her and dodges so that Yim punches the mat, and then Kaitlyn decides to just try to rip Yim's hand off. Good god I totally wanted a tap there, Kaitlyn looked like she wanted to tear Yim's hand off and wear it like a necklace. Kaitlyn was great going for bodyslams (all powerlifters should have a good bodyslam), her leg buckling at first and her stubbornly going back for them. Yim begging off properly ends with her whiffing an attack so Kaitlyn can hit another slam, and Yim's missed strike was a great way to set that up. We get a couple of very convincing nearfalls, especially Kaitlyn's spear which looked killer, and I *really* wanted to end the match. But just like Yim missed a punch to the mat earlier, Kaitlyn misses a stomp to leave herself open for an ankle lock. This was totally great, although I think they really missed out by not having Kaitlyn advance. Yim has had her best matches against Baszler and Kaitlyn, those styles really complement her style, and someone like Toni Storm is much closer to the typical Yim opponent who all just bring out awful 2018 indy tendencies in each other. But this match was fantastic, and made me really hope for a 2018 full time Kaitlyn return.

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Mae Young Classic 2018 Episode 3

Kaitlyn vs. Kavita Devi

ER: This was a showcase for the returning Kaitlyn, out of wrestling for 4 years, and apparently going through a "tumultuous divorce" in the meantime. I remember Kaitlyn getting better during her original run, eventually being a perfectly fine WWE trained fitness model. I liked her here, nice sliding clothesline, hard elbows, nice cannonball. I remember enjoying Devi more last year, in what was apparently her first match. Here she didn't stand out much, hit an okay kick to the back, whiffed a missed clothesline by a mile. This was meant to make Kaitlyn look good, and it did that well enough.

Toni Storm vs. Jinny

ER: I liked this one, and really liked Jinny. I'd never seen her before, and she carried herself great. She's got a bird bones body, like Sweet Dee or a Sikh Summer Rae. She packs a nice wallop with her long limbs, nice thrust on stomps, nice surfboard, great attitude, broke out some cool things (like reversing a charging Storm with a Japanese armdrag into the corner), and her biggest strength may have been her fast bumping. She really SUWA's herself on a Storm lariat and gets absolutely dumped by a Storm German. Storm's running hip attack in the corner looked good, and I expected Storm to advance, but I know we're going to get a few ladies advancing who I don't want to see more than Jinny.

Karen Q vs. Xia Li

ER: Okay, WWE, we get it, only ONE Chinese girl will be advancing in this tourney. And I really liked this. Li has improved a lot in the last year, all of her strikes looked good, tons of tough corner shots to the body mixed in with low kicks, nice palm strikes, and Q had no problem laying things in either. They have a couple moments that looked like a nice take on Red/Low Ki, and I dug Q playing an overt heel, begging off, kicking Li in the face when Li was talking to the ref, stuff that made the match far more interesting than if it had just been "two Chinese warriors going to war!" Q hits hard back elbows and snaps off a nice exploder, tries to ground, and Li's strikes to come back are good. Q misses big on a frog splash and Li hits her cool spinning kick finisher. This only went about 4 minutes, but was really hot, and made really good use of the time. Very into this.

Mia Yim vs. Allysin Kay

ER: Eh, a lot of this felt like every breathe hard indy war you've seen the past few years, and while there were moments I liked, a lot of it felt like a bunch of sequences lifted from every indy card. We even started with a brutally bad phone booth fight spot, big looping punches coming nowhere close to a human. Early on Yim chops the ring post, and they never do a single thing with Yim's hand...and what makes it awkward is all three members of the announce crew talk up that hand as if it were a major part of the match. After chopping the post, Yim never let on that the hand was bothering her in the slightest, but that didn't stop Cole, Renee, and Beth from speculating just how much that hand was bothering her. Even after the match, which Yim - ahem - handily won, the first highlight they showed was Yim chopping that post, which made Cole just keep talking about that hand while clips of other stuff played. Guys, stop trying to make Mia Yim's hand a thing. These two have faced each other tons of times dating back to 2012, so you'd think they'd have a decent touring match down. This was clearly their touring match, something that would not look out of place 3 matches into any indy card across the country. Again, this whole thing just felt like an attempt to pull moments from other matches, and not interesting matches, just pulling sequences from athletic indy contests. It did not feel like their own match, it just took the DNA of other matches and reassembled it here. Kay's 360 lariat looked really good, loved Kay fishhooking Yim in the ropes, Yim threw a couple nice knees, their strike exchange (you knew there would be a strike exchange) didn't linger, but overall I just didn't think they took it anywhere interesting. This was the longest match of the tournament so far, and I think several other matches have accomplished way more in 1/3 of the time (see Li/Q right before).

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Mae Young Classic Episode 2

1. Mercedes Martinez vs. Xia Li

ER: If this was actually Li's first legit wrestling match, it's not really fair to be that critical, but there wouldn't be much need to as she looked far better than most anybody else I've seen having their first match. Her opening headlock and wrestling looked good, and the spin kicks to Martinez's hip were neat (the spin kick to a kneeling Martinez was awesome), and her running snapmare was really cool. What's surprising is just how much Martinez let her have. I fully get letting Li get some shine since she was obviously not advancing, but Martinez handled it kind of weird, lying down and just sitting on the mat for an awkwardly long amount of time. I'm not sure if Li was supposed to hit that superman punch earlier or what, but it didn't seem like it. It really just seemed like Martinez was overselling the kicks. It felt odd.

PAS: I thought this was worked pretty perfectly for this type of match. I loved Martinez taunting Li and the beginning of the match, tooling her on the mat early, only to get caught with big shots. I had no problem with her selling, as it came off like she was just stunned by stiff kick. I also liked how when Mercedes took over, she just planted her and submitted her. Li got in some stuff, she really didn't need a bunch of your turn, my turn or a bunch of near falls.

2. Marti Belle vs. Rachel Evers

ER: OOF this was some ugly business right here. These two were not only on different pages, they were in different libraries. I think each of them may have been out of position for 80% of the things done in this match. I don't think you can blame nerves, as Belle was still doing solid trash talk throughout, and if someone freezes up in a match they tend to freeze up in every way. These two just did not work together. Evers hit a flush senton. That might have been the only thing that landed correctly. Kicks were completely whiffed, moves were taken as if they had no idea what move was being performed. I mean there were some clumsy landings in this. I had seen Belle several times in TNA and don't remember her looking this bad. I had high hopes for her as I like her look and personality but...man something went majorly wrong here.

PAS: Yeah this was a mess, they probably should have just video packaged this, like when a not great singer advances on the Voice "Also advancing to the second round Rachel Evers." It is always hard to tell when something goes this bad, but it really looked like Rachel didn't know how to bump or apply her own moves, that fisherman's buster thing.. ooof. There was also a terrible Evers pantomime when she got hung up on the ropes, it looked like a 14 year old girl scout miming choking so her friend could demonstrate the Heimlich for a merit badge.

3. Rhea Ripley vs. Miranda Salinas

ER: Ripley seemed fine, but they let the wrong giant woman advance. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking Jazzy should be in round 2 instead. I liked Salinas although I'm not sure I'm buying the 5' billed height. MAYBE in heels. But I liked Salinas' personality, thought she looked awesome baiting Ripley with a hair pull and a slap and then catching her with a snapmare as she charged out. Ripley had a nice corner dropkick and a decent full nelson slam and Salinas landed with a big thud. Perfectly fine stuff here.

PAS: I think Ripley and Jazzy play really different roles, and we could have had both of them advance pretty easily. This was basic stuff, the kind of thing you would see from two black trunks NJ rookies. Ripley had a couple of nice dropkicks and is clearly a good athlete. She will be good in a couple of years, but probably should be off TV until then.

4. Sarah Logan vs. Mia Yim

ER: We saw Sarah Logan at an NXT house show earlier this month and I thought she was the least impressive woman on the show, but that was before I knew she had to wake up early to catch that evening's dinner. But this was pretty easily the best match of episode 2. Logan looked much better here than at the NXT show, mixing up strikes nicely (liked her chop/jab combo and running knee). Yim is a professional, but I don't like how she gets kind of stuck in pre-determined kick combos, and I still don't think there's been anyone who can plausibly pull off the tarantula. But I liked her suplexes, liked Logan's knees, we got a couple good nearfalls, etc. Good match.

PAS: I really liked Logan here, I remember enjoying a Crazy Mary Dobson match or two but she felt at another level here. Her offense felt more violent and sudden then Yim who felt a little mechanical. Loved Logan's head but to the shoulder blades and her finishing off the slap exchange with those nasty thrust kicks to the mouth. Yim v. Bayzler will be fine, but I think we missed out on a special bit of violence by not getting Logan v. Shayna

ER: So, an obvious step back from episode 1, with a match that honestly shouldn't have been allowed to air. I don't think I'm exaggerating with that statement. But Xia Li was a nice surprise and I hope she sticks around, and Ripley/Salinas each showed promise.

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