NXT TakeOver: New Orleans Preview

On 7th April, NXT is set to take over the Smoothie King Center, New Orleans, LO, as part of the WWE's Wrestlemania weekend, however, in a confusing reversal of situations, the pre-Mania TakeOver is more like NXT's SummerSlam than it is their WrestleMania, their WrestleMania, of course, being the annual Brooklyn show, which takes place the day before Summerslam. Anyway, we here at ATPW sure do love our previews, so here's one for this show, think of it like a pre-show but with no Peter Rosenberg so much better. Talking of pre-shows, why not tune in for the KickOff at Midnight (if you're in America, please check your local listings) with an all-star panel including NFL All-Pro Punter Pat McAfee (whatever that means) giving us all the chat and discussion required for an hour before the actual show at 1am (once again, check your listings, US). Till then, why not enjoy this preview with the sounds of our themes for this show courtesy of New Orleans own, Cane Hill...

NXT North American Championship Ladder Match:     EC3 vs Adam Cole Velveteen Dream vs Ricochet vs Lars Sullivan vs Killian Dain

I would imagine there's a strong chance this match opens the show as its a match with little build, little in the way of emotional attachment but with six men and a whole load of ladders set to be in the ring, has the potential to set the stage with some good and crazy action. This match, and indeed, title, have been mostly made to accommodate the expanding ranks of the NXT Men's Single's division making it so that everyone going after one title is getting ridiculous. What about the United Kingdom Championship I hear you ask, surely that title could have been expanded in its focus in order to accommodate such a position? Well, the answer is fuck off, we don't need your kind of logic around here. Also, with UK Champion Pete Dunne in the Tag Title match later, it's not like they could have a non-full time talent working double duty. Still, what works well here is that there is no way to predict which of these six men will be taking the title with a strong mix of indie darlings like the debuting EC3 & Ricochet through to Velveteen Dream & Lars Sullivan, two men who've cut their teeth here in NXT and really made themselves cornerstones of their division. 

What to expect from this one is an interesting thought as beyond Ricochet, we don't really have many flippy boys in this so traditional WWE ladder match booking would suggest he'll do the really cool spot that everyone talks about but not win it, Dain & Sullivan still feel like even after this week's NXT, they still have some unresolved issues so likelihood is, the feuding between those two might distract them from climbing that ladder which leaves Cole who might not even be in the match as he might be helping O'Reilly defend the tag-team titles, Dream who is just wonderful in every way & EC3, a man who by the end of the night, everyone will realise he is what Bobby Roode pretended to be, if they don't know, now they'll know. This is my long-winded way of saying I don't know, spoiler alert though, it's probably going to be at least a little bit good.

NXT Tag Team Championship & Dusty Classic Cup: Undisputed Era (Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly) (c) vs Strong x Bitter & Authors of Pain

You may notice that Adam Cole is in the photo above as well. This is because over the past month/s, NXT has been running the third Dusty Rhodes Tag-Team Classic, an eight-team tournament for the prestigious title, previously won by Finn Balor & Samoa Joe and Authors of Pain, but also a shot at the Tag-Team Championships. On the one side of the finals, we had the previous winners Authors of Pain who smashed through TM-61 and Street Profits to get here and on the other side, Pete Dunne and Roderick Strong, a make-shift team formed after Moustache Mountain (Tyler Bate & Trent Seven) were forced to bow out when Tyler aggravated an angle injury while at Brighton's Riptide Wrestling, who fought past Danny Burch & Oney Lorcan and SAnitY to make it here. With poor Bobby Fish out on injury, Kyle O'Reilly and Cole decided to crash the final and cause a double disqualification, no winners, no challengers, smart eh? so O'Reilly was given three choices: wrestle alone, Cole does double-duty or Cole drops out of the Ladder Match.

Unsurprisingly, it seems he's chosen to work double duty, so one of the major factors of this match in play is card order as Cole or Cole & O'Reilly are at a significant disadvantage depending on which match goes on last of the two, though if this is the first of the two, it puts all three teams on a roughly equal-footing as Undisputed Era have beaten Authors of Pain before (twice if you count War Games), Authors of Pain have won tag gold, dusty cups and tag three-way dances before and the team we here like to call Strong x Bitter have tag-team success written through their DNA with former PROGRESS, Ring of Honor & PWG reigns between them, a UK title still in their team's grasp and the knowledge that the first Dusty Classic was won by a makeshift team like them. If it's not clear, as a Midlands boy myself, I'm calling a win for Strong x Bitter and rooting for them but mostly, I'm just looking forward to watching some good, solid tag action. Expect lots of big strikes, big moves and at one point, if we're lucky, Pete Dunne will punch Adam Cole out of the air. Won't that be a treat?

NXT Women's Championship: Ember Moon (c) vs Shayna Baszler

If you're getting a sense of deja vu, yes, we did only recently see this match at the last TakeOver and also once more in between, as well as frequent attacks on each other. The dispute between these revolves around Baszler thinking Moon isn't fit to lead as she couldn't defeat Asuka, she couldn't hit the Eclipse on Baszler who kept her grounded having to use a roll-up to get victory and when Baszler was given another match, she won but via disqualification after an angry Kairi Sane returned and attacked her, only for Baszler to make reasonably easy work of Sane. Much like last time, expect this match to come down to a David-Goliath type match-up with Moon once again seeking that Eclipse top-rope stunner while Baszler will want to lock in and preferably never let go of the Kirifuda Clutch. As to whom shall walk out of that arena with the title, it's hard to call, it feels like Ember is only ever one Eclipse away from retaining but especially with her friend Ronda Rousey making her pro-wres debut the next night, it seems like maybe Baszler is being set up to take the title and run with it for a while, especially as there's still some unsolved animosity between Baszler, Sane and Dakota Kai to sort out if Moon were to make the move Main Roster-wards...

Unsanctioned Match: Johnny Gargano vs Tommaso Ciampa

This has been a long time coming, almost a year in fact. Let me take you back to Chicago as after they'd just lost their last shot at the NXT Tag Team Titles, Ciampa would turn viciously on Gargano, knowing that he was going to be out for a while on injury time, he wanted to make a statement before he did, one that for a long time, broke Gargano, forcing him to try and exorcise the monkey on his back that is Ciampa because that's what you do to monkey. Eventually Gargano started winning again, earning a shot at the NXT title but even then, wasn't quite enough and just as he was at his lowest, having lost his shot, there was Ciampa again because exorcising doesn't work on back monkeys, especially when they get involved in your Title vs Career rematch and force you to lose your job. It's at this point, the waters get muddied as Ciampa spent a few weeks struggling to get a word in edgeways as he simultaneously continued to be the best heel in NXT and also it's greatest hero for standing up to the awful sturmundrang of the NXT audience till he got tired of their caterwauling and Gargano's hounding of him and agreed to a match, unsanctioned of course because let's not forget, Gargano is fired but if he wins, he gets his job back, loses, he's gone forever.

There's almost too much history behind this match to cover but regardless, this is going to be one of the most emotional matches of the weekend, just as much, maybe more important to the wrestling scene as a whole than Kenny Omega vs Cody as every single second has the entire heart of NXT hanging in the balance, this is for something more important than the actual title, this is a match for the philosophical centre of the developmental brand, is this a place of good or evil? Also, most importantly, can this top Gargano v Almas because that shit was tight? As it's unsanctioned, expect this one to be more of a brawl than a technical classic. Ultimately, this seems like it's Gargano's match to win as he needs his job and assuming they get enough time for this, it's unlikely Ciampa looks any weaker in loss, especially coming back from a lengthy spell on the injured list but never count out the Sicilian psychopath as he might well pull it out of the bag, setting up his own chance at going after that big slice of NXT gold (and who amongst us doesn't see money in Black v Ciampa?) while Gargano, surely the bright post-mania lights of RAW or Smackdown could be a' callin'.

NXT Championship: Andrade Almas (c) vs Aleister Black

Cast your mind back to NXT TakeOver: Orlando last year, Tommy End, now going by the name Aleister Black made his official NXT debut (having competed against Neville at the United Kingdom Championship tournament) against Andrade 'Cien' Almas. It was a well-fought match but in the end, Black came out on top with reasonable ease. That was, however, a different Almas, that was Almas before he met Zelina Vega, that was Almas before his five-star classic with Johnny Gargano, that was the Almas that I usually dismissed by just calling him a 'lad'. He was floundering, now he's at the very top of the NXT pyramid of greatness and the man who calls himself 'The Idol' and '100' is a far more motivated and more dangerous man than he was this time last year, for proof of that, see how he dragged Black from car park to the ring, destroying and nearly drowning him along the way. Though in the other corner, somewhere between good and evil, sits Aleister Black, a man with only two losses to this particular name in NXT and one of those he wasn't even in or around the ring for, he's someone who's been on a tear and seemed like he's been destined for the NXT title since he stepped into Full Sail but no one should expect Almas and definitely not Vega to go down without one heck of a fight.

Pardon the innuendo but expect this one to go long and stiff as even with their differing backgrounds, both men are known as much for their technical expertise as the swift, hard-hitting nature of their strikes. They are both also known to bust out a moonsault or two every so often so that'll be fun. As much as Gargano-Ciampa is the biggest story going into the show, I'd still expect this one to go on last as it's the main title, it really should and I don't see any world in which if Gargano and Ciampa haven't tore the entire house down, that these two don't tear down the rest. As to who's walking out with that lovely golden belt, as much as I'd love to see Almas hold on to it forever, I think that Black is walking out with his first WWE prize slung over his shoulder and you know what, if the crowd chant 'you deserve it' at him, yeah, he bloody well does.

Any Other Predictions...

So with Pete Dunne in the Tag match, it's unlikely there'll be a separate UK Championship match, as a result, I'm going to assume the card is just these five matches and I'm fine with that as I can't see any of them not being at least good. This being a TakeOver, this is really the bit where I mostly speculate about what 'hottest free agent' will be in the crowd, this time around, I will keep saying that it could be Christopher (Donovan) Dijak but really it could be anyone. I mean, as part of the deal with PROGRESS and EVOLVE, Keith Lee, WALTER, Zack Gibson and others will be participating in Axxess so who knows? If it turns out to be Jason Kincaid, I don't really know anything about him so you'll have to come up with your own thoughts. Of course, the big question we all have is will Triple H appear and do a big crowd warm-up 'we are NXT' speech? I hope so, who doesn't pop for those every, damn, time?

Article By Jozef Raczka (@NotJoeRaczka)

WWE NXT Review // 21st March 2018

On 21st March 2018, WWE aired its 292nd episode of NXT, filmed at Center Stage, Atlanta, GA on 7th March. Our main event saw a pair of PWG Champions face off in the form of Adam Cole and Kassius Ohno. The undercard featured Raul Mendoza taking on NXT Champion Andrade Almas, Ember Moon against Aliyah and Dusty Classic First Round action in the form of Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch taking on Roderick Strong and a mystery opponent. But was it any good?

Ciampa Still Has Something to Say

Ciampa did his routine that he's done the last two weeks but this time actually said something as he told the crowd that Johnny Gargano was gone and he was never coming back and that all the people in the crowd with their signs should get used to it. He went around the crowd tearing up signs and squaring up to Nans till he went to tear up a sign near a man in a snazzy black and gold Lucha mask who turned out to be Johnny Gargano! Gargano leaping barricade would wail on Ciampa till security were able to separate them. This was well thought-out as clearly Gargano wasn't looking to wrestle, he just wanted to Ciampa in his stupid, bald face (definitely no bias here). If this isn't building to an Unsanctioned Match at TakeOver: New Orleans, I'll be damn surprised.

Charly Caruso gives us a recap of the Dusty Classic First Round thus far and 'exclusive' footage of Tyler Bate talking about his injuries forcing Moustache Mountain to drop out of the tournament. Roderick Strong does a mobile phone camera promo requesting a shot in the Classic in their place and thank goodness the production team don't add any word graphics to this.

Adam Cole & Kassius Ohno have a Twitter spat. The Undisputed Era, they talk about Roderick Strong being a loser, how no-one likes him and how whoever wins the Dusty Classic is heading for a loss, as is Ohno later.

Dusty Rhodes Classic First Round // Dunne & Strong def. Lorcan & Burch // Pinfall

So we get the debut of the team that Across the Pond Wrestling would like you to know as either Roderick Strong Style or Strong x Bitter, as I like my tag-teams like I like my coffee, I'm going for the latter (if anyone can organise Omari & Joe Coffey aka Black Coffey to face Strong x Bitter at Fight Club: PRO, please do). This wasn't quite the masterpiece I'd expected from these four who are capable of delivering some of the best performances in modern wrestling but for the time they were given they made the most of it with team Strong x Bitter working a technical masterclass and team Lorcan x Burch going for striking really, really hard and really, really often. It started strong and finished well but seemed to lose an amount of excitement in the middle section as Strong x Bitter worked on top, leading into the Lorcan hot tag but the crowd didn't seem willing to split their sympathies away from the de-facto heel team. The finish came as Strong got the pin off an End of Heartache on Burch. These two against Eric Young and Alexander Wolfe should be a lot of good, a lot of good indeed.

We get a video package for Trevor 'Ricochet' Mann who is coming to NXT TV soon.

Ember Moon def. Aliyah // Pinfall

Quick squash m8. Shayna Baszler came out and did guest commentary duties for this one and as often is the case with the WWE guest comms. style, there was no actual play-by-play, it was just an interview with Baszler while Moon and Aliyah grunted in the background. Moon won with the Eclipse if you cared.

Next Week: The Dusty Classic Semi-Finals come to town as Authors of Pain face Street Profits & SaNitY face Strong x Bitter.

Andrade Almas Vs. Raul Mendoza // Never Happens

As Mendoza was making his entrance, Almas jumped him and threw him off the stage before delivering an intense promo, calling Aleister Black a 'piece of shit' and telling the man in Black to face him in the ring. He doesn't, probably because he wasn't just hanging round backstage on a day he wasn't booked. While normally I prefer letting Zelina Vega do promo duties over her charge, Almas, he did a good job here of selling his seething rage. Keep going like this, he might not need Vega soon. Who am I kidding? Everyone needs Vega.

William Regal announces that next week he'll be making an announcement. Hopefully it will be announcing a best of seven series of him making announcements.

Adam Cole def. Kassius Ohno // Pinfall

There was one very annoyingly loud Adam Cole fan near one of the crowd mics, I will never not give credit to whoever created Ohno's current black and gold look outfit with 'boxing hoodie/wizard robe', I will continue to give no credit to this crowd who were about '60-40' split in support Cole-Ohno. Boo. The Heels. I'm getting bored of saying this because I think it's part-crowd response, part-Cole's performance style but whenever anyone calls Cole over as a heel, he is over, yes, but he never gets boos, this was basically face vs face. If you ignore that theoretically Cole was meant to be the villain here, this was very good in-ring action as two of the American Indies best quite simply beat the piss out of each other with a refreshing lack of interference by Fish and O'Reilly forcing Cole to step his game up to make his clean victory seem more convincing. While the intensity had a good build, for me, the match peaked in the first few minutes when during a running-the-ropes, leapfrog segment, Ohno booted Cole out of the air. It was nice seeing competition for competition's sake, beyond a few tweets, these two men were both just fighting to prove that the victor was worthy of more opportunities. The finish came as Adam Cole hit a Shining Wizard to the back of the neck for the pinfall. We all know that when it comes to violence, Cole has earned his stripes, now NXT needs to just work out if they can make people boo him or if it's worth making him the hero Atlanta clearly wants him to be. 

On The YouTubes

Johnny Gargano shmoozes with the fans outside but security stop him getting back into the building, he points out that they are selling his merch but not letting him inside and announces he's staying out there till Ciampa comes to him. See you next week, Johnny.

When the video says Kassius Ohno is speechless about his defeat, they aren't kidding.

Finally...

This was one of those weeks where a lot of what happened seems like it was more to push the story into the next act than it was to present a compelling section of the story in itself. Cole vs Ohno was definitely the match highlight of the show but it can't be argued that the biggest response of the show was the surprise return of Johnny Gargano. While they weren't here, I can't help but feel big things are on the horizon for the yellow brand. I'll see you when we get there.

Written By Jozef Raczka // @NotJoeRaczka

WWE NXT Review // 7th March 2018

On 7th March 2018, WWE aired its 290th episode of NXT, filmed at Center Stage, Atlanta, GA on 2nd February. Our main event was a Number One Contender's ICW FIght Club rematch as Aleister Black took on Killian Dain for a shot at Andrade Almas' NXT Championship with New Orleans. The show also featured first round Dusty Classic action as the Authors of Pain took on the men they defeated in the final of the last Duty Classic, TM61, as well as appearances by Bianca BelAir and Tommaso Ciampa. But was it any good?

Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic First Round // Akam & Rezar vs. Nick Miller & Shane Thorne

After the mild disappointment that was their Dusty Classic final, I wasn't expecting much here but slightly surprisingly, this delivered the goods, hitting a hot opener that wasted no time and got the crowd really going by the end. Working off a reasonably classic tag formula (if you haven't worked out by now, if I'm being nice I call it classic, if I'm being mean, I call it standard), the four men worked hard, throwing in some classic hits from their repertoire while throwing in some new touches like a devastating out of the ring on to the apron powerbomb onto Nick Miller. With a lot of people expecting the redemption story of the newly returned TM61 to continue here, the finish worked well, playing off this as Thorne nailed a big slam setting up Miller for a top rope moonsault but Rezar was straight in to break up the pin, sending Thorne out of the ring and hitting The Last Chapter legsweep-lariat combo for the win. The match was very well thought out and packed a lot into its nine minutes but it did seem like maybe it needed just a few more minutes of good action to really make it stand out. 

William Regal is backstage being interviewed about if he has a particular favourite going into the Dusty Classic, obviously he says no because that would make the entire tournament pointless, he could just make his favourite number one contender. Pete Dunne turns up and says that the UK title isn't leaving the UK, Roderick Strong turns up and says he beat him but he'd love a rematch sometime, The Undisputed Era turn up and taunt Strong for losing in big matches, Dunne reminds Cole he shits the bed in big matches too. Regal breaks it up before the kids start scrapping. 

Bianca BelAir hangs out backstage before her match.

SaNItY talk about how they're going to win the Dusty Classic and Dain is going to beat Aleister Black but they do it in a crazy way like. Nikki Cross steals the segment by just maniacally laughing at everything.

Bianca BelAir vs. Drew Renee

Quick squash m8. If Renee got any offense in, I missed it. BelAir won in less than a minute with the AlleyOop Powerbomb. I'm expecting big things this year from the 'EST' in NXT.

Christy St. Cloud is talking to Lacey Evans about her match with Dakota Kai and talks about her lack of class and her arm that was broken by Baszler, till Baszler turns up and Lacey Evans bails. Baszler demands Moon respond to her challenge.

Heavy Machinery talk about beef.

Tommaso Ciampa segment

Ciampa entering to a chorus of boos and a crowd of Johnny Wrestling signs, would pull from the Zack Gibson playbook, refusing to talk until the crowd stopped, only making them louder every single time. He repeatedly walked away from the microphone, refusing to give them the satisfaction. Sadly for Ciampa, this made them even louder still. As he walked around the arena, he grabbed fan's Johnny Wrestling sign, tore it in half and beat it down with his crutch before leaving, making it quite clear he didn't need the crutch anymore. Somehow, without uttering even a single word, Ciampa just delivered the best promo of the year thus far.

Next Week: UK Championship action as Pete Dunne takes on Adam Cole and two more Dusty Classic first round matches in the form of SaNitY vs. Sabbatelli & Moss and Street Profits vs. Heavy Machinery.

Aleister Black vs. Killian Dain

This was never formally announced as a number one contender's match but with both men having made their intentions clear in previous weeks, we may as well treat it as such, though this is not the two fighter's first encounter having competed before in ICW and SWA with Dain coming out on top in both encounters. Things started off hot with Dain getting a near fall off a John Woo before things would go mostly back-and-forth with Black utilising his superior striking ability while the man the crowd once chanted 'fuzzy wuzzy' for, used his obvious size and strength advantage, keeping Black grounded with submissions work and standing splashes. While this wasn't quite the wild, violent spectacle we were promised, it was still a very good, little match, playing off the classic David vs Goliath dynamics but never making Black look beneath Dain with some of the near falls including a buckle bomb-vader bomb combo looking incredibly close. The match came to a close as Dain had Black up for the Ulster Plantation electric chair driver but Black managed to slide out and nail the Black Mass spinning roundhouse kick for the pin. I'm still unsure that Dain is really the breakout star of SaNitY and the one they should be pushing so hard as a solo star but if they are intent on doing so, I will say that this here is easily his best singles encounter in NXT and another good notch on the winpost for Black. Lovely stuff but still, never felt like it was quite the war that the last few weeks promised us.

On The YouTubes

Authors of Pain and Paul Ellering are backstage with Christy St. Cloud, Ellering puts over the rest of the tournament, stating it is stacked from top to bottom but that they will still come out on top. He also tells The Undisputed Era that they've seen the tag champ's best but they haven't seen theirs. So Ellering's also seen ReDragon vs Young Bucks, it has a 9.02 on Cagematch.

So it was a Number One Contender's match. The contract signings next week by the way. With four announced matches and a contract signing, expect at least one DQ finish.

Finally...

This was probably the most consistent episode of NXT this year, even if there wasn't a standout match like Gargano-Almas IV, everything delivered and mre importantly, it all set up for more good things. This week was really good, next week looks like it could be even better. What more could you ask for? 

Written By Jozef Raczka // @NotJoeRaczka

WWE NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia Review // 27th January 2018 // Andrade Almas vs. Johnny Gargano

On 27th January 2018, NXT took over Philadelphia and more specifically, the Wells Fargo Center (it still feels wrong to not type 'centre', darn Yanks). It was a packed show with all three NXT titles defended aswell as grudge matches between Kassius Ohno & Velveteen Dream and Adam Cole & Aleister Black. The evening itself began with some high-class pre-show action as former NXT champion Samoa Joe, former NXT Tag-Team Champion Corey Graves, along with Renee Young, Charly Caruso and Sam Roberts, really got into the meat of the issues. As Graves & Young presented the NXT 2017 awards, we also got some fun interview action as Velveteen Dream promised to knock out Ohno in less than thirty seconds and Pete Dunne called out Brock Lesnar, RIP Beast Incarnate. Anyway, onto the main show and as always, we ask, was it any good?

NXT Tag Team Championship // Kyle O'Reilly & Bobby Fish (c) def. Rezar & Akam // Pinfall

This was a good, hot opening match as AoP, sadly not in their turtles gear, came straight in and cleaned house, it's odd seeing the men who were once not so much boo'ed but meh'ed out of the building be given the hero's welcome but I guess that's a lot down to Fish and O'Reilly having got their heel act to be so impressively irritating. The early sections of the match were interestingly thought out as the champs were consistently overpowered by the former champs and so kept bailing to the outside to recuperate. It was nice getting to see another side the Authors' arsenal as Akam & Rezar as with their amateur wrestling/MMA background, they were able to work in some almost shoot-style sequences with ease, combined with a sense of spectacle with moments like the Authors steamrolling the Era around the ring after they bailed from the ring one too many times.

Now if you hadn't seen in coming, this match was brought to you by the letter 'L' for 'Legwork' as after Akam and O'Reilly were brawling on the apron, Fish hit a sneak attack, kicking Akam's leg out of his leg before Fish would rush Rezar on the apron and tackle him out. From here on, the two worked a clinic in classic heel tag tactics as they cut off the ring and worked over Akam, keeping the focus on inflicting as much pain as possible on the leg, full props to the big man as well who gave his best individual performance, selling it superbly. Of course, this being a tag match, eventually, Rezar would get tagged in after Akam was powering closer to his corner, Fish would turn around to knock Rezar off the apron but forgot, the Authors are big lads and he shrugged it off before Akam backdropped him away to get the tag. 

Rezar worked your standard big lad hot tag throwing strikes, power moves and the fallaway slam-Samoan drop double on the champs, the last few minutes of the match were impressively content heavy with highlights including Fish hitting an assisted exploder suplex, the Authors escaping a kneebar/sleeper hold by dropping Fish onto O'Reilly and a hot finish as the Supercollider double bomb connects on Fish but O'Reilly manages to rana Akam into Rezar before rolling up the injured Akam for a pin. This was easily the best tag-team action on NXT since AoP fought DIY in Chicago and as much as it was another reminder of how far they've come since, this acted as a superb coronation of the Undisputed Era's tag division as we saw them get their victory without any involvement from Adam Cole which helped establish their own odd chemistry. I think if they could have thrown in a few more near falls, something to present a stronger sense of jeopardy for the champions, this could have gone truly into the stratosphere but as it was, a very enjoyable match and a great way to start.

War Machine (Hanson - the one with hair everywhere & Raymond Rowe - the one with hair just on his chin) are in the audience.

Zelina Vega and Andrade Almas discuss game plan backstage. My bet, it involves winning.

Velveteen Dream def. Kassius Ohno // Pinfall

This match is a, sigh, dream for fashion watch fans as Dream came out in Philidelphia, setting of Rocky, in boxing shorts, like Rocky and he's got an entourage, like Rocky except Rocky never hung out with anyone this cool. The frilled short don't make quite as much of an effect as the Black-Dream tights but they're still great. Ohno, no slouch in the outfit department has black and gold wizard's fight robes. After Dream declared he could knock out the Knockout Artist in thirty seconds, the crowd were very invested in chanting along to see if he could, playing the part of the boxer, Dream ducked and weaved hitting a strike at around 28 seconds seemingly having done it but Ohno was soon back up and elbowed the mouthguard straight out of Dream. From here, it became a neat, little encounter as the two worked back-and-forth neatly, keeping a classic youth vs experience dynamic. It never quite escaped the constraints of this but it made as much of it as it could with Ohno making Dream look even better than normal. The finish came as Ohno went for a rolling elbow but Dream caught him in a rolling death valley driver to set up for the Purple Rainmaker diving elbow drop for the pin. After consecutive losses to Black and Gargano, Dream needed a win here to legitimise himself where Ohno is clearly here to help raise the next generation of stars and frankly, having someone as good as him in the player-coach role is a great plan. This fell short of the Dream-Black match purely because there wasn't the same level of context for the encounter but certainly for what they were given, another superb notch on Dream's ringpost.

Maria Menounos is in the audience. This means nothing to me, maybe it will to you.

Johnny Gargano is backstage with his entire family, including Candice LeRae, hmmm.

NXT Women's Championship // Ember Moon (c) def. Shayna Baszler // Pinfall

Baszler gets the walk from the locker room treatment, somehow since debutting, she's already been made to feel like Goldberg. Much like her MYC matches, Baszler played the bullying heel, targetting a weakness in Moon, in this case, her arm, and exploiting it. Moon, managed to work well from underneath coming back with some beautiful strikes with an early highlight being a triple dropkick sending Baszler out of the ring before following her out with a suicide dive. The match suffered down its home stretch when Moon managed to hit the Eclipse twisting top-rope stunner but off her bad arm. Unable to cover, the medical team checked on her to a chorus of 'boo's and 'bullshit's as Baszler says 'fuck off' to the medical team, applying and re-applying an armbar further into the centre of the ring until Moon, unable to escape, instead manages to force herself on top and leverage a pinfall to retain her title. This was a different approach to the traditional David vs. Goliath approach and one that has its faults as somehow, it felt too slight and too underplayed to be where the title changed hands. Somehow despite Baszler working almost entirely on top and being treated as a threat, it never felt like Moon wasn't going to be able to come back from this. While the finish did a lot to protect both women, I'd expect down the line we'll be seeing another title shot for Baszler, possibly one with some kind of submissions-based stipulation but for now, this was still rather good.

Moon is helped to the back but Baszler decides to go and fuck her up some more, locking in the Kirufuda Clutch (sorry for misspelling it repeatedly, Shayna) on the ramp, she breaks it but then decides to lock it in again because lol.

Trevor "Ricochet" Mann is in the crowd. Expect flips, probably.

Extreme Rules Match // Aleister Black def. Adam Cole // Pinfall

First off, it has to be said that bear in mind when you disagree with me in a second, such is the nature of reviews that I never pretend that this is anything more than my opinion and such is the nature of wrestling in its many styles, that there will always be some that don't appeal to everyone. Where I can appreciate the work that has gone into this match, I. as an individual, am just not that keen on Extreme Rules-type encounters. That said, for one such encounter, there was a lot to enjoy here. It started off strong as Cole tried to resort to weaponising the items under the ring but Black kept it comfortably in his wheelhouse, throwing kicks and strikes of the kind Wikipedia would probably describe as multiple variations. Cole got some impressive variation out of a kendo stick as he first hits Black out of the air mid-lionsault before applying a crossface with the kendo stick in the mouth and then when that didn't work, turning it into a backstabber. The weaker section of the match came when the crowd began chanting 'we want tables', so get tables he does because that's what the heel does. 

Once they get through the standard middle section of back-and-forth with tables being set-up, ladders, chairs, bins and more coming into play (including a painful looking death valley driver by Black onto the backrest of two chairs), it really managed to come down into its home stretch as before Black can get a cover, the O'Reilly and Fish arrive and pull him out of the ring before hitting the high-and-low Total Elimination, clearing the announce table, they set up Black for a suplex through it but in come SaNitY to even the score as Young and Wolfe wrangle away Fish and O'Reilly before Dain, who was keeping an eye on Cole in the ring, hit a big boy suicide dive onto the four of them. Black, rolling back in, does so straight into a superkick but, in an echo of the finish to WarGames, Cole goes for a chair, giving Black the opening to hit Black Mass for the pin. I did like the story of Black being out of his element with the stipulation so continuing to use his most lethal weapon, his kicks where Cole really does throw himself head, back and neck first into some incredible bumps but as much as I can recognise the effect of the stipulation, it didn't add that much to the encounter that a straightforward singles encounter might. Still, you have to give it to Black and Cole for giving this one their all. Having won this one decisively, I'm still thinking Black is on his way to an NXT Championship match come New Orleans.

EC3 is in the crowd, Derrick Bateman returns to NXT!

NXT Championship // Andrade Almas (c) def. Johnny Gargano // Pinfall

There is so much to cover here and all of it's incredible. Instead of trying to tell you about the in-ring action, let's all just take a moment to consider how important it is that these two have been given this kind of opportunity. While both Almas, back in his La Sombra days that he paid tribute to by pulling out the mask once again for a mariachi-ed entrance that felt straight out of Guacamelee, and Gargano, of course, had strong reputations on the indies, they didn't exactly come in with the same fanfare as a Shinsuke Nakamura or Finn Balor and for the longest time, it seemed like midcard was going to be the peak for the two of them, even when Almas had his title shot, one that no-one really saw him winning, he worked second-fiddle to the War Games match. In fact, for a while there, it probably seemed like Almas was one loss away from taking his toys and going home to CMLL. Then they paired him with Zelina Vega, then they gave him motivation, then he came out and became the second-most consistent performer in NXT, possibly in WWE, behind the other man in this match the man who's so good at professional wrestling, they made it his nicksurname, Johnny 'Wrestling' Gargano. Two people who for the longest time were given a ceiling, had that ceiling taken away, they were given the best part of the last hour just for build-up, entrances, their match and the aftermath and well, quite simply, they delivered big time.

One interesting early touch here was that after the initial grappling phase, Gargano maintained his upperhand against Almas using a sequence of lucha-inspired offense with ranas, arm-drags and just a hint of flips. Like any good third chapter in a trilogy, it worked some of its strongest moments when playing off earlier encounters with moments like Johnny going to the corner to leapfrog backwards over Almas but Almas instead not following him and chopping him square in the back. The match in fact, actually kept its storytelling quite simple and focussed for such a long encounter with the two men trying to throw whatever they could at the other man in order to put them away but such is the history between them that neither man was willing to give the other even an inch yet even with this, they made every near fall count, playing off the build-up with Gargano having taken out Almas with a slingshot DDT on the previous Wednesday so when he hit one roughly halfway through, you could believe it was the finish. Yet there was so much more to go. Johnny went for an apron cannonball but missed and landed like there was no water in the pool, Almas going for a moonsault, Johnny dodging so Almas turning it into a standing moonsault, Drake Wuertz responding to this by doing his best Red Shoes impression and leaping both into shot and into the count, hitting signature offense on the hardest part of the ringmat like Johnny's slingshot DDT to the apron and  am unashamed to admit that my heart skipped a beat when Johnnny got a near fall off a SUPERKICK with the theatrics before of the Meet In The Middle finish that DIY use to do. It seems like I've been prioritising Johnny in the highlights section but in terms of apron offense, did I remind you about the bit where Almas mashes Johnny's head into the LED boar or where he hit a corner knees off the apron and it sounded like something cracked, or just the sheer heft that man throws behind a strike, there are not many people in wrestling who actually make a punch work, Almas is one of them.

Of course with Zelina Vega, in an Essa Rios- Era Lita-inspired red outfit, in his corner,  Almas was never going to do this one without any shenanigans and what glorious shenanigans they were with Johnny having locked in the GargaNo Escape but with his feet facing the ropes, Vega placed Almas' foot on the ropes but Gargano powers Almas outside and follows with a beaut of a suicide dive but a referee distraction would lead to Vega throwing Gargano rana-first into the steps with echoes of the finish to McIntyre vs. Almas and a Hammerlock DDT for the closest possible near-fall you might see. But Johnny had some in his corners too as Candice LeRae leapt the barricade and battered Vega all the way to the back. It's gratifying that even though Johnny didn't win that the Vega-LeRae interference didn't actually play directly into the finish as there was still another GargaNo Escape attempt but Almas actually got the win off ramming Gargano into a previously exposed ringpost before hitting one last Hammerlock DDT. It shows so much character progression that even now we has Vega, Almas doesn't rest on his laurels, he still cheats to win but it's his cheating and as much as the layout is perfectly developed such that you want Gargano to win, you can't help but argue that Almas earnt it. I've said enough about this match but really, this is as close to perfect as you're going to see, I could continue to talk about it or you could just go and watch it. Even if you've seen it already, it's not a bad plan.

Post-Match LeRae checks on Gargano as Almas leaves, LeRae helps Gargano up the ramp but look who's here like a dark cloud on an already dark day, Tomasso Ciampa, strikes down his former tag partner with a crutch. 

Finally...

On a pure, in-ring basis, this is as good as Chicago, my favourite TakeOver so far with probably the best NXT Championship match, not since, just the best. It obviously invites comparisons to Neville vs. Zayn and where this didn't have the feelgood ending of the match, the layout was so well told and thought out, you could almost believe that McIntyre's injury was planned to lead into this. As for the rest of the show, it wasn't perfect but nothing was less than very good. As strong a start to the year as you could hope for. Everything else, follow that.

Article By Jozef Raczka (@NotJoeRaczka)