SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
BRONSON REED & MSK vs. LEGADO DEL FANTASMA – WINNERS TAKE ALL: NXT TAG & NORTH AMERICAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
A predictable opener, but an energetic way to kick off Takeover: In Your House. Bronson Reed and MSK gelled extremely well together, from the triple-team offense down to their matching black and green attire. The six men have great chemistry overall with everybody getting a chance to shine at one point in the match. While this match was a bit too fast paced and “main rostery” for my personal tastes with spots like the Bronson Reed doing a suicide dive after both Wes Lee and Nash Carter did them, I was still invested in the match throughout. Reed & MSK retaining was the outcome I expected but there were times where I was questioning that prediction.
Verdict: HIT
XIA LI vs. MERCEDES MARTINEZ
I think Xia Li and Tien Sha can be a little polarizing. It seems like you either love the gimmick or hate it. I’ve loved it since the story began and feel like this match was Xia Li’s time to shine and show off the skills she’s learned through her “training” this year. Before the match, they showed clips of their first match together at the 2017 Mae Young Classic with Martinez making quick work of Li back then. Tonight, Xia Li was a completely different competitor during the MYC. I don’t think that anyone with the exception of Raquel Gonzalez have been able to get this much offense on Martinez during a match. Xia Li needed to win this match, which was the right call. I was worried about Martinez being defined down after losing her last two big matches, however she got her heat back afterwards by using a chair to take out both Boa and Xia Li. We finally saw Mae Ying stand up from her chair on stage and confront Martinez after witnessing Martinez beat down her two students. Ying choked Martinez who tried to escape by hitting her with a chair, but was ultimately thrown off of the stage. This isn’t the last of Martinez vs. Tien Sha, Mercedes Martinez’s character isn’t one to take something like this lightly.
Verdict: HIT
CAMERON GRIMES vs. LA KNIGHT – MILLION DOLLAR CHAMPIONSHIP LADDER MATCH
The Million Dollar Man, Ted DiBiase entered the arena with two security guards, one of whom was holding the Million Dollar Championship. LA Knight and Cameron Grimes made their entrances next and the title was hoisted high into the air. The MDC is more of a Rolex than it is a championship, an accessory to show off instead of a true champion, so I appreciated the presentation to make the match feel a bit bigger than it actually is. That said, this feud has been the thing that I’ve been looking forward to each week. The story itself can be more important than any title. I really dug this match. It was a slower match than the previous two and had a bit more of an old school feel to it because of it. But with Cameron Grimes southern wrestling roots and the former LA Knight’s time in NWA, it didn’t surprise me much that they worked a slower pace. Completely welcomed from me, that’s the pace I prefer in most matches – story dependent, of course. It felt like a nice blend of modern and old school wrestling. I’m glad to see Knight win this, because I think watching Grimes try to chase it is going to be incredibly entertaining.
Verdict: HIT
RAQUEL GONZALEZ vs. EMBER MOON – NXT WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP
As much as I love Ember Moon and want to see her win a second NXT Women’s title, I didn’t think for a moment that she’d be victorious here tonight. Gonzalez has been way too dominant as a champion and is too early into her reign for the title to change hands. While the match wasn’t a bad match at all, I found myself really having trouble getting into it. I think partly due to my apathetic view of the Moon/Shotzi tag team carrying over to Ember’s singles match and partly because I didn’t think she had a chance whatsoever to win. I want to go back and watch this match again to give it a fair review, but after my first watch through I wasn’t really sold on it.
I’d like to see Raquel and Dakota Kai begin drifting from one another. Gonzalez should be winning matches on her own without interference from her little friend. In my eyes, it makes her look weak, the exact opposite of what they are going for with her. Let her be dominant and run over her opponents on her own.
Verdict: MISS
KARRION KROSS vs. KYLE O’REILLY vs. PETE DUNNE vs. JOHNNY GARGANO vs. ADAM COLE – NXT CHAMPIONSHIP
This is exactly why I don’t like multi-person matches, especially odd number multi-person matches. Two people are fighting, three people are “sleeping”. It felt like a series of one on one matches rather than one match with five competitors. That was the theme throughout the entire matchup. The build to the match really didn’t feel important nor did it invoke any real die hard wrestling excitement in me. You remember some matches for the rest of your life, others you’ll forget shortly after they ended. Frankly, I’m a paragraph deep into this match analysis and I need to keep scrolling up to re-read the names of the five competitors in the match. I have to give NXT credit for at least giving each man a story. But unfortunately even the two most pushed men, Cole and Kross, had storylines that were mediocre at best.
Last week, Triple H said on the pre-TakeOver media call, and I’m paraphrasing, that “wrestling fans ruin wrestling for themselves”. We apparently do this by constantly trying to figure out where storylines are headed, figure out where the backstage politics come into play, and take a peek behind that ‘kayfabe’ curtain. However, there are a lot of wrestling fans out there who find that just as enjoyable as watching the product, sometimes even more so when the product isn’t the best that it can be. Sure, NXT is one of the best wrestling shows out there as far as I’m concerned. But NXT used to have a much slower paced feel to it where stories would take months to develop. This would give us a lot of time to get invested in the product and the wrestlers as a whole, both character and actual person. As wrestling fans who enjoy peeking behind that curtain, we get more attached to the product the more that we can connect with the performers in and outside the ring. With all of the hot-shotting, quick builds before major matches and doing things that take us out of the moment (the three consecutive suicide dives in the opening match, for example) it’s hard for a lot of us to connect with the NXT product like we once did. Personally, I still enjoy the show. However I know some die-hard NXT junkies who have tuned out on Tuesday nights.
Wow, sorry, that rant went longer than I expected… back to the match.
Coming into the night, I only saw two real outcomes. Either Adam Cole gets an upset win to win the NXT title once again or Karrion Kross would retain. Pete Dunne, while an amazing performer, just doesn’t scream “Champ” just yet. Johnny Gargano has a lot of other things going on right now with The Way and I felt like the NXT Title could just muddy the waters of their already intricate story lines. I did give KOR a very small chance to get an upset win, but an extremely small chance. His journey to his post-Undisputed Era self is far from over and if he does win the NXT title in his time on the brand, his journey should climax with an NXT title win. That time isn’t now.
I wouldn’t say that it was a bad match. Overall, it was probably one of the more compelling multi-person matches that I’ve watched in some time. But the WWE’s pacing of multi-man matches is so unrealistic that it really takes me out of the action. Of course, I know this is wrestling and we need to suspend our disbelief. But it’s hard to do that when a move that would barely phase a wrestler during a 1 on 1 contest will knock them out for minutes on end if it’s a multi-person match.
Verdict: MISS
I couldn’t agree with you more about the multi person matches and how all logic gets thrown out to allow for one in one action. It’s really gotten to the point if ridiculous, especially that idea that were supposed to somehow just buy in because it’s a necessary evil for those type matches.