I think I liked the show video intro shown with the crowd while the Corey Taylor song played, but maybe live music with it might be better?
1. NXT Tag Team Title: Street Profits [c] vs. The Undisputed Era (Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish)
You can’t beat good tag wrestling. We know O’Reilly and Fish can get it done, but any time Street Profits get a showcase it keeps getting more impressive. Montez Ford is doing babyface offense based around armdrags and leapfrogs and dropkicks, and he is also doing tribute spots to The Rock like The People’s Elbow and The Rock Bottom, as he… should. He should. Montez Ford deserves this. He is the guy who can do this. The Undisputed Era provided a solid beatdown, particularly O’Reilly who was just wrecking everybody with strikes. Dawkins just LAUNCHING O’Reilly into Fish off the hot tag was incredible, and Dawkins is a man clearly working on his strikes. Plus this is a TakeOver so just in general everything was extra physical, the crowd was extra hot, and they got enough time to do something really good. ***1/2
2. Candice LeRae vs. Io Shirai
A match that started a little off with some iffy brawling that included a reverse chinlock in a grudge match. But then they just kept going and were like: hey, motherfuckers, we are major league professional wrestlers. The presence of Io Shirai after landing on her feet off a headscissors or a German suplex from the top is something that could change the world if bottled up. Candice’s run with the 619 catch into a neckbreaker, tope tornado DDT, and double foot stomp was awesome. So was Io just crushing her by straight-up running her body into her in the ropes. So was deadlift suplex counter of Candice’s springboard and Candice busting out a reverse rana. And so was Candice being the underdog who will kick out of anything – the Spanish Fly, moonsault – as well as Io Shirai’s freakout reactions to all of it. The finish being a ref stoppage versus tapout was something I very much enjoyed as far as a human being who would like to learn more about the Candice LeRae character as a professional wrestler. SUCH A GOOD MATCH. ****1/4
MATT RIDDLE KICKED EVERYBODY’S ASS AND THEN HE AND KILLIAN DAIN WENT THROUGH A TABLE HELL YEAH
Austin Theory!
3. Triple Threat Match – NXT North American Title: Velveteen Dream [c] vs. Pete Dunne vs. Roderick Strong
There’s a lot of good stuff going on in Japan right now, but weird Toronto Raptors pandering thing aside, Velveteen Dream entrances are one of the great things in professional wrestling right now.
This was a match with a ton of cool stuff. Lots of cool stuff. A bunch of really cool badass spots laid out to make for a pretty good time. Roddy and Dunne ran ROPES. Dunne and Dream teamed up for a bit. Dream and Dunne had a showdown that felt like a Wrestlemania preview. The Coast-to-Coast Purple Rainmaker was fun. Roddy’s running elbows spot was fun. I don’t know though – maybe I’m just a tough sell with Triple Threats. It was good, I just need a generation-defining classic from these guys right now and didn’t get it. ***1/2
4. NXT Women’s Title: Shayna Baszler [c] vs. Mia Yim
I think I liked the idea of this match than the actual… match. Like, there were a lot of kicks and wristlocks and hair-pulling and struggles for stuff, and of course Shayna ripping up an arm, but it just kept going and they took it some places I’m not sure worked. Shayna matches usually get kept simple, then build to something bigger, but this got a little weird and I don’t think it was any better for it. I really liked their match on TV a couple months ago, but this didn’t hit. **
5. 2/3 Falls – NXT Title: Adam Cole [c] vs. Johnny Gargano
Both Adam Cole and especially Johnny Gargano have been a part of plenty matches I’ve enjoyed – they had one at the last TakeOver that I really liked a lot. This one fell victim to having to be some big 45-minute NXT Championship gimmick match main event. I really, legitimately, do not have a thing to say about the first fall. They ran through the motions of their presumably impressive spots. Once they hit the Street Fight and eventually a Steel Cage with a bunch of weapons, it never felt like a serious wrestling match – I heard This is Awesome, I heard Fight Forever, but I also saw something that didn’t feel like it’d be out of place at Cyber Sunday 2007 or something. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, I’m just not sure that these two guys are the optimal guys to do that type of match, what with the fire extinguishers and the superkicks. It felt like a bunch of silly weapon and gimmick tropes with the only apparent mission statement by either guy being that they needed to get into place for some big spots. Is it me? Is it I that am wrong? What here made ya FEEL? What here made you care in your bones about the outcome of the match? An entertaining freak show, but a mediocre big time main event. ***
Good wrestling, but the weakest TakeOver since the first Brooklyn one. The Tag Titles opener was great but there have been better, the Triple Threat was fun but lacking, and the top two matches didn’t deliver. Candice vs. Io was awesome, but needed to be surrounded by a better show. 4/10
