10 Reasons why 2018 was the best year in NXT history

1. The greatest Takeover ever happened

The most electric night in NXT's storied history happened in the Big Easy

Although Mauro Ranollo is always high-energy in how he calls professional wrestling, boxing and MMA, the extra noticeable intensity in his voice from the first match of Takeover: New Orleans was a harbinger for how special this show would be. The night before WrestleMania on April 7 in which NXT was at its creative apex would feature a main event that fans salivated in anticipation over for nearly a year (Ciampa vs. Gargano's Unsanctioned Match). But that wasn't all, as below that on the card lied a re-match from exactly one year earlier with higher stakes and stronger character build (Andrade Cien Almas vs. Aleister Black for the NXT title) as well as the finals of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Tournament, the debut of the North American Championship in an insane six-man Ladder Match, and the end of a women's title trilogy involving Shayna Baszler and Ember Moon

Needless to say, the night did not disappoint as the car crash scene of the North American Championship ladder war brought fans to their feet in sheer enjoyment. Moon and Baszler put on a fine fight-like performance as well, and the triple threat tag team match between Pete Dunne and Roderick Strong, the Authors of Pain and the Undisputed Era ended with a shocking betrayal as Strong turned his back on Dunne, attacking him to help Undisputed Era win and joining up with his old Ring of Honor buddies in the process. Add to that the main event-caliber NXT title match between Black and Almas (an excellent 18-minute showdown that pit two evenly-matched stars from opposite corners of the globe against each other) and the absolutely epic, fight-to-the-finish war saga of Johnny Gargano and Tomasso Ciampa's Unsanctioned Match, and it's not hard to see why this night could be judged as NXT's finest. It also doesn't hurt that two out of the show's five matches scored a rare 5-star rating from the Wrestling Observer newsletter (the only other show from any wrestling promotion to ever score two 5-star ratings in one night was AJW's Dream Slam pay-per-view in 1993). The sky over New Orleans must have been black and yellow that night.