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The latest edition of NXT TakeOver has come and gone. As usual, the show in Portland was a great one, though it fell short of equaling NXT TakeOver: War Games in November. In an unusual twist, the show came on a Sunday, and it had six matches instead of the usual five. Slowly but surely, the NXT creep continues. We can only hope that it doesn't reach main roster levels of spamming the viewer with content.
Anyway, let's take a look at the matches last night and rank the best and worst of them.
#6 Adam Cole vs. Tommaso Ciampa
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This is a prime example of a great match ruined by no-selling and overbooking during the home stretch. Look, I get being enamored with false finishes, but there's a fine line you don't cross with them, because if you do, the whole thing looks ridiculous. We more than reached that point in the main event last night. Tommaso Ciampa and Adam Cole were kicking out of things that nobody should kick out of. It looked more like a fight out of Dragon Ball Z than it did a wrestling match.
The match felt like a replay of the Adam Cole vs. Johnny Gargano match in New York last year, but without the two-year journey of the latter toward the title. Ciampa's story was a (more real) journey on its own, but in this case, it simply felt like the sequel failing to live up to the original.
And then there was the end, with Gargano turning on Ciampa. Sorry, but it doesn't excite me. The time for the feud has come and gone. We've seen it to death. The role reversal is an interesting twist, but not enough to justify reviving the feud.
The NXT title needs a reset.
Before we move on to the next slide, gear up by listening to our exclusive interview with the former IMPACT Knockouts Champion Taya Valkyrie!
#5 Tegan Nox vs. Dakota Kai
This match was going good until the end. You could feel the hatred between Tegan Nox and Dakota Kai. They were that convincing in their roles. There were also some brutal weapons spots between them.
Unfortunately, the ending is what's going to be remembered about this match.
Raquel, the former Reina, Gonzalez came from out of nowhere to screw Tegan Nox over when she had the match won. The table failing to break from the fall was the perfect visual for the confusion everyone was feeling.
Undoubtedly, this signals good things for Gonzalez's future in NXT after being off TV for the most part, but TakeOver wasn't the appropriate place to re-introduce her to audiences.
#4 Rhea Ripley vs. Bianca Belair
While Charlotte's appearance in the aftermath will get most of the buzz, this was a solid match that went much better than many of us thought it was going to. It won't be on any match of the year lists, but it signaled Rhea Ripley and Bianca Belair's maturity as in-ring performers, and it was much better than most of Shayna Baszler's TakeOver title defenses.
Now let's talk about Charlotte. The fact that she accepted Ripley's challenge shows just how big a deal the higher-ups view the NXT Women's Champion as. Truly, there is no losing scenario for Ripley here. She can lose and come up to the main roster where she'll get a big push, or beat Charlotte at WrestleMania.
She's in a good spot!
#3 Johnny Gargano vs. Finn Balor
This match didn't quite live up to the expectations I had of it, but it was still a TakeOver worthy match between these two. One of the things that was jarring was Gargano's selling of his leg throughout the middle of the match, but then abruptly stopping toward the end.
Either way, though, the match was a masterful display of technical ability between the former NXT Champions. Johnny Gargano's TakeOver resume is such that it can be hard for him to live up to some of his own exploits, but this was an admirable effort all the same.
#2 The Undisputed Era vs. The Broserweights
This was the right team at the right time. The Broserweights have been one of the most entertaining acts in the entire company despite only recently forming and they looked more than ready to be tag team champions.
We got a back and forth brawl that started on a high note with the Broserweights' entrance and only got better from there. Unlike the main event, the false finishes were executed correctly here.
At the end of it all, though, the Broserweights were the ones holding the NXT tag team titles up in the feel-good moment of the night.
#1 Keith Lee vs. Dominik Dijakovic
The best match was the show opening, rivalry culminating match between Keith Lee and Dominik Dijakovic. There, on the big TakeOver stage, they showed what wowed us all in the first place, doing things big men were never supposed to be able to do in the squared circle. It sometimes felt like a hoss fight, but could turn into a cruiserweight match at the drop of a hat. Remember Keith Lee's hurricanrana at the beginning? Remember Dominik Dijakovic's corkscrew?
The match had false finishes that never reached into absurd territory and Dominik Dijakovic sold his back well, which led to the Big Bang Catastrophe from Keith Lee and the finish of the match.
When it was over, both men stood tall, as Keith Lee ceded some of the spotlight to the rival that he respected. Dijakovic was the heel in the match by default because of how over Keith Lee is, but he gained a lot of fans as a result of the bout. One still gets the feeling that his time will come soon.
