Setting the Bar High: Ranking Every Match from the NXT TakeOvers before WrestleMania

#5 Finn Balor vs. Samoa Joe (NXT TakeOver: Dallas)

Finn Balor refuses to succumb to the Coquina Clutch

There's something to be said for a main event where the two competitors attack each other with such ferocity that the match continually has to be stopped due to a hardway bleed. Finn Balor and Samoa Joe, propelled by their desire not just to put on a memorable WrestleMania weekend performance but also hoping to outdo a stellar undercard, started the match hitting hard and busting up The Destroyer's face very early on.

Like Bayley vs. Nia Jax from the UK TakeOver special, Balor appeared to be the underdog due to the size and unrelenting power of his opponent but, also like that UK special, Balor found a way to pull out the win.

That story would have told a phenomenal match had WWE medical policy not intervened; at times, just as the pair seemed to be building the perfect amount of intensity, ringside medical trainers had to pause the match to treat the wound on Samoa Joe's face. The two men in the ring could not be faulted for their constant breaks in momentum, and even the fans in Dallas pleaded with WWE to allow the match to continue in all its bloody glory, but to no avail.

The only way to slow down Samoa Joe's high-impact

offense

is through WWE's medical policy

Had the match not suffered from the constant start-stop from the medical team, and had it not shared a card with one of the most iconic contests in NXT history (and in WWE this decade), its ranking would be far higher than just number five.