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NXT TAKEOVER: London


RIPPA

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To be fair Nia actually is heavier than Blake.

On the show the announcers said (via a twitter quote from The Rock) that Nia is 272 pounds. Wikipedia confirms that, and she's 6 feet tall. That makes her bigger than about three-quarters of the guys on the NXT roster.

 

I just watched the show now and I enjoyed it. The fans were not really into Crews/Corbin and that was too bad. That should've been the opener because you just shouldn't open shows with ref-bumps...but I'm nitpicking and old fashioned, maybe.  I'm surprised Crews lost that, as usually the WWE likes to have new stars go on extended unbeaten streaks; case in point is the Asuka/Emma match, as twice they could've set up cheap wins for Emma (by DQ or even a cheapshot with that belt), but instead went with Asuka continuing to embarrass the Mean Girls of NXT. It's too bad they are rushing to Nia/Asuka, as a loss to Emma wouldn't have hurt Asuka, and maybe lead to a more in-depth feud.

 

Really enjoyed the tag titles match, and I appreciate that Dash/Dawson are actual heels in a world where heels spend more time being cool to sell merchandise. Loved the crowd's treatment of Bayley: great stuff. Main Event was very well done. My oldest daughter, Zoe, was only vaguely watching the show (as she buries her nose in her iPhone about 90% of the time), but she threw out an interesting zinger...

 

ENZO: ...this is Carmella, and she's hot as Hell. And you. Can't. Teach. That.

ZOE: Uhhh, yes you can...it's called MAKEUP.

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Very, very easily the worst Takeover. I would say it was, at best, a meh show. Coming off of TLC, which was for sure the worst PPV of the year, the bar was pretty low and NXT barely made it over. I don't know if the roster was worn out from the tour, or if the fans tired themselves out, but everything felt so flat and wonky. The booking for...everything except the tag match was so weird.

 

Asuka/Emma has been built on Emma being so afraid of Asuka that she literally won't even look her in the eyes and will only attack from behind. So of course in the match, she controls 80% of the action, and the crowd is silent for her heat sections because Asuka is on such a different level that no one is going to buy her as FIP in NXT. Ever. Then you have the international object tease just to fuck with the smart fans, which I'm not a fan of. It was 3 times as long as the Asuka/Dana match, yet should have been basically the same thing.

 

Tag match was great, because the Mechanics are fucking wonderful as the Brainbusters and I love them.

 

Crews/Corbin wasn't good. I don't understand the point in stripping everything that got Crews noticed and turning him into a generic babyface who could literally be anyone in the ring. All of his flippy dippies are gone, and the handful of athletic spots he still does don't even look that good (his dropkick and Stinger Splash). They didn't mesh at all, and I assume Corbin is probably the next challenger for Balor, otherwise the totally clean finish makes Crews look like a goober.

 

Bayley/Nia I have so many issues with. This was the worst booked match. Jesus Christ. I get they were trying to do the KO/Sami match, but that match had 10 years of backstory behind it. This had 2 months. Bayley is a true underdog, meaning she can actually lose. Here, she kicked out of 7 finishers of the monster who is bigger than like...all the men except Corbin and Cass. It killed Nia Jax's monster aura. It ruined any believably that Bayley can lose. And then, just to add insult to injury, the move Bayley won it with should have been negated by the rocker dropper to the shoulder and all the rib work. The Nia/Asuka tease before the match is meaningless, because obviously Nia Jax can't beat Asuka, who is clearly much better than Bayley. With all the care they've given to the women's matches and characters, I can't believe how big of a misstep that match was on all fronts. The characters of Nia and Bayley are borked, and the entire women's division now looks weaker. Just awful.

 

The main event was a Balor match. Which means no story, no selling, no emotion. It was nice to see Joe finally exorcise the TNA demons and look great again, but Balor has been a massive disappointment for me in NXT. I wasn't a big fan of his in NJPW, either, but he had some great matches (like the ones with Okada) with story and selling. In NXT, he's the most generic video game character and it is frustrating as shit. 

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For all the bitching about Bayley kicking out of Jax's finisher, I noticed the majority, if not all, of her covers after hitting the legdrop were cocky, loose covers (foot on the chest, two hands on the chest, etc).  As Gorilla would say, "you gotta hook the leg, Jess."

 

Holy shit that crowd was fucking insufferable. 

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For all the bitching about Bayley kicking out of Jax's finisher, I noticed the majority, if not all, of her covers after hitting the legdrop were cocky, loose covers (foot on the chest, two hands on the chest, etc).  As Gorilla would say, "you gotta hook the leg, Jess."

 

Holy shit that crowd was fucking insufferable. 

 

Yeah, I think Byron made note that it had to be her inexperience to be covering her like that. It would have been an interesting story if she were undefeated for say six months or something and they really built up this match. Like that's the one thing I didn't like about this match. It felt like a main card WWE angle. It was really rushed time wise. Usually, NXT is a little better taking their time building up stuff.

 

They should have done Bayley/Eva Marie at this Takeover and while building up Nia's reign of terror for the next one.

 

You know it could be Bayley has power down in NXT. Behold the power of the wacky inflatable waving arm tube men.

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I think the underlying story was Nia was in over her head emotionally. She's physically got everything ready kayfabe wise. There hasn't been a WWE woman's wrestler like her in ages. There certainly hasn't been anyone in NXT like her. But this was her first big match against an opponent whose biggest strengths are her resiliency and guile. Bayley's guts shocked a physical bully and then Bayley found a way to beat her.

Give Nia another few months for a rematch and we probably have a different outcome.

That match hardly killed anyone.

Hoping we get a Bayley/Emma feud with some Dana shenanigans. Dana might be my favorite person in NXT right now.

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For all the bitching about Bayley kicking out of Jax's finisher, I noticed the majority, if not all, of her covers after hitting the legdrop were cocky, loose covers (foot on the chest, two hands on the chest, etc).  As Gorilla would say, "you gotta hook the leg, Jess."

 

Holy shit that crowd was fucking insufferable. 

That was fine for the first two. But five finishers later and Bayley is still kicking out, even with strong covers, and then winning with a submission she shouldn't be able to do because Nia had just broken her shoulder and spent the entire match crushing her ribs. The whole thing was staggeringly poorly laid out. Which is extra crazy because all the women's matches have been laid out so well to mask the flaws of the talent involved. 

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I still like the idea that we all thought it was Bayley who was in over her head going into the match, but as it turned out, Nia was the one in over her head.

I am fine with Nia having to learn that it takes more than size and a few leg drops to be champ as the story of that match.

However, I get where people who think it was too early to run the match are coming from. I agree. Big picture, pulling Becky Lynch back down for a short program predicated on "I'm the only one of the Four Horsewomen who has never been champ, and I need to correct that" would have left more time to build up Jax/Bayley properly for Dallas.

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I'm watching this show and laughing at people bitching about the crowd chanting. Apparently these people have never seen a football match from the UK or Europe. That's how they roll over there.

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I'm watching this show and laughing at people bitching about the crowd chanting. Apparently these people have never seen a football match from the UK or Europe. That's how they roll over there.

 

Yeah, those NFL games at Wembley are singalonga Sunday alright.

 

Heh. Football.

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Its about when to sing and chant not that they were doing it period.

The post Mania Raws have already jumped the shark. I can only imagine how terrible it's going to be this year with 3 hours of neck beards singing to Bailey.

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Complaining about how, when, and why people cheer seems like a ridiculous complaint to me.  You guys sound like my crazy uncle who used to get pissed off when he heard children laughing. 

 

That works, since most of the people who say "If you don't celebrate and honor every single time that the fans chant "YOU SUCK (s.o.)!" to the Divas, then you just want Corpus Christi-like dead crowds!" sound like the type of people who would watch the Moon landing and tell people "Screw those astronauts, what the hell did they ever do? I watched this happen, I'm the real hero here!", so it's pretty even.

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Complaining about how, when, and why people cheer seems like a ridiculous complaint to me.  You guys sound like my crazy uncle who used to get pissed off when he heard children laughing. 

 

That works, since most of the people who say "If you don't celebrate and honor every single time that the fans chant "YOU SUCK (s.o.)!" to the Divas, then you just want Corpus Christi-like dead crowds!" sound like the type of people who would watch the Moon landing and tell people "Screw those astronauts, what the hell did they ever do? I watched this happen, I'm the real hero here!", so it's pretty even.

 

It is probably somewhere in between those two.  It is kind of like the last Raw I went to when a lady and her kids were very vocal, and some dude shh'd her.  She looked him dead in the face and said, "you're at a wrestling show, and you're complaining that kids are cheering."  Except she said it like, "Bitch, if you don't turn around and shut the fuck up, I will kill you and your entire family."  People go to wrestling shows to have a good time, and I guess you can complain about how they have that good time, but why the hell would you do that?  Wrestling is supposed to be fun, and those people went to the show and had a great time, I for one can't find fault in that. 

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The singing at Takeover was not in support of the wrestlers. They were just drunk people singing to hear themselves sing. Hence singing all night no matter who was in the ring or what was going on.

 

 

You are wrong.

 

They were singing when nothing was happening, in matches they weren't engaged in, because they were drunk and like to sing. That's like...completely normal with UK wrestling shows. I don't know what you'd take offense to about it.

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