NXT TakeOver: The End

[Matt D]

I think Revival beats AA so that AA can go up and that Revival feuds with Ciampa/Gargano after the sneaked out win last week

[ChrisM]

21 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

Um, Joe is the champ.

 

My mistake. I meant Joe retains. 

[Greggulator]

I loved Joe in the promo last week saying "yeah, I'm the untrustworthy one" in the middle of the interview. Great teaser for any shenanigans tonight.

[Cristobal]

From a storytelling perspective, it'd be nice to think that was both an allusion to him turning on Taguchi and foreshadowing of Balor joining the Club.

[Eivion]

That isn't happening. The Club has moved on feud wise and by all rights will be on a different brand from Roman by the time SS happens. Besides I can't see them bringing up Joe to join a team.

[Niners Fan in CT]

Don't read this tweet until you've watched the show.

[RIPPA]

Which he was wrong about who it was directed to (which he later tweeted)

[misanthrope304]

*Squee*

 

Why the fuck is AA's gut taped?   Shenanigans?  I was looking forward to this moreso than the main event, and im a big mark for Joe

----

I thought I posted this, but I guess it didnt go through...stupid kindle.  Also, that match looked really "snug"

[misanthrope304]

I tried to edit and shit the bed on that as well.  Noticed someone using AA=american alpha, while I was using AA=austin aries, just for clarification

[misanthrope304]

"I wonder if the CoO will talk about this on facebook live" 

[SirSmUgly]

On 6/7/2016 at 4:31 PM, Matt D said:

I think Revival beats AA so that AA can go up and that Revival feuds with Ciampa/Gargano after the sneaked out win last week

Smart man.

That AA/Revival match was fucking bananas, too. The counters, the blind tags, the double-team moves, the false finishes that sucked me in even though I knew better. What a great match. Honestly, I wish The Revival were on their way up to the main roster along with American Alpha because I would watch those two teams wrestle every week and be cool with it. Also, I'm glad to have Paul Ellering on my TV screen again. Always liked Ellering. Honestly don't recognize his new charges, though. 

Backing up, Almas looked okay. I've never been a huge fan of La Sombra, and I'm interested to see how he develops over the next few months. I kinda enjoyed Dillinger in that match more, though I do think he worked it too evenly with Almas. 

Aries countering pretty much everything Nak did for most of that match was infuriating from the perspective of someone who was at the point of totally suspending his disbelief after the first five minutes. I was at the point where I starting giving strategic advice to Nak on TV like a)  it was a real fight and b) I'd know what the fuck I was talking about even if it was a real fight. Aries killing himself on that guardrail was definitely enough of a nasty bump that it made sense that even after dominating a lot of the match, that crash-and-burn was all downhill for him. He looked great in defeat. 

I thought that Nia trying to grind Asuka down and keep her from hitting an explosive strike that might be a match-ending move. I also love that each time Nia gets guillotined, she gets better at avoiding going out from it after the London match against Bayley. That's a nice bit of continuous story-telling. I LOVED THAT FINISH, by the way. There were only two ways that Asuka was going to win - submission or strikes - and Nia being like "AAAAAH" and Asuka's response being "OK, fine, I'll kick you in the head some more until you stay down" was fantastic. 

Nia's still not great, but she looks a bit better with each outing. Someone told her to watch 1993-4 Yokozuna tapes to see how she should be selling and how she should make it a struggle for her opponent to get her off her feet. This was much, much, much better than their match in Seattle, even with the house show vs. televised show handicap accounted for.

I am ambivalent about Bobby Roode. Enough with the TNA castoffs for a little while (not counting EC3). 

They used a remix of that "The End is Near" song. Memories!

Bálor in demon mode is the corniest non-Hardy shit in U.S. wrestling in 2016. 

Joe/Bálor was fine, but it just couldn't live up to the second matchup in Dallas. It was so much less violent than the Dallas match, and it needed to be more violent to emphasize the nature of the cage. The escape rules also don't help in a match that's supposed to be based on two guys who are so heated that the cage is meant to be there to keep them in. I get why Joe would try to run away to some degree, especially as champ, but why would Bálor do that? I get why we can't have blood (though come on, bust Joe's eyebrow again! Knuckle shot him in the brow, Bálor!), but we at least needed more violence and less (no) escape attempts.  

This match also needed two other things from the '80s: first, it needed Bálor questioning the gods or Irish demons or whatever after not getting a three on the Coup de Grace, and second, it needed Heenan yelling YES YES YES THE DEMON IS DEAD at the finish since IIRC that's the first time that Bálor's lost in Demon paint. They really didn't play that up at all. Phillips sounded sort of nonplussed at the finish even in his excitement.  

[Nice Guy Eddie]

29 minutes ago, misanthrope304 said:

I tried to edit and shit the bed on that as well.  Noticed someone using AA=american alpha, while I was using AA=austin aries, just for clarification

A-Double works for Austin Aries to differentiate between he and American Alpha.

[RandomAct]

Sweet baby Jesus that Revival/AA match was god tier.  What a fucking match.

[Charlie M.]

Despite there being no MOTYC on the show, everything was good and the result was 2 hours of enjoyable wrestling. Nia is getting better. She seems to be learning that when in doubt, just be mean and use your size.

My one hot take would be that Chad Gable has Dolph Ziggler tendencies about him. It doesn't really matter since he's in a tag team but it'll be interesting to see how people here take to him whenever he gets a singles push. I say that as someone who probably likes Dolph more than most these days.

[HumanChessgame]

1 hour ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

Don't read this tweet until you've watched the show.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

This is the 3rd or 4th time I've seen someone say that either on twitter or another comment somewhere and I actually can't tell if the people complaining are joking or being serious as it was obvious they were saying that about the two new guys.

I'd never seen Almas before tonight and he looked good, but nothing that was really over the top impressive.  Either way I look forward to seeing what he can do.

The tag match was amazing and the best outing I've seen from the two teams yet.  Really surprised that Revival won here as I was expecting some type of shenanigans or fuck finish that lead to a third match with some sort of gimmick that would headline the next NXT special.  I guess they need AA to feud with and make those guys who aren't Da Hit Squad look good.  Does anyone know who they are?  At first I wondered if they were two of the middle eastern guys featured on some of the Breaking Ground episodes.

Aries/Nakamura was insanely good.  I'm not sure if it was up there with the match with Sami, but Nakamura and Aries worked great together and this really made Aries look like he belongs here.

Nia/Asuka was good but not terrific.  It wasn't so much match quality but that there have been so many good women's matches, especially involving Asuka, that this one didn't measure up.

Main event was entertaining but not as good as the Joe/Balor match from the last special.  Balor's demon paint is getting into diminishing returns for me.  It seemed cool looking and special when he first did it but now it's just kind of expected and meh.

I really couldn't care less about Bobby Roode.  When I had cable I'd sometimes put TNA on as background noise and he, Storm, James Harris, and Eric Young might as well all be the same guy.

 

[The Man Known as Dan]

So, thoughts.

 

Missed a good portion of Almas's debut, though I hear Dillinger looked really good in it. Would be cool if he can have a bit of a "Hey, I'm still kinda good" run.

Tag Match was a god damned blast. I could watch those teams fight a best of 15, no sarcasm. Loved the Revival winning, and I'd love them being each others biggest rival for years, if that, you know, would actually happen.

Actually thought Aries outworked Nak in their match, and put forth the best performance he has in years. Also told a great story of Aries really wrestling a great match, then making one giant fatal mistake against someone you can't make that mistake against. Aries was very willing to god damned die for that match too. Good christ man.

Womens Title Match was better then Asuka/Bayley or Bayley/Nia. If you went in apprehensive about Nia in a big match, I think you don't have to worry now. It was worked like I wanted: It was a clash of two titans who were both dominant forces in completely different ways. Nia has power and a developing nasty streak. Asuka has her strikes, which makes her a flat out force. Nia's power game in this was really strong, she just needs to add some more consistent trash talking. Get her some more Mark Henry tapes. Asuka just kicking her till she stopped moving was great, and Nia's roar of defiance was awesome.

The Main. Oh boy, the main. I'm ready for Finn not to be on my TV anymore. I mean, he's not "bad", but man, he feels like someone that has to have his match completely pre-planned and has no real "impromptu" moments to me. The escape rules led this to feel much less hate filled and violent then it should have been. Pretty easily to me the 4th best match on the card, cool finish or not.

 

Still though, really good show. I could be convinced of either the tag, Aries/Nak, or the Womens match as MOTN.

[misanthrope304]

9 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

A-Double works for Austin Aries to differentiate between he and American Alpha.

I was abbreviating because I am lazy.  I didnt want to type all those letters.  A-double is just as much work...A2 maybe? AA should always refer to Arn Anderson anyway

[(BP)]

Somewhere Konnor and Viktor are asking where the fuck Ellering was last year.

[Eivion]

Almas/Dillinger was good fun and easily the best I can recall Dillinger looking in NXT.

The tag match was fantastic and easily MOTN. I loved the Dallas match, but this was more of what I was hoping for from these teams. The debut afterward was pretty nice though I have no idea who these guys are.

Aries/Nakamura was good and the best Aries has looked yet in NXT. I was honestly surprised at how much control Aries got. This definitely felt like a match trying to make up for the weaker performances before now.

Nia/Asuka was damn good. I loved the finish and how much Nia seems to learn each big match both in reality and story.

Joe/Balor was solid but not really the match I was wanting/expecting which makes it a bit disappointing after the bloodbath in Dallas.

This was a fine show. Can't wait for what comes next.

[Eivion]

4 minutes ago, (BP) said:

Somewhere Konnor and Viktor are asking where the fuck Ellering was last year.

I assume waiting for an actual good team to represent.

[Niners Fan in CT]

Great show. Tag match was out fucking standing and I thought Nak/Aries and Nia/Asuka both ruled. Cage match was solid too but I'm a guy that needs some blood and guts in those so I didn't enjoy it as much as others probably did.

Something was missing with this show though.  Great show but there's a couple guys like Aries and maybe to an extent Finn..  who I just don't want to see every week.

[cubbymark]

I've seen the first half of the show thus far. I think Aries got too much in on Nakamura, otherwise it's probably the best I have ever seen Aries look.

Andrade/Dillinger has a fun little opener. I really hope Andrade gets a chance to really show what he can do, and his finisher looks good. Dillinger accounted for himself very well, and is really owning this 10 character.

The tag match, oh the tag match. It's the best match I saw tonight. And I got hooked at the end, to the point I was disappointed American Alpha lost. That's good wrestling.

[misanthrope304]

I agree with tag as motn, crowd was molten for that, with Nak/A2  coming in a close second for me.  What hurt it was it seemed a bit disjointed with the catch wrestling at the beginning.  

Then... A2 died for our sins on that 2nd tope...the DVD(vr) on the ring apron was sick too

 

[RandomAct]

I was just happy that Nakamura bothered to sell the apron DVD for more than 3 seconds.

[hammerva]

Chad Gable doing the belly to belly suplex on Dawson while in the Doomsday spot was the coolest move I have seen in so long.  I just saw a vine where apparently Rick Steiner did the same thing which I guess explains a number of people were calling American Alpha a new generation Steiners.   I still hope for a 2 out of 3 falls match at NXT Brooklyn against Revival but it depends on how this new team is going to be used.  

Best performance in the NXT career of Nia Jax.  She is really bring the anger and power in her and it is showing.  That was also probably Austin Aries best match in the last 5 years.  I mean I know he did have some great TNA matches but it was on such a small level it doesn't feel right

I really hope that this is finally the match where people realize that Ty Dillinger isn't just now getting good but has been good for most of his developmental time.