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NXT TAKEOVER: WARGAMES II - 11/17/2018


Dolfan in NYC

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46 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

The Horsemen had punchable faces and were dirty, cheating heels. They got cheered. The nWo had punchable faces and were dirty, cheating heels. They got cheered. DX had punchable faces and were dirty, cheating heels. They got cheered.

I don't remember DX being clear heels outside of maybe HBK/Hunter right before WrestleMania XIV.  You are right that nWo received cheers and Horsemen received cheers but when it was time for Dusty or the Road Warriors or Sting or Magnum TA or Luger etc..  to go over the houses became UNGLUED for the babyfaces.  

We rarely reach that point anymore.  

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5 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Count me in on thinking Dream had the match won after the Purple Rainmaker.

My picks for whose getting called up:

EC3, Velveteen Dream, Lars Sullivan

I don't think WWE can resist keeping a monster like Sullivan in nxt much longer. I'm on the fence on if Gargano gets called up yet. He really needed a win here. He only beat Ciampa once in their entire series. 

Yeah, I'd have changed the winner to Johnny Gargano.

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2 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

I don't remember DX being clear heels outside of maybe HBK/Hunter right before WrestleMania XIV.  You are right that nWo received cheers and Horsemen received cheers but when it was time for Dusty or the Road Warriors or Sting or Magnum TA or Luger etc..  to go over the houses became UNGLUED for the babyfaces.  

We rarely reach that point anymore.  

The night after WM14 when the Outlaws joined, and they brutalized Cactus & Funk in the cage. They were definitely still heels there.

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1 minute ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

The night after WM14 when the Outlaws joined, and they brutalized Cactus & Funk in the cage. They were definitely still heels there.

They were, I don't remember the crowd reaction but I remember mine.   I was booing them but I was also "hey wait..  1-2-3-4..   new stable?  cool!"  

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1 minute ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

They were, I don't remember the crowd reaction but I remember mine.   I was booing them but I was also "hey wait..  1-2-3-4..   new stable?  cool!"  

and the fans chanting for Austin led to Austin vs. Corporate Dude Love

Now, if only I could could remember useful information.

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8 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

and the fans chanting for Austin led to Austin vs. Corporate Dude Love

Yeah but that was a case of everyone involved being assholes.  Austin was an asshole,  Bret was an asshole,  Vince was an asshole..  you just had to choose which assholes you liked and I grew up with Bret as my guy so I was like wait a minute,  Bret is making valid points here,  Fuck a Stone Cold..  

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Typically awesome show for NXT. Shayna/Kari was a blat. I really love Shayna's goons a lot. They are great sniveling jerks. It's going to be fun seeing them versus Kari/Dakota/Shirai start up. Maybe we see a WOMAN'S WAR GAMES~ at some point. 

I'm not the biggest fan of Black or Gargano. Black's objectively good but just isn't for me. Gargano is so ridiculously hit or miss for me. He has somehow been in I don't even know how many of the Top 10 Best NXT matches ever. But I'm also never going to be that into him. He's just really too hammy at times. This was a really good match but I'm just not engaged in the feud at all. 

Ciampa versus Dream friggin' ruled. That match didn't really have any real build to it and it turned out as one of the best matches of the year. Ciampa is just an amazing troll heel. I think Dream has become the most fun act NXT has ever created for a homegrown talent -- even beyond The Wyatts and Bo Dallas and Tyler Breeze. I think my proudest wrestling fan moment was going all in on him when he debuted the gimmick by taunting Shinsuke all those months ago. I (like you) love ridiculous gimmicks. Seeing this go from "Chapelle Show Prince" to "attention starved gender-bending diva" to "spotlight seeking diva mastermind" has been just a great ascent.

Dream is more than just a parody act. He wrestles and performs like he is the heir to their thrones. Everything he does -- his facial expressions and his punches and his big spots -- are done to stand out in front of a crowd at a domed arena for WrestleMania. Who knows whether he gets there or not. But he's swinging for that fence more than anyone in NXT ever has. 

War Games was a great, fun garbage match with all sorts of nonsense. I'm fine with ridiculous seven-man spots if it leads to Ricochet doing a double backflip off of the top of the cage. Seriously, WTF even was that? I wish I was 12-years-old so he could be my favorite wrestler.  

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1 hour ago, L_W_P said:

Questions coming out of this -

Does Black go after Ciampa for TakeOver: Rumble or is it just time to call him up? If not Black then who is next? Sullivan? Tweener Adam Cole? Where does Gargano go from here?

I think they can build Dream back up to take the title at TakeOver: Mania but he might just get called up as well.

Looking like we get to build to Dunne v Ricochet to settle the "Champ v Champ" debate as well.

Ciampa vs Black at Rumble Takeover, leading to Gargano's redemption at WM weekend over Ciampa.

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12 minutes ago, Burgundy LaRue said:

A tidbit I liked: Ciampa giving Dream a quick kiss. While it fits with his troll heel persona, it was letting Dream know how great he was while also making sure Dream was OK after taking some nasty bumps.

Missed that. Cheers.

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I still don’t understand why I’m supposed to believe Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish can go anywhere close to toe to toe with the War Raiders. I guess I’m just not a fan of anyone in Undisputed Era. Just comes off really pretentious to me. Fun match, though.

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Am I really in a small minority in not liking the WarGames match at all? I thought it was way too long, boring, contrived, nonsensical, lacked brutality and intensity, and had an extremely underwhelming finish. I frankly thought it sucked. I’m kinda surprised by the praise it’s getting. It was probably the worst NXT TakeOver match this year to me. Up until then, I was gonna have it as the #2 best TakeOver ever and that one match dropped it down to like #9 for me.

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I’m with @Greggulator on loving Dream.

From the moment Insaw him live in 2016 I thought he had something -

Patrick Clark my surprise of the night. He started out as the heel against Lorcan and the crowd mocked him with chants of 'Purple Rain' and 'Sexual Chocolate'. He ran with both of those though and stalled and preened like no one else and we ended up turning and loving him for it. The match took a tonal shift as well with Clark getting the big babyface fire up spot and comeback before Lorcan tied him up with a quick submission win.

 Of everyone there I think Clark worked the crowd the best and he has a future as the "Too good for you" heel that turns into the fired up underdog face. He would be perfectto team with The Drifter and then turn face against him.

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Good fucking God Dream dropping that elbow directly on to the floor looked painful as fuck.

Parts of War Games were truly awesome. But parts were just so overdone. The seven man electric chair type superplex/powerbomb thing was beyond contrived. I get what they were trying to do with the "West Side Story" bit, but it came across too goofy. The refs not thinking to get bolt cutters until after the time period was up made them look deeply stupid.

For awhile there, though, it felt like War Games for real. Roderick Strong busting out the string of backbreakers was great. Cole and Roddy trying to set up Ricochet to throw him out of the cage was fun. 

I really don't like them having the faces struggle to be on the same page, and then it not factor in to the finish. Especially because it brought back the thing I love about the old ones. A cohesive force of heels against a handful of faces thrown together. It didn't have to cost the faces the match, but it would have been nice if the finish involved Dunne and the Raiders working together in spite of their differences earlier.

The women's match was a real letdown. Too short, kinda a weird finish. I wouldn't mind seeing it set up a six woman though.

Gargano looks great, loses. Again. Black vs Ciampa again should be good, but I really wonder where they go with Johnny.

Overall, great show.

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7 hours ago, RIPPA said:

The locking of the cage was good in theory... except since they kept talking about how the match didn’t officially start till everyone was in, basically it just meant the heels ensured the match would last forever 

And not to mention how stupid the refs looked 

Drake Younger saying "my key does not fit" was so stupid considering that Fish put the second lock there right in front of him (or at the very least directly on camera). The first thing you would expect the refs (or at least GM Regal, he is supposed to be watching this, right?) to go looking for a bolt cutter during the three minute period.

Tables have to be my least favorite foreign objects in pro wrestling due to this whole Chekhov's Gun thing. Once a table is in or at the ring you know the match won't end until the table is broken.

Gargano losing seems to be weird booking, for one it's his very first (televised) match after the turn and two the idea of this whole turn was a "decend into madness" as he kept losing as a face. The only possible reasons for him losing are either Black challenging for the title at the next TakeOver, Gargano being called up before Mania or that they did not want to have three heel wins in a row on the card.

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17 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

I realized this morning that the women’s match might have had to been shorter because Baszler might not be fully recovered from the injury she got at Evolution

You may be right. Although it really makes me wish they hadn't gone with the 2/3 stip then.

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We basically had two matches last night that served as hybrid match/angles and some corners of the internet are freaking out because TAKEOVER MEANS WRESTLING or whatever. Shayna/Kairi deserved more time, especially with that stipulation, but coupled with what RIPPA said and trying to move along and build up the idea of the MMA Horsewomen as a thing by next year, it's easy to see why that match was what it was.

Riddle/Ohno being a flash knockout was great, I thought. That's how these MMA types should be booked every now and then, in my opinion.


WarGames overshadowed everything else tonight, and I came away super impressed with the War Raiders. But I have a soft spot for hardcore/spotfests/whatever, so this was right up my alley. I don't care one bit if there are pins inside of a WarGames match, either.

Oh, and do people really think both Black/Gargano and Ciampa/Dream were better than Gargano/Almas? That's still the match of the year for NXT.

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