NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn II

[JCM]

Dark Side Asuka?!

Man as if I wasn't already hyped for that match.

 

[SirSmUgly]

Asuka did more to get that match over in three Instagram posts than NXT did, which is more of a compliment toward Asuka than a criticism of NXT's bookers and writers.

One of the great things about these cards is that it's never clear who will win. I am pretty sure The Revival retains and Ember Moon wins. Otherwise, I'm not so sure. Roode needs the win over Andrade, who should turn heel anyway. I think Jose should win, but Aries kinda needs a win and Jose can lose now and beat Aries later to tell the story of him finding a new, more serious gear through wrestling Aries. I think that if Asuka wins, Nak wins, and if Bayley wins, Joe will retain. 

[DreamBroken]

I never wanna see Asuka lose and like her as the face she's been to this point, but if she has to eventually drop the title, Ember seems like the best option. Even if Billie Kay would be my preference, Ember Moon will definitely be the next breakout star type of the NXT women's division.

[donsem43]

5 hours ago, JCM said:

Dark Side Asuka?!

[ChrisM]

Not as pumped for this show as I have been for previous NXT specials, but I think that's due to so many major players being called up to Raw and Smackdown. Ok, predictions...

Ember Moon obviously makes quick work of Billie Kay( I think with some repackaging, Billie Kay could be something big)

Aries beats Jose

Gargano and Ciampa with the NXT tag titles from The Revival

Roode beats Almas 

I think Bayley beats Asuka, for some reason. Something just tells me Bayley isn't going to the main roster for a while, yet. 

Nakamura beats Joe to win the NXT title, thus becoming the face of NXT. Just curious as to where Joe goes from here, and who Nakamura feuds with next? ( Roode? Aries? Itami?)

 

[Iron Moose]

Moon over Kay. Curious about what they rename the O-Face. 

Roode over Almas. A toss-up, as a gobsmacked-by-losing Roode could be lots of fun, same for a relishing-the-boos-for-beating-the-new-guy Almas. 

Aries over Jose. Rebuild Aries, have him more ready for the title mix. I am least confident about this and Roode/Andrade. 

Revival over Gargano/Ciampa. Teams shouldn't beat the Revival too often. Set up a second round. 

Demon Asuka over Bayley. Brooklyn rather than Full Sail means less chance of a weeping Izzy disrupting the show, and Bayley back in Brooklyn (site of her greatest triumph) and not being able to win again gives space for her character to do another chase-redemption arc. 

Joe over Nakamura. I hope Joe is in Dallas-Worldbeater mode, only this time he wins. Joe losing, after a brief feud consisting of nose-honking, imaginary telescopes, and being bothered more at Regal  than at Nak, makes both him and Nak look bad. I don't get the vibe that Nak wants it, and an anointing of him as champ (given his awful selling in, of all things, the Balor match) risks souring the crowds on him. 

 

....they've booked up a Takeover where an almost straight-ticket set of heel victories creates the most appealing set of follow-ups. Weird. 

[RIPPA]

 

[Godfrey]

There's part of me that wants Asuka/Bayley to be a Lesnar/Cena at Summerslam 2014 level beat down to really solidify Asuka as a monster heel, but it would stall Bayley's momentum too much as she presumably moves up.

[JonnyLaw]

Long term booking: Asuka Lesnars Bayley, who then gets called up.  When Bayley finally wins the title on the MR, Asuka debuts by walking out and simply smiling at her.

[Pete]

Anyone hoping they give Nak a big Wrestle Kingdom style entrance tonight? Now would be the time to do it.

EDIT: Stubhub has seats as low as $6!  If I wasn't previously engaged tonight I'd be all over that like a cheap suit. 

[ChesterCopperpot]

You could be right Pete

[RIPPA]

 

[RIPPA]

 

[Coletti]

Joe retains and Itami - informing us all that he was attacked and injured by Joe before his last shot at the title - becomes #1 contender. 

[blitzkrieg]

45 minutes ago, christopher.annino said:

Joe retains and Itami - informing us all that he was attacked and injured by Joe before his last shot at the title - becomes #1 contender. 

Except it was a couple months before Joe appeared in NXT. That said I'm totally down with Itami being the one to dethrone Joe. Send Joe to Smackdown and let Itami reign over NXT.

[Iron Moose]

25 minutes ago, blitzkrieg said:

Except it was a couple months before Joe appeared in NXT. That said I'm totally down with Itami being the one to dethrone Joe. Send Joe to Smackdown and let Itami reign over NXT.

Itami's injury took him off the card at Takeover Unstoppable, which was the show Joe debuted at.

[blitzkrieg]

3 minutes ago, Iron Moose said:

Itami's injury took him off the card at Takeover Unstoppable, which was the show Joe debuted at.

For some reason I thought Itami got taken out on the card with Zayn/Owens I not Zayn/Owens II. Joe debuted in May and didn't get a title shot til December? No wonder Joe was so pissed off.

[Wyld Samurai]

Joe was buddy with his Dusty Classic partner at this time last year. The story went that he would help Finn win the Classic and them he'd get a title shot. Balor didn't give him his shot fast enough so he turned on him.

[SirSmUgly]

• Can't believe the first Brooklyn Takeover was already a year ago. Man, this last year went fast. 

 

• NWJ's conga line was charming, as is pretty much everything about that character. 
• Whatever was going on in the crowd even distracted Jose. 
• I thought the match was disjointed in practice; the spots that were struggled over just sometimes seemed like both guys weren't on the same page instead of actual struggle. It didn't help that Aries was the face and was doing shit like suicide dives. The story of the match was good, though, in that Jose as the rookie had no real creativity in applying the set-up for his finisher, but the vet Aries had multiple ways to apply the Last Chancery. 
• Aries and Itami had a weird transition, too. I think Aries might have been a bit off his game tonight. 
• Itami finally doing a G2S got an atomic pop, damn. Nice to see one done in the company that actually looks like it hurts. Poor NWJ was such an afterthought. 

 

• What the fuck, where is hip-hop Carmen? This is disappointing. Billie Kay stealth had like the fourth-best theme in the company. 
• Ember Moon wowing the crowd with her athleticism and work is no surprise. 
• Billie Kay is a really good striker and throws a sweet headbutt. 
• O-Face!
• Decent debut for Ember Moon. Worse than Owens, better than Crews. 

 

• That ridiculous theme song is automatically going to make Roode a face against most people in NXT. I don't care how much he shits on the hometowns of whatever cities he's wrestling in. 
• "Think of it as a gentrification project for NXT." I'm going to miss Corey Graves's heel commentary on NXT. Dude is pretty damned clever. Heenan makes fun of the working class "ham-n-egger" rubes who are getting beaten up in the ring and watching at home, but in the era of the millennial, Graves shines a light on the hipsters watching NXT by reminding them that they displace poor people and people of color whenever they buy up cheap apartments and start up brewpubs in a historically working-class neighborhood. Layers, man, layers. 
• Andrade has some nice dives, but he's not a very good face. He doesn't really do much to make me want to get behind him. Honestly, I've seen limited amounts of him in CMLL against Nakamura and Rush along with the NXT stuff, and I don't really get it with him. Obviously, he's a good worker, but there's not much there beyond that. 
• Roode was fine, as usual. He's the pro wrestling equivalent of a good fourth starting pitcher in baseball. He's slightly above replacement level and is typically solid, but almost never great. Needs a better finish, though. 
• This match was okay, but three matches in, there's not much other than two moves (G2S, O-Face) that I think I'll remember from this show. 

 

• Wonder who that weird hype video is for. Did they re-sign Sami Callahan or something?

 

• In the tag match, I was mostly waiting for the inevitable part of the match where the Revival cut off the face and work him over because it's always fun and creative and there are a lot of Ole and Arn/Tully and Arn spots mixed in like the elevated gourdbuster that I love so much. 
• The problem with Ciampa as FIP is that he's not good at showing vulnerability. He's the dude who should be coming in off the hot tag. On the other hand, Gargano's weak offense and willingness to bump around make him a bad choice for hot tag, but a solid one for FIP. 
• Haha, the "fake fall" diversion actually pulled the crowd in like this was early-'80s Mid-Atllantic or something. They booed it as they should have. 
• Big NXT matches always have really good finishing runs, and this was no different. I thought that it was solid, and got very good after the forearm battle between Ciampa and Dawson. 
• Not sure how I feel about DIY as a tag name. 

 

• Aw, Bayley's gonna get ganked by Asuka again.
• I liked Bayley getting visibly frustrated that Asuka is a machine and reverses everything because of how quick she is. 
• I also like that Asuka was cocky early on, which at the current time might be foreshadowing her losing her title through her own hubris. We'll see. 
• Bayley's hair getting all crazy in intense matches is a really great visual. 
• I like that it was demonstrated twice that ten of Bayley's strikes = one of Asuka's. Just to be clear. 
• That powerbomb botch was actually saved nicely the second time with a sweet pancake. Someone should really be doing that move on the regular, DDP style. 
• Seeing Sasha and Becky jump up in the background after the first B2B was an awesome visual.
• Asuka kicking through Bayley's hulk up and slap was even awesomer than Asuka kicking through Nia Jax's screaming. Holy shit, that was amazing. Fuck me. 
• This match was pretty good, I think, but I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. At times, it felt clunky, and I don't think that Asuka's early cockiness got paid off with a clear moment where Bayley punished her dearly for it. 
• On to being booked into oblivion over on RAW or Smackdown or whatever, Bayley! Woooo!  At least this probably means Nak is winning. 

 

• Live violin for Nakamura! Yussssss!
• Nakamura building a home in Joe's head is a pretty great way to go about the build-up for this match, and both guys are playing their roles perfectly. 
• So this was solid basically from the jump. Joe seemed extra pissed off tonight. I liked these two feeling each other out mixed with Nak doing his signature stuff to irritate Joe. 
• I do think it kinda killed the crowd, though. I think the crowd was primed for a slugfest. Honestly, so was I, and the pacing was really slow for probably longer than it should have been. I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed in it for the first twelve or so minutes. 
• The strike exchange after the double-ten-count spot was more of what I wanted about nine minutes earlier. 
• The finishing run was kinda muted, too, though in the moment, I can't put my finger on why. The counter-counter-finisher kick out stuff doesn't do it for me at this point unless it's really well executed. I don't know if it's just me or what, but I thought this was pretty clearly the third best match on the show, and if someone argued that Aries/NWJ was better, I could see that. 
• Nak as champ is great, though! And it frees up Joe to go be champ on Smackdown plz Hunter plz. Unless Joe's jaw is legit fucked, in which case, nooooooo. 

This was the weakest Takeover in awhile, but they're in the middle of pushing a bunch of people to make up for all the call-ups, and it was still good! I'm glad that they decided to give the show an extra thirty minutes on the schedule, and I hope they do this going forward. 

 

 

[The Man Known as Dan]

This Takeover was clearly better then the last one, so I don't know what you are going on about Smelly. Tag Team and Womens matches were outstanding stuff, and I personally loved the main event even though I feel the wrong man one.

 

If Joe is hurt, Nakamura has no logical title challengers unless they rush Roode up, and that's not a match I'd pay to see right now.

[RIPPA]

The crowd was distracted in the Jose/Aries match by Ric Flair being brought down to his seat

[Raziel]

Nakamura's entrance is gonna be fucking epic when they add Lindsey Stirling and the girl that did the videos of Nak's themes to a Wrestlemania entrance.

 

 

[Godfrey]

I am not proud of this but during Nakamura's entrance I actually said out loud "He's fantastic."

[Wyld Samurai]

Japan came out gangbusters tonight. Itsmi, Asuka and Nakamura all went over.

[Charlie M.]

Quick thoughts ... The tag was the best match by far. Joe/Nak was really good. Everything else was average work carried by a sensational crowd. I'm someone who loves a hot crowd so I'll take that over great work in front of a dead crowd.