Monday, 19 November 2018

Recap & Thoughts On NXT TakeOver: War Games 2 And WWE Survivor Series

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As always with a big four WWE pay-per-view weekend, it was mixed.

NXT Takeover on Saturday night was incredible and War Games 2 is one of the best in the brand's history, every match had fans popping and involved great storytelling.

Once the Fox money comes in and is aired, it’ll be seen as the top brand in the company and not just “developmental” by casual WWE fans and these stars won’t need to move to the main roster anymore.

If War Games was top of the class then Survivor Series was, like most WWE PPV, a mixed bag with some great things, not so great and things that didn’t matter.

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However, let’s look back to Saturday and War Games 2 started with Matt Riddle picking up a mega quick win over the “newcomers get over wrestler” Kassius Ohno and he seems to fine with that role.

The 2-out-of-3 falls match between Shayna Baszler and Kairi Sane for the NXT Women’s title won’t be remembered as much just due to the matches that preseed it. However, that’s not to say it wasn’t a decently told story.

It was the right thing for Baszler to keep the title and move to the next feud as I predicted looks likely to be Dakota Kai. It’s great to see Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir getting more airtime and with Io Shirai making her NXT debut with a beautiful moonsult off the top rope.


This seems to me we’ll be getting a 3-on-3 match at the next Takeover, which will be part of the set up for Kai get her revenge on Baszler for continually injuring the Kingslayer of Team Kick at Takeover: NY before the Queen of Spades moves to the main roster.

During the press conference after War Games, Triple H described Johnny Gargano as the standard bearer of NXT and Takeover and he’s right if you watch his 2018 Takeover bouts and he had his best storytelling match with a returning Aleister Black his best NXT match.

The speed, the stiff has fuck strikes, the fucking story Black vs Gargano had everything and then some.

The fact Johnny (Evil/Confused/Mad??) got two Black Masses with Black telling him with the final one “I want to absolve you of your sins” to give a gothic chilling end to an incredible story.

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The thing I’ve learned watching Velveteen Dream’s rise to the top of NXT is he’s a wrestler that starts slowly and I won’t like the match but he grows to be the reason why love him and one of WWE’s most exciting prospects.

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Coming out at Hollywood Hogan was a brilliant move and bringing some of the iconic moves into the match was hilarious, but his in-ring psychology was on full display which made the NXT title match with Tommaso Ciampa so fantastic.


Throughout this match it made me believe Dream was actually going to win after the long list of spots and false finishes and even though it’s right for Ciampa to keep Goldie, Dream is the rightful heir in five months.

Finally, the War Games match is well what can I say. I truly loved it.

This may be down to Ricochet insane double moonsult of the top of the cage and this will be used for highlight reels for years to come. Meanwhile, the Undisputed Era heel work was incredible from the dominating the babyfaces and Bobby Fish using the lock from his shark cage and double lock UK Champ Pete Dunne trapped in his.


The other spot that the crowd popped was the eight-man powerbomb/suplex and then we had the image of the two battered teams staring each other down before getting into a pub brawl.

Adam Cole looked set to win it for the heels before Dunne hit the bitter end and Ricochet followed up with a quick splash for a double pin for the win.

While NXT shows what great things WWE can do, Survivor Series did some confusing things like giving Raw a main PPV clean sweep, completely ignoring the Smackdown win had on the kick off show.

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Storyline wise it was a great night, firstly with Nia Jax (BOO) getting nothing but booed whenever she was on TV, involved in the 5-on-5 women’s match to basically anything. Jax is the most hated female wrestler on WWE.

P.S. Boss Bliss is my favourite Alexa Bliss now.

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Elsewhere, It was nice to see Shinsuke Nakamura being used in a decent match for once as he and Seth Rollins brought some hard hitting to the match.

Speaking off hard-hitting, The end of the Ronda Rousey vs Charlotte Flair was incredible! Not only was the match itself, match of the night but having heel Charlotte is the best Charlotte.

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The fact she just lost her shit was a sight to see, especially with Ronda getting accidentally busted open early in the match.

I see reports of Rousey upset with the fans reaction sucks but just know she’ll get a massive backing from the fans when she takes on Nia Jax (BOOO) and they’ll want to see her kick the crap out of her.

It sucks more because this was Ronda’s best match to date and continues to show at every PPV she’s improving every time and it’s great to see.

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Now we have proper beef between the Four Horsewomen of WWE and the Four Horsewomen of MMA so now I won’t be surprised if Sasha Banks and Bayley turn heel on Raw tonight.


Minus the ignoring of the SD tag team win making the final actual score 6-1, the other confusing/annoying thing from the last night was having Drake Maverick piss himself on live TV across the world for no point apart from it probably made Vince McMahon laugh.

This moment took away from AOP beating The Bar and then in the 205 Live package the GM makes a serious cameo before the Cruiserweight title match.

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In which, Buddy Murphy and Mustafa Ali put on a decent match with lots of spots and hopefully with having these cruiserweight matches on the main card will get people like me to watch the product.

Elsewhere, Braun Strowman did his job and got his wishes granted by Stephanie McMahon with the Monster Among Men practically single-handedly removing all the members of the SmackDown team including Shane McMahon, who’s the best wrestler in the world.

This 5-on-5 pissed me off three reasons, Samoa Joe’s early exit and then you have Shane O’Mac being once again the last man standing for SD? So the former TNA, NXT champ couldn’t survive for two minutes but Shane can survive until the end after jumping onto the commentary table and a coast-to-coast.


The other thing that bugged me was The Miz playing this comedy Shane McMahon cheerleader character. Like, come on it’s The Miz, the man responsible for making the IC title actually meaningful again.

The things I did like was Finn Balor showcasing his talents for a decent length of time and the build-up feud between Drew McIntyre and Strowman.

IMAGE VIA WWE

Finally, after having my hopes destroyed by watching Brock Lesnar repeatedly throwing Daniel Bryan on his head it looked like it was going to be another squash match.

However, seeing Bryan fighting back and getting two near falls and Lesnar nearly tapping it proves with the right opponent Brock will put on a good match similar to last year’s bout with AJ Styles.

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