Paid Members Statto Posted June 14, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted June 14, 2018 No Ranallo for Takeover, he’s got a boxing commitment. Vic Joseph will sit in. I prefer him to Mauro, so good news as far as I’m concerned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bukamania Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 Bianca Blair is awesome! I'm really enjoying how they have been showcasing her since the Mae Young tournament. Also did you see that power lifting spot she did with Aaliyah? WOW! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UK Kat Von D Posted June 16, 2018 Share Posted June 16, 2018 I reckon EC3 should be costing Gargano the match as revenge for disrespecting him during his squash the other week. EC3 is a heel without any actual heat at the moment and that would do the trick. Gives Gargano another hot feud to go straight into and Ciampa can move up to 205, refusing to ever give Gargano a rematch. Stick the belt on him and be a dick till next year, when Gargano enters the Tournament for a title shot at Mania.  Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Supremo Posted June 17, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted June 17, 2018 (edited) It probably didn't crack the Top 5 for NXT Takeover events, but this was still a fantastic show. Every NXT show leaves me remembering why I love pro-wrestling. Tremendous opener. I can't pinpoint exactly when it happened but sometime in the last month or so the Undisputed Era have started firing on all cylinders. All of them have really started clicking in this bunch-of-dickheads role, Kyle O'Reilly in particular. Between this match and that Pete Dunne match on Wednesday, Kyle is becoming one of my favourites to watch. He's on a brilliant roll of awesome in-ring performances. Same goes for Oney Lorcan, actually. He was the most faceless, boring guy when he first came in but he's done a great job of getting himself over by sprinting his way through great matches. It's super fun to watch him running around like a maniac, smashing himself and everyone around him to fuck. That bump to the apron was brutal though! Jesus Christ. Really fun finish, although it was ruined a bit by how loudly the ref was counting them down. I imagine even John Cena would've tutted at how obviously the ref shouted, "ONE MINUTE!" right near the end. Still, great stuff. I fucking love Velveteen Dream so, so much. Everything he does shows a grasp of this business that almost no-one else displays. Even just lying on the announcer's table when Ricochet made his entrance. Awesome. Loved the Hogan-inspired outfit. However, I imagine Hulk's team are absolutely shitting themselves over the idea of someone interviewing Hulk and asking what he thinks about this black kid paying tribute to him. I also loved Dream's Prince Puma-style tights. I don't imagine more than a couple of thousand people would even get that reference but that's what makes it so great, the fact that there's subtleties and layers there for people who notice. Great, great stuff. The match itself was good, turning great in the last few minutes, but you can still tell that for how much he's nailing everything else, Dream still has improvements to make between the ropes. Ricochet on the other hand looks like the full package and I'm sure he'll have some absolute crackers when he starts mixing it up with the truly experienced guys on the NXT roster. Much like Dream, Shayna continues to be off to the races in terms of character and presence, but still lacking in the ring. Don't get me wrong, you can see she's improved loads, but she's still got a way to go. This was still another fun match though, and I thought the finish was perfect. Nikki grinning as she goes unconscious was really clever. Hopefully this was Nikki's swan song and they've decided to bring her in with Sanity on Smackdown. It'll be a shame if they bring them in without her. I think she's great and adds loads to the act. Reports from the arena were that someone had a beach ball during the women's match, but the crowd booed it and then someone popped it to cheers. Good. Fuck off with your beach balls. I'd never seen Keith Lee before but I liked his happy face. He looked like a friendly neighbour in a Disney Channel sitcom. Looking him up online, I've seen a few GIFs of him chucking people about and doing daft dives for a man of his size, so I look forward to seeing him in action. World Title match was the worst match on the card. I didn't believe for a second that Black was losing, and then the botched Black Mass took the wind right out of it. Probably Black's worst match in NXT so far. Just dull, more than anything else. The main event was phenomenal. Maybe my match of the year. That last ten minutes or so was mind-blowing. This feud has been so great, and both guys have played their roles so perfectly, that seeing Johnny trying to murder a handcuffed Ciampa was some of the most cathartic, engrossing, dramatic story-telling this company has ever done. It was like that Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose Hell In A Cell match, only this time they didn't fuck everything up by having Bray Wyatt's ghost interfere. Honestly, Gargano could've broken his neck or something and it still would've felt satisfying. That's how good of a job Tommaso has done in this feud. Spitting on the guy's wedding ring! Amazing! And the PPV ending to chants of "Fuck you Ciampa!" Incredible! He's the heel of the year. Johnny is babyface of the year and this is feud of the year without question. Perfect finish, too. Hopefully they do at least one more match together. In an ideal world, Johnny would sell that DDT for a couple of months, they'd put the belt on Ciampa and then they'd have one more match for the Title. In fact, knowing how Triple H books, where everything builds and makes sense, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this results in a Hell in A Cell match or something. One thing that made me  laugh was when Tommaso took his T-shirt off and you could hear the referee audibly tell him not to choke Johnny with it, as if someone in the back was panicking about there being a Daniel-Bryan-Nexus-Invasion incident. I love how these two can try and end each other's lives in every other way possible but choking still isn't allowed. Surely, if sponsors don't want to see people getting choked then they're probably not going to be too happy with this, either: One more thing - the referee holding up Tommaso's lifeless, handcuffed hand and shouting, "winner!" as he slumped out of the ring was pitch perfect. What a visual. So brilliant. So yeah, that main event was awesome, this show was awesome and pro-wrestling is awesome. Jinder vs. Roman tomorrow. LOL. Edited June 17, 2018 by Supremo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LWOLeN Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 (edited) Fun show. Good storytelling again in the matches. The NXT roster has real depth. Sullivan vs Black was pretty solid. Good stuff. To bad about Lars’ rookie mistake. Misses happen to the best, but why the fuck did Lars sell it...Adrenaline I guess.....However, they rebounced with a brutal finish which popped the crowd bigtime. Velveteen Dream vs Ricochet was my match of the night.  Edited June 17, 2018 by LWOLeN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CavemanLynn Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 My god, you really don't get matches like Ciampa vs Gargano on the main roster. I'm not talking about the execution or the violence, but the MOMENTS. Ciampa walking Gargano up the ramp. The wedding ring. The raised hands in handcuffs. On the main roster, they would've had a straight tit for tat brawl with a screwy finish straight out of a textbook, then a promo the next week with both guys unscathed to try and get the story its heat back. This whole feud has been the perfect blend of action and angles, and both in-ring. Would the main roster rule of clean-cut good guys have prevented them from doing anything like Johnny's revenge beatdown? Maybe. But great matches, history, continuity, real-life injuries, real-life personalities, social media, even the selection of silence instead of entrance music - is there any part of this angle they haven't nailed?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snitsky's back acne Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 I think the main event definitely shows the difference between HHH and Vince as bookers. I guarantee neither Ciampa or Gargano would get over on the main roster. Vince would have no idea what to do with them. 'What' this 'Johnny Wrestling' thing, pal?' and would have lost patience in the feud 10 months ago. As it is, HHH has taken two talented but 'ordinary' guys with no OTT gimmick' and turned them into arguably the two most over wrestlers in the entire WWE/NXT umbrella. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dopper Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 I'm also an Undisputed convert. I had no interest in them at all for their first 6 months or so but O'Reilly has done a huge turnaround to become one of the most enjoyable wrestlers to watch on the roster. What's even more impressive with last night's tag match was the way the four of them managed to turn the crowd around. At the start Undisputed were massively cheered and Lorcan/Burch was heavily booed. Mid-match they had managed to turn that around. I swear since Blake & Murphy won the tag titles in early 2015 there has not been one signel bad Tag Title match on a Takeover in the 3 years that followed.  In the main event I really liked the way they set up a few really big spots, bluffed us, spent enough time on other stuff for us to forget about those spots, then come back to them and do something different. Gargano wedged a trash can in the corner between the top & middle ropes, then attempted to do his lawn dart throw to Ciampa into it. Ciampa countered and they moved on, then 10 minutes later Ciampa pushed Gargano into that corner. Same with tearing up the mat and exposing the boards. Ciampa wanted to slam Gargano into it from the corner, then Gargano tried to counter that bump off the top rope but also failed. A few minutes later, we got the match-ending DDT on to it.  Remembering how indifferent I was to Gargano & Ciampa when they debuted and started working as a team, compared to how much I love them both now - I wonder when (not if) this will happen again. For all we know; Rowe vs Hanson, O'Reilly vs Fish, or Thorne vs Miller could be a main event feud in 18 months' time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awards Moderator HarmonicGenerator Posted June 17, 2018 Awards Moderator Share Posted June 17, 2018 Another very good show. Not my favourite TakeOver, but I can virtually guarantee I'll have enjoyed that a lot more than I will MITB tomorrow. If I even watch MITB tomorrow! Ricochet vs. Dream was very good indeed, I thought Black vs. Lars was good too. Thought it showed a different side to Aleister we haven't really seen much of yet. Main event was excellent, shocking, dramatic, head-in-hands hands-over-mouth stuff throughout. Can't decide if it tops New Orleans or is its equal ... but how does this end?! How does either of them move on from this while they're both in NXT? Agree that a third and final match for the title is a way to go. Like Supremo said, that's your heel, babyface and feud of the year. The sad thing is knowing how badly they'll probably all fare on the main roster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CavemanLynn Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 It's easy to credit HHH for NXT's quality, but he can't be creating everything, can he? Is it freer rein given to the talent, Bloom and Regal, or some other production team? The bigger feuds I've no doubt get the OK from Trips, but there's no way he's coming up with little moments of magic like TM61 nope-ing Lars' PC rampage, or telling Ricochet just flip over the top rope and land on your feet, dead casual like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pol_pot_rick Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 16 hours ago, Supremo said: I also loved Dream's Prince Puma-style tights. The pants were literally Ricochet's. From the "Wait! I know who you are!" match in PWG. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winston Posted June 17, 2018 Share Posted June 17, 2018 Undisputed Era have really found their groove recently. I found them all so vanilla to begin with but everything's clicked lately. Especially Kyle O'Reilly. Personality is bursting out of him just now. Hope they keep them altogether for a while, their the coolest stable and closest thing to a Bullet Club they have. The name is shit though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Statto Posted June 17, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted June 17, 2018 9 hours ago, HarmonicGenerator said: ... but how does this end?! How does either of them move on from this while they're both in NXT? I’m not sure they can, which is why if it was up to me I’d have Gargano conclusively win whatever the rubber match is (in an extremely brutal fashion, of course) then move up, following which you have Ciampa come back to NXT and give it the deluded “I ran Johnny Wrestling out of NXT!” schtick. In another situation you could have Regal state that this has to end & put a stip on the rubber match that the winner gets promoted as they clearly can’t coexist in NXT, but I think an NXT audience would shit all over that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boytoy Posted June 18, 2018 Share Posted June 18, 2018 I much prefer the shorter show and booking style of NXT. The stories are told within the matches and feuds are moved on by what happens in the ring. This is a big difference from the main roster were the matches just happen and the feud is moved on by other means. I could follow a Raw/Smackdown feud by not watching any of the matches for the most part. All of the matches on this card told a story in the ring which is a big part of why Takeover is so unmissable. There are lots of decent matches on the main show cards but very few of them seem to matter in the same way that Takeover matches do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Accident Prone Posted June 18, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted June 18, 2018 16 hours ago, pol_pot_rick said: The pants were literally Ricochet's. From the "Wait! I know who you are!" match in PWG. Great stuff! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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