wrestling / TV Reports
Zen Arcade Reviews: NXT Takeover: Respect
Loading...It’s been a fairly low-key build to this edition of Takeover. The Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic has largely carried the men’s side of things, while the big build-up has all been given to the Bayley vs. Sasha Banks Ironwoman match. Obviously that isn’t a bad thing, but this show doesn’t feel quite as balanced as others have. It’s kind of nice to have such a big main event, though.
We are LIVE from Full Sail University in Orlando, FL
Your hosts are Rich Brennan, Corey Graves, and Byron Saxton.
Finn Balor & Samoa Joe vs. Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder
Dash and Dawson have been the darkhorses in this tournament, beating the champs in the Vaudevillains as well as just sitting under the radar while the other teams have gotten a larger spotlight. Balor and Joe were thrown together pretty much to give them both something to do, and it’s turned out to be a pretty fun side-mission of sorts for both guys as they work towards what I’m assuming is going to be an awesome title feud.
Dash Wilder boots Balor out of the ring before the bell rings, but Joe saves the day and corners Wilder with the punch combo. Dawson saves Wilder from a corner splash, and uses that to get early control of Joe. Balor recovers and gets an early hot tag, cleaning house of Dash and Dawson, finishing it off with a beautiful Tope Con Hilo onto both men. Dawson dodges the Coup De Grace and goes after Finn’s leg, and now Finn’s the one in peril. Dawson and Wilder do a good job of picking apart Finn’s leg here, it must be said. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s sound psychology and a nice old-school touch. Dawson slaps on a Single Leg Crab, and after a struggle, Finn finds the ropes. Balor manages to take out both Dash and Dawson, but Dash’s resourcefulness in taking Joe off of the apron allows a little more headway for he and Scott Dawson. Finn again is able to use his speed to get out of the way of more abuse on his leg, and after a tease, he finally tags in Samoa Joe, who drops Wilder with a powerslam and an ST-Joe! Joe sets Dash up for the Muscle Buster, and he hits it. Finn tags in and hits an ill-advised Coup De Grace, and that gets Balor and Joe to the finals in 10 minutes. *** I can’t find much to complain about here, if we’re honest. Finn Balor was a tremendous face-in-peril, and Dash & Dawson were even better in taking him apart. Not many tag teams in 2015 will make a conscious effort to isolate their opponent like Dash and Dawson did to Finn, and you have to give them marks for psychology based on that alone. They worked like well-oiled machines, staying active even in the slower portions of the match. Finn sold the knee very well, even if he did take a risk with the Coup De Grace. The best part about that though, is that the commentary as well as Joe’s reaction to his desire to tag in was that of concern, which goes a long way to keep that story going. And it’s not like Finn no-sold it either. The match was a bit short to really be something memorable, but I liked it all the same. I’m looking forward to seeing more of Dash and Dawson.
Nice little promotion of NXT’s shows at the Louder Than Life festival.
Jason Jordan & Chad Gable vs. Baron Corbin & Rhyno
I mean, if you’re gonna focus on your tag division, you could do a lot worse than build around Jordan and Gable.
Jordan and Mouth Belly start things off, and Jordan attempts to use his wrestling acumen to get the upperhand. Baron’s strength is too much in the earlygoing, but not before Jordan shows some pretty gnarly agility by countering a hiptoss. Rhyno tags in and falls to the same wrestling skill Baron did, and here comes Chad Gable. The NXT fans are CHANTING GABLE’S NAME TO THE TUNE OF KURT ANGLE’S THEME! That is fantastic. Rhyno uses his strength to come out on top of Gable, just like Baron did Jason Jordan. Jordan comes in to help Gable out with Rhyno, and soon after, Gable comes down with a cross armbreaker over the top rope on Rhyno! Rhyno heaves Gable outside, where Corbin ragdolls him into the apron and takes over. Mouth Belly’s restholds are just the worst. But it’s all good, as the crowd trots out a “Save The Gable” chant. I mean, I know the Full Sail crowd has its bad moments, but they’re on fire tonight. Rhyno tags in and looks for a diving headbutt, but Gable dodges it and tags in a fired up Jason Jordan! Jordan cleans house big time, shitcanning Rhyno and hitting Corbin with a nifty spinning back suplex and a huge spear into the corner. Corbin fights back and hits a HUGE Bossman Slam onto Gable! Jordan saves, but Rhyno drops him with a belly-to-belly! CHAOS THEORY FROM CHAD GABLE! Rhyno breaks it up! That was incredible. RHYNO GORES JORDAN! END OF DAYS BY CORBIN! That gets the win at the 10 minute mark. ***1/4 I REALLY hate that booking, but man alive, this was an awesome match. It gives weight to my theory that Baron Corbin would be a great heavy in a tag team, as he more than kept up in the faster portions of this match and earned his keep. Now don’t get me wrong, Jordan and Gable should have won this, but they looked incredible the entire match (especially Chad Gable) and didn’t come off as enhancement talent like they would have on the main roster. If NXT is smart, they’re the tag champs in 2 months, but I can deal with their loss here. Corbin and Rhyno more than held up their end in a really good match that could have used a bit more time.
Asuka vs. Dana Brooke
This has been built really well on NXT, it must be said. They were able to put Asuka over big-time by just talking her up, while Dana and Emma’s reactions to her were top notch. I have faith that the rapidly-improving Dana is going to show up big time here, too. It’s nothing complex, but everyone’s done a great job getting me excited to see Asuka kick the taunt spamming out of Dana’s head.
Asuka offers her hand, but Dana shoves it out of the way and squares up. Asuka does a great job of keeping a hammerlock on a speedy Dana, who breaks it and pats Asuka’s head like a dick. And she decides to slap her for good measure, which earns her a barrage of slaps to the face and a great “You Fucked Up” chant from Full Sail. Dana isn’t backing down, as Asuka grabs a Fujiwara Armbar and Dana is able to get to the ropes. Asuka lays in a few hard kicks to Dana’s back, and Dana gets the fuck out of Dodge. Asuka follows her out, but Emma traps her in the ring apron and lets Dana take control. Asuka fights back and puts in Ankle Lock, turning it into a German Suplex! FLYING CROSS ARMBREAKER! Asuka is just constant with her transitioning of these holds. It’s kind of hard to call. She drops Dana with a roundhouse kick, and smacks Emma off the apron for good measure. Asuka Lock (Crossface Chickenwing) gives Asuka the win in 6 minutes. **1/2 This is about as good of a debut as you can ask out of Asuka. She was really phenomenal in this match. The speed and fluidity of her strikes and submissions are one-of-a-kind and I don’t think there’s a woman under the WWE umbrella as purely fast as her. You have to give a great amount of credit to Dana Brooke for keeping up too, as you can tell how much she’s improved in a short amount of time. She was in place for all the major spots, and got to show off her very underrated athleticism in the earlygoing. Make no mistake about it though, this was the Asuka Show and Dana Brooke happened to be the poor woman who got to see it first.
Dana figures it a good idea to mess with Asuka more, which earns her a spinning kick to the head. Emma is a bit wiser, as she just looks away as Asuka smiles in her face. Asuka’s music is tremendous, by the way.
Woohoo, more Susan G. Komen. I mean, if WWE wants to jerk themselves off for being charitable, can we like, not do it with Komen? I feel like they kind of defeat the purpose of being charitable.
Meanwhile, Finn Balor’s knee is still hurt.
Tyler Breeze vs. Apollo Crews
This is really the only match on this show that I felt was under-developed, as it feels like they’re kind of cruising on auto-pilot with both guys and they didn’t give this match much build aside from a few backstage segments. Either way, this should be a great match so I don’t know why I’m complaining.
It’s all Apollo to begin, as he has the upperhand both in and out of the ring. Breeze tugs at Apollo’s kneepads to get him out of his way, eventually using it to pull Apollo out of the ring. Breeze follows up by shoving Apollo into the apron, and Crews takes a MEAN bump doing it. Breeze hits that nice Cutthroat Lungblower for a two count. Breeze heads to the top rope, but Apollo puts the kibosh on that and brings him back down to earth. Tyler fights back and slaps on a Sharpshooter of all things. Crews uses his strength to grasp at the ropes, however. Crews fights back and drops Breeze with a nice enzuigiri. Apollo limps over to Breeze and tries to hop over him from the apron, but his back gives out on him, which allows for Breeze to hit him with a Supermodel Kick. I like the back psychology. Breeze hits the Jericho springboard dropkick, which sends Crews onto the apron. Breeze tries to follow up with a crossbody, but Apollo counters with a powerslam in mid-air. Breeze gets his knees up on the standing moonsault and neeeearly gets the win with a small package, but Apollo manages to kick out. Apollo brains Breeze with a pump kick and hits a beautiful back suplex into a powerbomb. That gets the win in 9 minutes. *** This was a bit short, but they packed a really good, psychologically sound match into their less-than-generous time allowance. Apollo finally got to branch out beyond squash matches and the results were as good as I thought they were going to be. He got to show off his impressive moveset, and that cool powerbomb is hopefully going to be his finisher from now on. The standing moonsault is cool, but it’s a transition move at the most and a big anti-climax. As I said, they could have benefited from about 6-7 more minutes to really produce something memorable, but they didn’t cruise through their 9 minutes, so they’re rewarded as such.
Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Finals: Finn Balor & Samoa Joe vs. Baron Corbin & Rhyno
This has been a pretty awesome little tournament, even if the finals match isn’t what I personally would have written. Even so, it’s hard to complain about the quality of the tournament overall as I’m sure my bias is clouding my thoughts a bit.
Finn Balor starts the match, which astounds the commentators, who have done a fantastic job all night. Yes, even Byron Saxton. It’s almost like good commentary can enhance the product and tell productive stories! Balor is able to start relatively unscathed, as he is able to hold his own until he tags in Joe. Corbin hits a Tree Slam on Joe, raining down punches afterwards for a two count. Rhyno tags in and works over Joe. Balor tags and tries to clean house, but his knee isn’t having it. It doesn’t help that Rhyno blindsides him and chop blocks him on the apron. Baron uses his partner’s actions to keep abusing Finn’s knee in the ring. Balor hits the Bossman Slam on Finn for a two count. Say what you will about Mouthbelly, but his Bossman Slam is pretty awesome. He’s also doing a pretty good job of dissecting Balor without meandering or resting. Balor is able to power up and hit Corbin with a Slingblade, and he makes it to Joe, who goes wild on Rhyno. Both Rhyno and Corbin eat an ST-Joe, but Rhyno hits a GORE! Finn breaks it up! Finn DDT’s Corbin and punts him in the chest from the apron! Joe kicks a running Rhyno and hits him with a Musclebuster. Coup De Grace from Finn gets he and Joe the win and the Trophy in 12 minutes. *** When it comes to psychology, this whole night has been great. Finn’s selling of the knee has been especially, doing an excellent job of garnering sympathy when anybody worked him over. None of these tag matches have been MOTYC’s or anything, but they HAVE been full of delightfully old-school, 80’s style booking and that’s something NXT excels at. Simple but compelling storytelling that doesn’t need its fans to keep a diary to keep up with it all. I’d personally have put Jordan and Gable over Finn and Joe here, but as a feel-good segment of storytelling, there’s not much wrong with what this Tag Team Classic did.
Cody Rhodes takes the mic as the celebration begins. Cody says they can’t run from Dusty’s death, but they can remember and respect his legacy. Cody says for tonight, everyone is apart of the Rhodes Family. That was a nice little promo.
30 Minute IronMan Match for the NXT Women’s Championship: Bayley © vs. Sasha Banks
For my money, this has been Feud of the Year for 2015. It’s an easy road to redemption story, but Bayley is the best babyface in the company and her likability and charisma makes simple feuds like this into something massively compelling. Little things like spotlighting her relationship with her #1 fan go a long way toward making her a universally likable figure and perhaps a potential drawing card in the future. NXT has also done an incredible job of making this match feel HUGE. The video packages chronicling their training were a great touch, as was the fact that they got HEAVY promotion going into this one. Instead of telling us this is a revolution, Triple H and NXT have just let these women grow organically and wedge their way into our hearts because of their work. We like them because they’re awesome, not because Stephanie McMahon tells us they are. And I suppose it helps that their match at Takeover: Brooklyn is in my top 3 for Match of the Year. I just love everything about this feud and NXT has given them a huge canvas to perhaps even top their Brooklyn effort. My body is ready.
Words really can’t describe how big this match feels. Even down to the little character details like Bayley wearing the Iron Man colors and Sasha wearing the colors she debuted in. The commentary is going a long way to put this over too. It’s a tentative start, of course, as neither girl wants to throw caution to the wind in such a long match. Sasha goes for a quick pinfall with a variety of holds, but can’t get Bayley down. Bayley tries the same strategy, but Sasha has it scouted. Nonetheless, they both try valiantly for pinfalls in the earlygoing. Sasha has the upperhand when it comes to submissions, but Bayley drops her with some Japanese armdrags… that Sasha falls directly on her head for. She appears to be okay though, as she gives Bayley a tilt-a-whirl headscissors. Sasha comes down with an armdrag off of the top rope, sending the champ into the apron. She can’t quite hit the Bank Statement, but she gets out of Bayley-to-Belly. Bayley helps her up, but Sasha fakes her out and throws her down. Bayley isn’t happy about using a hug to get the upperhand, so she takes Sasha down with a variety of moves, sending her out of the ring. Sasha tries to use the ropes to get a pinfall, but the referee susses her out and stops it. Sasha gives Bayley a thumb to the eyes and rolls her up for the first pinfall 8:30 into the match. Sasha is up 1-0.
Bayley isn’t happy about that, and she smashes Sasha into the turnbuckle. Bayley winds up to do it again, but Sasha trips her face-first into the second turnbuckle instead. Sasha sets Bayley up for the double knees, but Bayley catches her and hits Snake Eyes. Sasha fights back by countering an Alley Oop and forearming Bayley. Bayley catches Sasha out of nowhere with Bayley-to-Belly for her first point at the 11 minute mark. We are tied 1-1.
Bayley tries to follow up with the dropkick under the turnbuckles, but Sasha catches her and ragdolls her into the steel steps! Sasha throws the champ out and just ragdolls her into them some more, right in front of Izzy! Sasha MOUTHS OFF TO IZZY! UBER HEEL! That’s tremendous. Sasha bides some time by throwing Bayley out again, deciding to THROW HER INTO THE VIDEO SCREEN! Sasha mouths off more to Izzy as she gets into the ring. The ref counts Bayley out to put Sasha up 2-1.
Sasha STEALS IZZY’S BOW as she taunts Bayley from the ring. That’s incredible. We’re fifteen minutes into the match now. Bayley slinks into the ring, and Sasha gives her a backbreaker. Sasha looks for a Liontamer and she stomps Bayley in the head for good measure. If you find me a better heel in wrestling than Sasha Banks in this match, you watch a lot more wrestling than I. Bayley rolls Sasha up for a surprise fall 17 minutes into the match. We’re tied 2-2.
Sasha is stil the fresher competitor however, and she looks for the double knees to Bayley’s back. Bayley dodges it and begins to make her comeback. Bayley gets a nearfall off of some weird spinning Flatliner thing that was probably botched, and she builds up a head of steam with spears into the corner. Bayley comes down with a spinning elbow off of the top rope for another nearfall. Bayley puts Sasha into the Tree of Woe, hitting the step-up elbow for another two count. Bayley puts Sasha on the top rope, but Sasha slides under and puts Bayley in the Tree of Woe herself, hitting a step-up double knee drop for two. Bayley struggles up as Sasha runs into the ringpost, sending the Boss outside and allowing the champ to recover. Bayley goes after Sasha’s arm and hand by smashing it on the steel steps, a great callback to the Brooklyn match. Bayley moves the stairs and sets them up for something, jumping onto them and coming down onto Sasha with a clothesline! Sasha kicks Bayley into the steps however, and we’re at a stalemate outside. BAYLEY CATCHES A TOPE SUICIDA FROM SASHA! BAYLEY TO BELLY ON THE OUTSIDE! SASHA KICKS OUT! Bayley sets Sasha on the top rope, but Sasha bats her down. BAYLEY STEPS UP FOR A SUPER BAYLEY TO BELLY! SASHA’S FOOT IS ON THE ROPE! Bayley tries to set Sasha’s corpse on the second rope, and looks for A SUPER REVERSE FRANKENSTEINER… BUT SASHA COUNTERS! BAYLEY TO BELLY FROM SASHA! BAYLEY KICKS OUT! BANK STATEMENT ON BAYLEY! SASHA ROLLS OUT INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE RING! BAYLEY WORKS THE HAND TO GET OUT! BAYLEY ROLLS THROUGH THE BANK STATEMENT INTO AN ARM SUBMISSION! SASHA TAPS! Bayley retains the title with a 3-2 score. ****1/2 What can you really say about these girls? What words can I say that would even begin to do this entire thing justice? Sure, I could talk about Sasha Banks and her heel performance. I could talk about how she took a young girl’s headband and taunted her, making her cry as she circled a hurt Bayley like a vulture. And yeah, there’s something to be said about how simply incredible Bayley is at being a babyface. Her facial expressions, her demeanor, and her wrestling. All of it. But what can I say that really matters in the grand scheme of things? All I’m going to say is the following: in my opinion, this match topped the Brooklyn match. It was a grander, grittier match than its predecessor. The face/heel lines were incredibly defined. The sometimes contrarian Full Sail crowd, who didn’t want to boo Sasha Banks, were forced to. Sasha, for thirty minutes, gave the best heel performance I can recall seeing in years. She was disrespectful, she was petty, and she was badass. Ultimately, Bayley was the better athlete. The story of Sasha Banks being somewhat of an underdog, stooping to shockingly low levels to win her belt back, is just grand psychology. It shows these girls are human, and have goals in their lives… and they’ll go about achieving their goals by any means necessary. Unless something huge pops up in the next two months, I don’t see how this is topped for Feud of the Year. It was about as perfect as you could ask for, anchored by two historically great matches that I’m certain will hold up a year from now. Just incredible.
The roster pours out of the locker room to congratulate the girls on their effort. They give flowers to Sasha, who breaks down and cries as William Regal hands her the bouquet. They give her a standing ovation as Triple H steps into the ring and hugs Bayley and gives her hers. Hunter raises her hand in the ring and the whole building gives her a huge ovation. Featuring a Sara Del Rey cameo!
You can’t manufacture moments like these, guys. What Bayley and Sasha did here is not something Stephanie McMahon can force on us. This is something that came because these girls—and the women they work with—are some of the best talents in the world. They gave us matches like Natalya vs. Charlotte, Becky vs. Sasha, the Four Way at Takeover: Rival, Bayley vs. Sasha I, and this match. It took three years of consistent, logical booking and some incredible talents to create moments like these, but we got there. These moments… they’re organic. They can’t be forced upon a wrestling audience who decides what THEY want, not the other way around. Moments like this are why we are wrestling fans. We don’t need hashtags and ‘movements’ to be touched by wrestling. We need wrestlers who want in their heart of hearts to give us what they crave as fans. And Bayley and Sasha Banks did that tonight. They showed every single person in the world that they aren’t the Kelly Kelly’s and Jillian Hall’s of year’s past. They wrestled two of the best matches of 2015 because they’re simply that good. Thank you NXT for reminding me why I still continue to watch wrestling after years of disappointments and apathy. As Max Landis said; a lot of wrestling sucks, but when it’s good, it’s fucking great. And it doesn’t get any better than this.
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