wrestling / TV Reports
Tremendous Tirades: NXT Takeover Fatal 4-Way
Introduction
As a reminder, this will not be another traditional recap, but instead it will be a mash up of the Rs, Instant Analysis and my usual Twitter ramblings I would do during the shows; completely uncensored and as the ideas flow unfiltered to the old keyboard. Remember, this is a review; and I am here to review the show. As always, I encourage discussion and even disagreement, just do so in a respectful manner. I will be doing the review for Raw and most PPVs and iPPVs going forward.
NXT Takeover: Fatal 4-Way
OFFICIAL RESULTS
NXT Tag Team Title Match: The Ascension © vs. Kalisto and Sin Cara: We got a short video recap of the tag team tournament, showing the road to the title match for Kalisto and Cara. At the first Takeover event, Kalisto and El Local challenged for the titles. Local got released and Kalisto moved onto Sin Cara (version Hunico). The Ascension have been tag champion for 344 days, unfortunately the tag division in NXT has been a weak point for a long time. The Ascension gets a lot of shit, they are rough, but are also fun in that 80s bruising tag team sort of way. Unlike the first Takeover event, Kalisto got the hot tag and got to shine with his high paced, and simply fun offense. The guy is built for that stuff. The heat on Cara was a bit slow, but they got to the hot tag just before it became boring, and it worked as Kalisto got to shine. Cara was able to cut off the champions before they could use the Fall of Man, leading to Kalisto hitting Salina Del Sol for the win and titles. Overall a fine opening match, I was personally hoping for a bit more, but it was good and the title change was a nice way to kick off the show and get the crowd into things. They will be a fun team to have working on the shows, and The Ascension is likely main roster bound sooner rather than later. This was a solid way to open the show.
CJ Parker vs. Baron Corbin: Corbin is making his official debut here, he’s tall and tattooed up. He destroyed unmotivated Carlito with dreadlocks in under a minute. SQUASH. This was fine for his debut.
Hair vs. Hair Match: Sylvester Lefort vs. Enzo Amore: I really hope that this is good, because I am not a fan of wasting the “Hair vs. Hair” stipulation on comedy low carders. It’s not that I dislike the guys or comedy, but I think some things should be saved and made important. Enzo and Cas did like three minutes of promo work, discussing possible haircuts for Lefort, “how you doin” and SAWFT. Louis tried to get involved, Big Cas cut him off and Enzo score the win with a roll up (with the tights) in about 6-minutes. The was not very good and neither guy did anything to make me care about them. Post match, Lefort ran away from his haircut, so they poured the bucket of stuff on Louis instead. Way to NOT pay off on the stipulation, making this match even more of a waste. Seriously, unless they come back later to shave Lefort, they fucked the viewers on the stipulation.
Mojo Rawley vs. Bull Dempsey: Thank God they did not try to wrestle, and I say that for a few reasons. They hate each other and vowed to beat the hell out of each other. Mojo charged the ring, they beat the piss out of each other, Mojo got busted open, and Dempsey finished him off with the top rope head butt. Get in, get out and don’t suck. I was perfectly fine with this.
NXT Women’s Title Match: Charlotte © vs. Bayley : I love Bayley because she’s completely different than the other women they try to develop, and you completely buy that it is her personality. She almost feels like a CHKARA comedy figure, but comes across in the ring as a sympathetic 80s Crockett baby face. The other thing is that she is the polar opposite of someone like Charlotte, making her easy to root for and support. Lots of counters and reversals to pinning attempts, Bayley would get close and then cut off immediately. I thought that they told a simple, but good story around the overconfident champion facing the never say die baby face. I always feel that it is not IF you lose but HOW you lose, and feel that the way they booked Bayley was great. She took everything the champion had, she came close, and the champion had to use everything in her arsenal to secure the win and defend the title. While not at the level of Natalya vs. Charlotte, this was easily the best thing on the show so far, had a good pace, crowd reactions and the ladies have had good matches on every NXT special so far. The only negative is that Charlotte seems to have no set heel/face identity to me.
NXT Title Match: Adrian Neville © vs. Sami Zayn vs. Tyson Kidd vs. Tyler Breeze: On paper this has a ton of potential, Zayn and Breeze had a very good match on the last special, while Neville and Kidd also had a good match on that same show. Speaking of those matches, they paired of that way to begin the match in a nice nod to continuity. There was a fun moment when Zayn stole the phone and took a selfie, mocking Breeze. Lots of brawling on the floor early on, Neville got taken out, allowing Breeze and Kidd to dominate super baby face Sami Zayn. The story of the match was beating on Zayn while keeping Neville on the floor. They teased Zayn vs. Neville for almost 14-minutes and they finally got to battle, but were then cut off by Kidd. Breeze got some near falls late as he ran wild with the beauty shot, superkick and dropkick. They busted out the tower of doom spot, Zayn ran wild, Neville went for the red arrow and connected to Zayn, but Breeze tossed him to the floor and covered for a close 2. Crowd bought that near fall big time. Zayn ran wild late, crazy dive sending Neville into the crowd, a tornado DDT to Breeze on the floor and the big kick to Kidd, but Neville pulled out the ref. Neville would superkick Zayn, and then hit the red arrow on Kidd to retain at 23:00. For all of Neville’s noble talk of wanting to prove himself and defend the title against all four, he heeled on Zayn to get the win. In some ways this was your basic WWE four-way, one on one with guys getting tossed to the floor constantly, which while it worked in some ways, because repetitive and frustrating at times early on. They did some really great stuff late and it turned into a really fun match when all was said and done. I was worried early on, but they turned it around and delivered. Breeze keeps improving, Kidd is a great veteran to work with these guys, Zayn is the super face, and now with the way Neville won, there is depth to his character.
The Tirade
The first half of the card was ok, and I was hoping that the last two matches would really deliver to take the show to the next level. NJPW does that a lot, and I have no problem with building a show that way when it works. While this show didn’t achieve as much as the previous efforts in the ring, it ended up a good show. The Ascension lost the tag team titles and got taken out by Hideo Itami in what appeared to be their “leaving the territory” exit for the main roster. Bull Dempsey destroyed Mojo and looks primed for bigger things, and the debut of Baron Corbin was solid as he destroyed his opponent quickly. Charlotte vs. Bayley was good, and the NXT ladies continue to show their stuff well on these specials. The main event delivered, and the twist with Neville at the end worked very well. Zayn is the perfect baby face, the fans love him and continue to root for him not matter what. The elephant in the room is the Hair vs. Hair Match. It was not good, and they did not deliver on the stipulation. That’s bullshit, and took away from the show for me. If you have to do that match with the guys, pay off the stipulation, Lefort did not lose his hair, so it’s bullshit.Overall this was not nearly at the level of the previous two events, and an overall let down to me a bit due to the weak undercard and the lack of stipulation pay off. Check out the main event, it’s fun and enjoyable, and should be fun to see where they go form here.
Show Rating: 7.0
As a reminder, I will be going by the 411 scale…
0 – 0.9: Torture
1 – 1.9: Extremely Horrendous
2 – 2.9: Very Bad
3 – 3.9: Bad
4 – 4.9: Poor
5 – 5.9: Not So Good
6 – 6.9: Average
7 – 7.9: Good
8 – 8.9:Very Good
9 – 9.9: Amazing
10: Virtually PerfectAs a reminder, this is not a basic “how good was the show” number like a TV show, as I have always felt that a PPV is very different from a regular show. I have always judged PPV on how they built to a match, the match quality, crowd reactions to matches and angles, the overall booking, how the PPV leads into the future, PPV price and so on and so forth. I have added this in here for an explanation since so many have asked, and I have previously discussed it on podcasts. I understand that this may seem different, but that is how I grade. Obviously your criteria may be different.
Larry Csonka is a Pisces and enjoys rolling at jiu jitsu class with Hotty McBrownbelt, cooking, long walks on the beach, Slingo and the occasional trip to Jack in the Box. He is married to a soulless ginger and has two beautiful daughters who are thankfully not soulless gingers; and is legally allowed to marry people in 35 states. He has been a wrestling fan since 1982 and has been writing for 411 since May 24th, 2004; contributing over 3,000 columns, TV reports and video reviews to the site.
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