Hey Yo: The Outsider’s Take on NXT Takeover: Brooklyn IV

I should say, I’m a bit out of the loop. I’ve got episodes of Impact, Lucha Underground, MLW, New Japan, and SmackDown all sitting in the DVR, wondering when they’re going to get to see the light of day. I hope to let them breathe soon, that much is for sure. However, the fact remains that, outside of luckily catching SummerSlam and NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn IV last week, and a little bit of the RAW that followed, this columnist has not been able to keep up with things as he’d like.

That said, it’s not a total loss. TakeOver allowed me to finally catch an act that intrigued me, but had yet to actually see perform due to my unable-to-watch-NXT-at-my-leisure status that I’ve gone over in the past, and really isn’t interesting enough to cover again. That act would be Trent Seven and Tyler Bate, collectively known as Mustache Mountain.

As I fired up the NXT Tag Team Championship match between Mustache Mountain and The Undisputed Era’s Roderick Strong and Kyle O’Reilly, I had already heard that the match was incredible. I already knew who won. I was just happy to see the two teams go at it, and witness the match about which people raved.

And slowly, as the time wore on, I realized something: Mustache Mountain is my new favorite tag team, and Tyler Bate rules the whole fucking world.

In the little I’d seen about him (very, very little), I had assumed that he was more in the vein of your “typical” UK wrestler, with all sorts of suplexes and odd joint holds. And man, I hope everyone that is familiar with him had a good laugh at how off my take was. The man, quite simply, is incredible. Fluid motion at all times, incredible aerial ability, and a truckload of strength to go with it all.

I’m sitting there, going nuts about how dope this guy (and this team, no disrespect to Trent Seven here, who is also freaking rad), someone then says “Yeah, and it’s nuts to think that he’s only 21 years old!”

Tyler Bate is the future. This dude is going to own the whole wrestling world if he can let his star shine as brightly as possible. And yes, I’m well aware that I’m just now stumbling upon a “secret” that quite a few people have already known quite well. Just let me enjoy it, yeah? It’s cool having a new favorite to cheer.

I then enjoyed the match between Velveteen Dream and EC3. Coming off the twenty minutes of hard-hitting insanity that Mustache Mountain and The Undisputed Era provided, these two wrestled a slower match, but one that still entertained. I had EC3 easily winning this, as he’s the best guy here, there, and everywhere, and it had seemed that Velveteen Dream was becoming a bit of a choke-artist in his bigger matches.

Dream, to his credit, came through with a great performance, and the stunning victory, ending things with his absolutely killer elbow drop while EC3 was laid out on the apron. It was a huge win for him, and hopefully there’s only bigger and better things ahead for the man. Whether he gets that call from Vince, though, remains to be seen.

I also immensely enjoyed the NXT North American Championship match between Adam Cole and Ricochet. I love Adam Cole, and love watching Ricochet do his thing, but if I’m being honest, I wondered how these two would gel. It’s not that I thought the match would be terrible – that’s basically impossible for these two – but I wondered if there’d be some awkward moments as they felt each other out.

My fears were unfounded. Adam Cole was intent on proving that Ricochet may be many things, but “special” is not one of them. Ricochet, on the other hand, was going to prove that he may be beyond special. What I really enjoyed here was the opening frame, which saw a lot of wrestling and counter-wrestling. It set Ricochet’s argument against Cole’s perfectly: If I’m not special, how come I can do the things you can do, but you can’t do the things that I can?

Cole did his absolute best to show that he could, in fact, keep up with Ricochet – including that picture-perfect superkick while Ricochet attempted a moonsault – but in the end, the 630 connected and we had a new North American Champion. Really enjoyed the hell out of that match, and the really fun layer of psychology that they threw on top of it.

I don’t want to ignore it completely, so I will say that the NXT Women’s Championship between Shayna Baszler and Kairi Sane was also a lot of fun. I just figured that Sane was winning, and so the match felt more like an exercise of getting there than anything else. Still, there were some impressive moments in there, and Sane is almost beyond hyperbole, so I wanted to at least let it be known that I enjoyed their match as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v05vHKwBe4E

Then it was time for the main event, as Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano would clash yet again, this time with Ciampa’s NXT Championship on the line in a Last Man Standing match.

Again, my lack of NXT watching means that I had yet to see any of their matches yet. I know, I know… but if I’m being honest, my heart has simply had a real hard time coming to terms that these guys don’t get along anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks1ZD10AqsY

Because the Glorious Bombs were amazing!

But yes, I can admit to having seen none of their previous bouts. I’ve heard all about them, discussed them at length with friends who have seen them, but never seen them myself.

However, I do consider Tommaso Ciampa to be the best heel in wrestling right now, and it’s not even close. Sure, WWE finally cracked and gave him theme music, but his Twitter alone is enough to get him the Top Heel spot as far as I’m concerned.

This match was everything. I’m not trying to mislead, nor am I trying to overhype. Ciampa / Gargano for the NXT Championship was just so, so good. Gargano wanted to outwrestle Ciampa, Ciampa wanted to out sports-entertain Gargano, and someone was going to have to give an inch.

Things turned when Gargano, usually the nicest guy in the world, decided it was time to not only beat Ciampa, to not only take his beloved NXT Championship… but to in fact attempt to end Ciampa completely. And with Ciampa handcuffed on the stage, with nowhere to run, Gargano would run full speed, smash his knee into Ciampa’s face… and then fall off the stage, carried by his momentum, crashing to the concrete floor. The referee would begin the count on both men, and Ciampa would slide off the ramp, onto his feet, at 9. Gargano would remain down and out.

I literally laughed my ass off when Gargano threw that knee. Big dumb-dumb had the thing in the bag, and he just had to try to be something he’s not, and it cost him! Always be true to yourself, kids. When you try to be something you’re not, you’re going to end up throwing yourself off a stage.

It was brilliant. Another absolutely brilliant chapter in the phenomenal book they’ve been crafting for well over a year now.

I loved TakeOver: Brooklyn IV. It was two and half hours of high-stakes, high-intensity action. It introduced me to my new favorite tag team. It allowed me to see how sublime Tyler Bate is. Adam Cole and Ricochet was superb. Gargano/Ciampa was nearly flawless.

There’s two schools of thought I have when I finally get to watch an NXT special:

First, it’s so cool how I can miss almost everything in the build-up, but still sit, watch, and understand everything going on, because NXT’s in-ring storytelling is fantastic. I skipped the video packages hyping the matches, and still understood the motive of everyone involved in every match. It helps to not have commentators that treat you like children that have never watched wrestling before, too.

Secondly, it’s hard to get too invested in NXT talent, for me personally. It’s nothing to do with them. It’s everything to do with the fear of what happens to them when they are eventually called up. I firmly believe that a feud between Gargano and Ciampa, on either RAW or SmackDown, would be roughly 100 times less good than what it is now. That’s not on the performers. What happens to Mustache Mountain if they get called up? Or Velveteen Dream?

There’s still a very serious disconnect with who someone is in NXT, and who they end up being on the main roster, and until that is fixed, it’s always going to feel like a fool’s errand to get totally invested in the characters of NXT. Still, there’s worse things than watching incredible wrestling shows while wondering what the future holds for everyone involved.

At the end of the day, NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn IV was an incredible wrestling show. Can’t ask for much more than that.