Kevin’s NXT TakeOver: Stand And Deliver Night Two Review

NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver Night Two
April 8th, 2021 | Capitol Wrestling Center in Orlando, Florida

Although this was the first TakeOver that I’ve ever missed live, I am bringing you a review of it a day later. Don’t have time for the Kickoff Show today though.

Starting with Poppy on one of these shows is always a great idea. NXT does this weird thing where they get artists like her who I like and then Triple H goes into his past and brings out an old rock band I don’t want to hear.

NXT Cruiserweight Championship Unification Ladder Match: Jordan Devlin [c] vs. Santos Escobar [c]
We love the former King Cuerno but not the problematic Jordan Devlin. I feel like it’s tough to really impress fans in ladder matches these days simply because we’ve seen so many. You have to do something different to stand out. I feel like this one did at some points, mainly in how intense it was. You got the sense that these guys wanted to hurt each other along with winning the title. They beat the crap out of each other and some of my favorite spots (like Escobar’s great looking knee strike) came when they weren’t using the ladder. They still did utilize it in some interesting ways and for some violent looking spots. Escobar got help from Legado del Fantasma and I cheered as they beat on Devlin. He overcame that and hit a Spanish Fly off a ladder but Escobar still rebounded and pulled down the titles after 18:07. That was really good but just shy of great against other ladder matches. The right guy won for sure. [***¾]

NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship: Ember Moon and Shotzi Blackheart [c] vs. Candice LeRae and Indi Hartwell
While I don’t mind Ember and Shotzi, I would rather Dakota still be champion or to have Candice finally win something in this company. Candice was certainly the most polished in this match. Ember has had a few issues here or there since coming back, Hartwell is still learning, and Blackheart is such a ball of energy that things miss a lot. There were a few flubs in this that held it back but it was mostly worked in strong fashion. Indi got to hit a few nice moves and, as noted, Candice kind of led things. I swear Blackheart hurt herself at least three times. The double Eclipse came off weird and then Shotzi won with the senton in 10:23. A good match but it had a few sloppy bits that didn’t quite work. [***]

NXT North American Championship: Johnny Gargano [c] vs. Bronson Reed
I like when typical tropes are flipped on their head. In this one, the babyface was the monster and while he was superior at times in many ways, he still had to overcome the odds of sorts. There was Gargano simply being a stud who is tough to beat at TakeOvers but there was also interference from Austin Theory and Johnny just doing little things for cheap upper hands. I really liked Reed’s nods to Bam Bam Bigelow like the cartwheel early on and when he went for broke on a late moonsault attempt. It seemed like Reed would be too much for Gargano but that missed moonsault proved to be his downfall. Johnny quickly took advantage and hit One Final Beat twice in a row to retain after 16:12. This was a hell of a match even if I didn’t write a ton about it. I really liked the different take on the layout considering their strengths and thought the finish did a good job of keeping Reed strong. [***¾]

NXT Championship: Finn Bálor [c] vs. Karrion Kross
I fully believe that while Finn has had some cringeworthy promos since returning to NXT, his in-ring has never been better. Kross is still a guy whose hype I do not get. They overdo it on the presentation, it feels corny, and he’s always the least interesting guy in every program he’s part of (Ciampa, Lee, Escobar, and now Finn). I can’t help but laugh at Scarlett’s “FALL AND PREY” each time. A lot of this was built around Finn wanting this to go long because he had more stamina than his bigger opponent. He showed no fear of Kross and even laughed at him at points. They had some really good exchanges at points but this felt like an all-time carry job by Finn. His fingerprints were all over this. I liked some of the closing stuff, like the way he put on the choke after kicking out. Then, you can’t help but laugh at Scarlett’s goofy yelling to motivate Karrion while he’s trapped in a submission. Kross powered up magically from that and started hitting suplexes. He then wrapped this up with the forearm to the back of the head in 17:09. The best match I can recall Kross having but again, this felt like it was all Finn. NXT keeps trying with Kross but he feels like the lamest dude to hold the title in history. [***½]

Unsanctioned Match: Adam Cole vs. Kyle O’Reilly
It’s cool to have extra security around the ring before this officially began. I am not even going to try and recap everything that happened here. I will point out the obvious. I’ve made my feelings known about long matches. I have no problem with them if they’re done right, like WALTER vs. Tyler Bate. My issue is when they’re long for the sake of it and you could tell the same story in half the time. That was the case here. This goes 40:18 but honestly would’ve had the same effect if you removed 20 or so minutes. That made this feel like it dragged at points and caused it to come across like a forced attempt at an epic instead of an actual one. There were some awesome spots and moments, including the one on the stage. In a vacuum they were great but this felt like when you play with your action figures and try to cram every spot you could think of into one wild match. It had the intensity that it needed, which was appreciated. Kyle won with a chain-wrapped knee drop onto Cole’s neck on a chair. A very good match but one that tried a bit too hard. [***½]

7.5

The final score: review Good

The 411

I wanted to like this night so much more than I did. While everything is indeed good, I wouldn’t consider any of great. An easy watch but nothing special. Overly long main events and putting the title on Marc Mero 2.0 isn’t the way to get me excited about NXT.