TakeOver In A Nutshell: An Exciting 25th TakeOver

It’s an exciting evening indeed! Tonight is TakeOver XXV-that’s twenty five, if you didn’t pay attention in school, or didn’t listen to any of the hype packages before TakeOver. That’s right, boys and girls, we’ve now gotten to enjoy twenty five of these TakeOver events. That is impressive, considering most of those 25 are far and away better than what we can get on the main roster lately. But…I digress. Tonight is all about delivering to us an exciting 25th TakeOver. The major titles are, of course, all on the line. Shayna Baszler battles Io Sharai for the NXT Women’s Championship. Tyler Breeze comes back to NXT to challenge for the Velveteen Dream’s North American belt. There will be a new set of NXT Tag Champions crowned, and we get to revisit Adam Cole versus Johnny Gargano for the NXT Championship. Let’s see what happened and crack open this Nutshell!

Best Match of the night:

This is what I truly enjoy about NXT. All the matches on TakeOver were very enjoyable. Each successive match continued to raise the bar. Which of course leads us to the main event-Adam Cole versus Johnny Gargano. The first time these two met, in New York in a two out of three falls bout that ultimately crowned Gargano as champion, we got a classic. Tonight’s rematch was basically just as good.

But honestly, if you wanted to use any of the other matches in this spot, I can understand. Any has an argument for this honor.

Worst match of the night:

It’s NXT…it’s TakeOver…none qualify, of course.

Crowd Chants of the Night:

Velveteen

Tyler’s gorgeous

This is awesome

Fight forever

NXT

You deserved it

Johnny Wrestling

Johnny Kneebrace

Adam Cole

Star of the Night

TakeOver In A Nutshell: An Exciting 25th TakeOver

This one has to go to Adam Cole. The leader of Undisputed Era won his first NXT Championship, and in doing so became NXT’s second Triple Crown winner (the first being Johnny Gargano).

Spot of the Night:

Several to choose from, so I really cannot single out one. There were quite a few throughout the show, but the main event really pushed things along. Gargano and Cole had some amazing in ring chemistry and timing, and it made many spots look that much better.

Beyond that? Ladder matches in NXT give us great spots, this one was no different. Plenty of other options too, to be honest.

Holy Sh** Moment of the Night:

I think for me, the biggest one was Io Sharai snapping post-match. On one hand, you could say it reflects poorly on the Genius of the Sky…but on the other hand, it displays a nice aggressive side to the Japanese Superstar…one which I think fans would like to see. Looking at the welts on Baszler’s back, Io did not go easy on the NXT Women’s Champion.

Noteworthy Moment:

I think there are a few big ones tonight.

First, it’s the first TakeOver in a long time that happened on a weekend all by itself. We’ve long been used to TakeOver events on the Saturday prior to a major WWE PPV, but things went a bit different tonight. It was, as always, an exceptional show.

Second, we have new NXT Tag Team Champions, as the Street Profits won the match this evening to claim the recently vacated titles. I have said it before…I don’t get the infatuation with this team, but the fans enjoy them so I am willing to say that, while I don’t get it…many fans do.

Third, while we’ve had main roster guys pop back down from time to time, I don’t remember one ever coming in, working a TakeOver and, in doing so, challenging for an NXT belt. We got that this evening with Tyler Breeze working in the North American Championship match. He didn’t win, but the match was good.

Overall lowlights:

Honestly not much to go here. As a fan, I was bummed to see Gargano lose…but I also have to assume that this might lead to a Cole/Gargano III over SummerSlam weekend, which should make most folks really happy.

Aside from that, I did expect that, with the 25th TakeOver going off all alone this weekend, there might have been some big surprise-a return, a run-in, something. Heck, a 24/7 Championship sighting even. We got nothing. But, that worked out OK.

Seriously, nothing worth complaining about.

Overall highlights:

Riddle versus Strong

The tag title bout

Dream and Breeze

\

Shirai and Baszler

Gargano and Cole

Yes, basically the entire card.

It would make me very happy if WWE realized that this is what many fans want and love. Strip away the over the top stuff. Take the shows back to the basics…stop over-producing and whatnot…and just give us a two or three hour WRESTLING show, with some vignettes sprinkled in. TakeOver does this all the time. The NXT shows each Wednesday do too. Guess what…they work well.

After the final bell:

Wow, that was a great show. I love the brand getting a chance to stand on it’s own, and I dare say it’s proof the company should run out more one-off shows. I get it, having TakeOver the same weekend as a main roster show helps save on production and other costs…but a few times a year, you can’t tell me NXT doesn’t deserve it’s own spotlight.

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