The 25th Takeover! What will everyone’s favorite brand, NXT, bring to the table this time?

These usually share a weekend with a main roster event, but this was special since it’s Takeover XXV. We have vacant titles and a growing feud.

Who ends up with the gold? How good will the matches be?

Let’s find out!

Ratings:

• Roderick Strong vs Matt Riddle: Riddle wins via Cradle Tombstone Piledriver @14:50 – ****
• NXT Tag Team Championship 4 Way Ladder Match: Undisputed Era vs Street Profits vs Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch vs Forgotten Sons: Street Profits win @21:45- *** – NEW CHAMPIONS!!
• NXT North American Title: Tyler Breeze vs Velveteen Dream (c): Dream retains via Purple Rainmaker @16:55 – *** 1/2
• NXT Women’s Championship: Shayna Baszler (c) vs Io Shirai: Baszler reatins via Kirifuda Clutch @12:20 – *** 1/4
• NXT Championship: Johnny Gargano (c) vs Adam Cole: Cole wins via Last Shot @31:50 – **** 1/4 – TITLE CHANGE!!

Analysis:

The match built slowly, which allowed Roddy a few opportunities to land a myriad of back breakers. Working over the back came into play at numerous points during the match, making Riddle unable to pull off certain moves. Hell, Riddle couldn’t hold the Bromission, which gave Roddy a glimmer of hope towards the end, but Riddle pulls out the Cradle Tombstone Piledriver, which I haven’t seen him use lately. Good match when all was said and done, plus it got the crowd going within the last few minutes.

Well the finish proves how idiotic a good portion of this match was. I have no clue why both team members kept climbing the ladder when the finish proved one person could take them down pretty quickly. As for the match, it’s a ladder match on NXT, it’s a spot fest, but this was worse than previous ones. Spots that made no sense, huge falls from ladders or strikes with ladders, and they popped up too quickly. If you like big spots and car crash spots, you’ll like this match. But the logic and psychology behind a lot of the spots, was non-existent. However, it was still entertaining for the spots and hold your breath moments, but lacked severely in other categories that I grade on.

Interesting match. Breeze was a little more serious and Dream was his flamboyant gloating self. There were a number of hiccups and weird spacing between spots, but it was still a pretty good match. Dream winning off of attempted cheating, so he caught Breeze unaware, was fitting for the story being told. Breeze isn’t hurt off that kind of finish and Dream’s character continues to grow as an opportunistic lovably dastardly character.

Shirai and Baszler had potential to be amazing, but well, this was awkwardly paced. Slow transitions through moments, the fact that Io took like 30 seconds to cheer on Candice LeRae, instead of actually wrestle was just dumb, but after the match we find out why. Io snaps, and beats the hell out of Baszler with a chair and a Kendo stick. So this was supposed to be a match to build to another, so I guess that’s fine, but the match was awkward and a bit disappointing. Still not bad, but on a show that people expected to be amazing, this has been kind of a flat show.

Well this match was not great for a while. Too many telegraphed spots. Starting with the ‘we know each other’ so well spots, a little bit of technical wrestling that only Gargano remembers to sell for the entire match, and a general pacing that makes it obvious the 15 minutes won’t matter. Gargano did sell the knee fairly well, but the match didn’t pick up until the Suicide Dive/Superkick spot, and even then it just turned into an Indy spotfest. Stealing each others finishers, a ref bump, just generally stuff to make me wonder what’s on TV once this is finally over. Cole beckoning for the Undisputed Era as a mind game was a nice spot. Was it a good match? Yes. Was it an amazing, show saving, 10 star classic? Nope.

Overall Score: 6.5/10

I think this has the lowest score of all of the NXT proper Takeovers. The entire show was just flat, clunky and like what a Takeover booked like a main roster show would look like. Some heralded this as WWE’s real response to AEW, it’s the 25th Takeover, so excitement was high. Due to that, this really failed to deliver.

Yes the show was above average for a general wrestling show, but for an NXT, this was a rolling ball of disappointment. The crowd may have been into it, and I know plenty of people who thought this was great, but those are also the people that went in expecting it was gonna be great. These are the same people who after every Takeover that shares a weekend with a main roster PPV say ” How’s the main roster gonna top that!? They won’t!”

Biggest positive to come from this show, is I think it finished before 9:40PM on the east coast. So slightly over two and a half hours is a good time.