Five matches, and not a snoozer among them.
NXT is, technically, developmental minor league wrestling. It’s Takeover events feel like anything but.
The WWE’s feeder organization long ago surpassed American wrestling’s monolith as the company’s top product. NXT is superior when it comes to both in-ring action and character development, creating compelling figures who too often rise up to the top level only to have the edges that made them unique shaved down in order to fit into the circle-shaped gaps Monday Night Raw necessitates.
So enjoy Shayna Baszler while you can, because it’s only a matter of time before the WWE turns her from “MMA badass” into either “dork sidekick” or “so stupid she drops the mic three times in an attempt to seem threatening and cool.”
NXT Takeover: New York could be the last event in the organization for grapplers like Baszler, Johnny Gargano, Ricochet, and Aleister Black. Post-Wrestlemania Raws and Smackdowns have cut a recent tradition of raiding NXT’s coffers for the talent who can re-charge their storylines, and Gargano, Ricochet, and Black have already made a handful of appearances across the two brands. Friday night could be their swan song — and if past results are any indication, they’ll get fittingly explosive sendoffs.
Here’s a look at the five matches scheduled for Friday night, ranked by how excited I am for each. Spoiler: they’re all pretty compelling.
5. NXT Tag Team Championship match: War Raiders (c) vs. Dusty Rhodes Classic winners Ricochet and Aleister Black
Black and Ricochet have been predictably great as a mismatched tag team, and the Raiders (Hanson and Ray Rowe) have got powerhouse credibility going back to their days in Ring of Honor. Friday’s match will be a classic showdown that pairs an occultist kickboxer and the human avatar of hitting all the Tekken buttons at one time versus literal vikings. Hanson and Rowe, two large, hairy, leather-cased slabs of meat, are probably coming to the ring in a langskip.
Rowe and Hanson won the titles from the Undisputed Era at the last Takeover, transferring the title from longtime indie darlings to ... longtime indie darlings. They’re challenged by the not-really-a-tag-team duo of Ricochet and Black (working name: Chet Black), two former individual NXT title holders who paired up for the Dusty Rhodes Classic’s tag team tournament in the midst of an unexpected (and sorta pointless) promotion to the WWE.
Both sides will pull off a number of “whoa, what?” moments. For Ricochet and Black it’ll be a function of absurd athleticism and acrobatic skill. With the Raiders it’ll be the cartoonish piano-falling-on-the-sidewalk splatters of their high impact maneuvers. Will Chet Black take the titles with them up to the next level? Will the War Raiders retain and lord over an extremely good NXT tag division?
This’ll still be a very strong match, but there’s still reason for doubt. Chet Black aren’t quite a cohesive unit yet. Something about the two bearded monsters standing in the middle of the ring, throwing up devil hands and headbanging, makes them seem more like your dad’s friends drinking in the garage than the last thing you’d see before you’re murdered in a Norwegian forest. It loses steam in a very dumb way for me, and he rest of this card is STACKED, so it gets relegated to No. 5.
4. WWE UK Championship bout: Pete Dunne (c) vs. WALTER
Dunne is the longest-reigning current champion signed to the company. On Friday night, he faces an opponent who answers the age-old question “what if Rod Farva were German, competent, and intent on slapping your heart through your spine?”
WALTER’s main stage debut comes against the Bruiserweight in a match that’s taken place several times across the continent of Europe but for the first time on American soil. He’ll take on the role of unstoppable force against Dunne, some 100 pounds lighter than his primetime foe. That means he’ll be fighting from underneath, a role he’s intimately familiar with.
This should challenge the headliner as the most brutal match of the night, and it’ll give the big German a showcase event while allowing the ever-ready Dunne to continue shining.
3. Fatal four-way for the NXT Women’s Championship: Shayna Baszler (c) vs. Bianca Belair vs. Kairi Sane vs. Io Shirai
Baszler’s reign is ripe for toppling with Ronda Rousey set to vacate her claim as the main roster’s resident MMA badass after Wrestlemania. Having her lose the title without getting pinned will keep her aura intact before she gets called up, goes on a tear in her first month on RAW, and then starts losing matches to Riott Squad members for reasons only Vince McMahon can understand.
Baszler’s gonna come in and kick, punch, and choke her way through what should be a 20 minute sprint. That’ll leave Belair, her UN-DEE-FEET-ED mindset, and the Sky Pirates (Saine and Shirai) to surround that with some high-flying athleticism in a match that should have few slow moments. Ideally I’d like to see Belair pick up Baszler, then have Saine and Shirai unleash dual top rope attacks on her, only to get caught in midair and for all three to wind up getting suplexed. I’m not sure on how the physics of that would work, but I’m still about 60% certain Belair could pull it off.
The biggest question in this match is how the Sky Pirates are going to interact with the championship on the line. Will this be the beginning of a falling out between the two countrywomen? Will they work together before begrudgingly squaring off over the broken bodies of their fallen competitors? Will they collide during mid-air performing dueling elbow drops, allowing Belair or Baszler to escape with a win?
Either way, you’ve got a little something for everyone here, ranging from abject brutality (Baszler) to absurd strength and athleticism (Belair) to high-flying innovation and polished craftmanship (the veterans Shirai and Sane). As long as this match doesn’t fall victim to the “two fighters are hurt and recovering outside the ring while two fight inside it until it’s time to switch partners” trope, it should be great.
2. NXT North American Championship Match: Velveteen Dream (c) vs. Matt Riddle
Riddle’s regular schedule of winning fights and then getting suspended for cannabis use pushed him out of UFC and into the squared circle, where he became a commodity on the independent scene and, now, one of the hottest prospects in NXT. After feuding with organization gatekeeper Kassius Ohno (a man with the mane of a lion and the body and clothing of an enormous toddler), he’s worked his way up to the NA title scene and a date with NXT’s most compelling presence.
The Dream, effectively a jacked, deep-voiced, pansexual Prince, has developed into one of the organization’s top stars thanks to his commitment to both his character and becoming one of NXT’s most reliable in-ring performers. The 23-year-old has a preternatural grasp of his industry, working over fans and storylines like a skilled accountant slides through tax code. He’s a scholar of the squared circle capable of paying reverence to the wrestlers who came before him while still throwing shade at the shittier ones.
This shouldn’t obscure the fact he can out-and-out GO in the ring, and now he’s facing another phenom who’s a full decade older in Riddle. Like Baszler, he brings MMA gravitas to his strikes and submissions and makes everything look 10-20% more painful, even as he smiles doing it. He’s the dopey frat bro you hated from afar in college and then really liked once you got stuck doing a group project with. He’s charismatic and has a body that suggests weed is a tremendous diet supplement.
Riddle hasn’t really gotten much of a chance to shine in NXT yet — he’s only had two televised one-on-one matches run longer than four minutes so far — but he’s lived up to the hype in limited spots so far. Now he’s set for the most-hyped match of his career against a guy who turned “what if Prince, but a wrestler?” into one of the best characters in wrestling.
1. Best 2 of 3 falls match for the NXT Championship: Johnny Gargano vs. Adam Cole
Gargano has been as can’t-miss as any wrestler in the world lately, throwing out A-tier matches throughout his three-plus year run in the company. Cole is an absolutely workhorse capable of taking a ludicrous amount of damage and putting on classic matches.
Arrrrgh no no no no jesus
Both competitors are innately capable of making you care more about everyone in the match as it wears on. Gargano has been on a longterm, unbroken quest rarely seen in the WWE, going from unsigned underdog talent to tag team champion alongside Tommaso Ciampa. That led to a tumultuous breakup, disparate singles runs, and Gargano’s virtue being ripped away by his desire to chase gold. His alignment flipped back to good after another falling out with Ciampa (right before a neck injury tragically deprived us of Gargano-Ciampa IV and the feud-ending blowout the world richly deserves), and now he’s got the opportunity to earn his belt the right way.
Cole, on the other hand, has gone from overconfident scumbag to ... successful overconfident scumbag. It’s been a hell of a journey.
Adding the NXT title proper would make either man the organization’s first triple crown champion (tag belts, NA title, NXT champ). To honor that occasion, NXT’s powers that be gave this match its highest marker of quality; a best two-out-of-three falls showdown. That distinction was given to burners like Sami Zayn vs. Cesaro (amazing), Hideo Itami vs. Tyler Breeze (excellent), and American Alpha vs. the Revival (a masterclass on WWE’s inability to handle matriculating tag teams). Getting that shot is a marker of the trust NXT (and WWE) have in its main event performers to put on a compelling, 30-minutish battle in front of a frenzied crowd.
This stipulation also allows Cole’s feckless friends (the rest of the Undisputed Era) to interfere, cause a pinfall, and get thrown out of the building without completely costing Gargano the match — though NXT has typically been good about subverting tropes like these. It also allows Gargano to fight from his back, embracing the underdog role that shot him up NXT’s power rankings, turning him from hired gun to organization hero. He’s gonna get his ass kicked for 10 straight minutes before mangling Cole like he’d done a full loop on the swingset, and it’s gonna be beautiful.
Gargano-Cole doesn’t have the gravitas of Gargano-Ciampa or the outlandish presence of Velveteen Dream, but it’s two of the world’s best wrestlers throwing two complimentary styles at each other in one of the sport’s purest forms. NXT is saving the best for last Friday night — even if the undercard throws a couple of instant classics into the mix.
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