NXT Takeover London

NXT Takeover: London - December 2015

London, England

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into tonight's show, Finn Balor holds the NXT Championship, Bayley is the NXT Womens' Championship, and Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder hold the NXT Tag Team Championships.

COMMENTATORS: Byron Saxton, Rich Brennan, and Corey Graves

You probably won't find it on many people's Year End lists, but I enjoyed the hell out of tonight's opener - Asuka vs. Emma. Unlike what we've been getting on the main roster over the past few months, here was a women's wrestling match with a clearly defined hero taking on a clearly defined heel with the fans firmly behind the side of good. Asuka's offense was every bit as sharp and devastating as one would expect (her backhand combo is a thing of beauty), but, as someone wholly unfamiliar with Emma's ballyhooed work in NXT in 2013-2014, I was equally impressed by what she did here, cutting off Asuka at the right time, using crafty dirty tactics to try to get her opponent disqualified, controlling the "heat" part of the match with her offense but not doing anything so flashy that it ever got its own pop. This is how a heel should work. Very strong and well-executed match with great twists in the closing minutes. (4/5)

Our next match was for the NXT World Tag Team Championships - Dash and Dawson taking on Enzo and Big Cass. As expected, Enzo and Cass got a huge response from the crowd, their pre-match promo incredibly over. As if they needed even more reason to cheer, Enzo sported the Union Jack on the inside of his leather overalls, drawing a deafening Enzo-themed soccer chant at its reveal. My favorite chant of the match, however, was "Big Cass" substituted for the chorus of "Hey Jude," a masterful change-up if I've ever heard one. As far as the in-ring action, though, this was fairly standard, the faces getting in their signature stuff while the villains worked to slow down the pace and combat the good guys' energy and enthusiasm. The story of the match developed when Enzo injured his left arm/shoulder getting tossed to the outside, giving Dash and Dawson the advantage in the contest. Sadly, this was nothing at all like the bloodbath that Enzo and Cass heavily suggested the fans would get in their opening promo. The hot crowd certainly helped elevate what was really just an average match. (3/5)

After a brief video package highlighting the power of Nia Jax, we got our next bout - a bit of a grudge match between Apollo Crews and Baron Corbin. Corbin has been smartly positioned as NXT's "anti-indie" guy, the symbolic stand-in for all the NXT fans despise: unpolished workers with no "cred," no amateur background, no resume, but "the right look." For example, after pushing Crews hard to outside and seemingly injuring his knee, Corbin shouted down to him, "You should've stayed in Ring of Honor!" - the kind of taunt only a fraction of the general audience would understand but that the NXT faithful went crazy for. Aside from that, Corbin didn't do much in this match to prove his critics wrong, but he also didn't give them more arrows to load in their harpoon guns, doing everything he needed to in this match but nothing more. Crews did the heavy lifting in the form of big bumps and dazzling offense, but Corbin is undeniably good in his role as a true heel that fans do not have any desire to cheer. Compare that to heels like Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, and Bray Wyatt and its easy to see the difference and how their fan reactions tend to hurt their matches more than help them. The product is just so much more digestible when one can get lost in the morality play of good vs. evil and actually cheer for the hero to overcome the villain. Again, the crowd's passion seemed to elevate this one just a touch above how it would've come across in a milder setting. (2.5/5)

Post-match we get a video about Sami Zayn and, in a very cool moment, a tease of a potential feud brewing between Nia Jax and Asuka. That should be awesome.

Bayley vs. Nia Jax was next, prefaced with a cool video package about the rise of Bayley and her struggle to retain the NXT Women's Championship. Nia Jax dominated most of this one, which was exactly the right story to tell considering her size advantage. Bayley's selling was excellent throughout, the kind of work that makes it understandable that people would credit her more than any other performer for being the best underdog babyface since Daniel Bryan. At times, this one reminded me of a Sting/Vader classic, which is why I was a bit disappointed with the definitive finish, one that, in my mind, might make a rematch a tough sell aside from the fact that it will, if this one any indication of the potential in their rivalry, give us another awesome match. Very strong match, that I found to be just a hair below the opener. (3.5/5)

Main event time - Finn Balor vs. Samoa Joe for Balor's NXT Championship. Despite this show taking place near Balor's home country, Samoa Joe had a sizable portion of the fanbase rooting him on. In the early going, Balor had control over his larger opponent, knocking him into the steps with a big dropkick. Joe would take the upperhand moments later, catching Balor with some big jabs before bombarding him with a splash into the corner and a pele kick (moving around the ring with more shades of Joe 04'-05' than he has since joining NXT this year). An inverted atomic drop from Joe led to a mafia kick (extra credit to Corey Graves noting that this was straight out of Masa Chono's handbook), but Balor would not stay down until Joe connected with a huge flying shoulder through the middle rope to the outside. Unfortunately for Joe, by the time he got Balor back in the ring, the Demon was able to muster enough strength to kick out, inspiring the Samoan Submission Machine to display one of his signature sequences - a powerbomb into a boston crab into a crossface (it was sweet). Able to buy himself some time after reaching the ropes and hitting Joe with a tornado DDT, Balor got some offense in of his own - an enziguiri to Joe on the top rope, a slingblade, a reversal of Joe's musclebuster finish, and a pele kick that brought both guys to the mat. At this point the match went into its final act, with Joe trying his best to lock in his Kokita Clutch but Balor using every trick he could (including a double stomp in the center of the ring) to hold onto his title. A second slingblade and three big dropkicks into the corner gave Balor his first opportunity to land his finish, but Joe had other plans - a musclebuster from the top rope that would've guaranteed him victory. With his last bit of strength, Balor countered and forced Joe back to the mat, where he connected with his Coup De Gras finish to end the match. Very good main event bout that proved that Joe, against the right opponent, in the right setting, can be a huge deal and that the sky is the limit for Balor right now as his selling and comebacks really made this match captivating. (4/5)

With an average rating of 3.4-out-of-5, NXT Takeover: London was yet another home run for the WWE's "minor leagues." With a runtime more comparable to a Clash of the Champions than a typical Network Special, the show benefits from a lean presentation and an incredibly hot crowd. From top to bottom, the performers did what they needed to do to get each match over - but the overall show suffered from a tough of being irrelevant. There were no title changes. There were no surprises returns or post-match shenanigans. The Nia Jax/Asuka staredown, a very cool moment, loses a bit of its luster now that Nia Jax is no longer an undefeated monster. Unlike shows of this past, this one did not present a Number One Contender's Match to signal who would be Balor's next opponent (though, one could argue that Sami Zayn is more than deserving of that spot). Unlike the past two shows, charged with emotion due to the Bayley/Sasha Banks storyline, this show came off as a bit a return to NXT's "roots" as not an alternative or competitor to the WWE, but as a place to see its future, where the storylines are kept purposefully uncomplicated in order to showcase the in-ring skills more than the writers' lofty concepts. If this is their goal, NXT Takeover: London hit the target. 

FINAL RATING - Watch It All