NXT Takeover: Chicago

NXT Takeover: Chicago

Chicago, Illinois - May 2017

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Bobby Roode holds the NXT Championship, the Authors of Pain are the NXT Tag Team Champions, and Asuka is the 400+-day reigning Womens' Champion.

COMMENTARY: Tom Phillips, Nigel McGuiness, and Percy Watson

Eric Young vs. Roderick Strong is the opener. Strong sneaks out of the audience to take out Young's sAniTy cohorts and gets a nice "Roddy!" chant going. Back and forth action with Strong falling prey to interference from Killian Dane and Alexander Wolfe. As the crowd tries to build Strong back up, Young keeps him on the mat with a nerve hold and then cuts him off with a back elbow. Young's focus on the neck throughout the match is good basic psychology considering a neckbreaker is his finish. Strong changes the momentum with a gorgeous dropkick and then, a minute later, a backbreaker and then a big suplex. Young escapes to the outside and catches Strong with his Wheelbarrow Neckbreaker. They make their way up to the top and Young ends up connecting with one of the better elbow drops in the business for two. A great sequence sees Strong get one-up on all three SaNity members and then finish off Young with a ridiculous release-suplex-into-a-backbreaker that he probably couldn't hit on 70% of the roster but would serve him well on 205 Live. Good enough opener. (3/5)

Jim Ross joins on commentary for the next contest - Tyler Bate defending the UK Championship against Pete Dunne. Nigel notes the dueling chants of "Let's Go Tyler" and "Bruiserweight," the rowdy Chicago crowd leaning a bit towards the heel side of things. Methodical technical wrestling to start but Dunne changes game plans on the outside, hitting Bate with a big forearm and then trying to break his opponent's fingers with the steps. Bate hits a flying back elbow and tosses Dunne back into the ring, but Dunne rolls out for another powder before catching Bate and then hitting a release suplex on the unforgiving ring apron. Dunne takes Bate back to the mat and continues to go after his fingers, prying Bate's hand open and really torturing him with some additional stomps and kicks to the head and neck. Bate starts shaking off Dunne's offense, but I wouldn't call it no-selling as much as "stiff upper lip" selling. Bate almost knocks a tooth out of Dunne with a big uppercut and then, moments later, a big suplex into a bridging pin. Dunne counters a second reverse 360 splash with a triangle choke, pounding on Bate's head with some stiff fists for added damage. Bate is able to lift him off the mat, though, powerbombing his way out of danger. Awesome airplane spin for two! Bate tries a release german, but Dunne lands on his feet. Bate bounces off the corner, but Dunne catches him with a super stiff forearm. Dunne then hits a massive suplex-into-a-powerbomb maneuver for two as the crowd goes absolutely bananas. A very loud "UK" chant starts as they trade shots in the middle of the ring with more ferocity than I think I've ever seen. Bate seems to shut things down with a left jab straight to the chin but Dunne hits an enziguiri. They trade some more fits before Bate springs shoulders-first off the ropes with an absolutely devastating clothesline to the mush. Another two count! The crowd chants "Fight Forever" as Bate tries to hit his finisher. Dunne is able to escape and tries for his own but Bate switches gears and turns it into a DDT. Bate hits a glorious moonsault to the outside and tosses Dunne back into the ring. Bate with a corkscrew 450 for another two count! These two are putting on a fireworks display. Bate tries for a suicide plancha, but Dunne moves away. Dunne hits his abdominal stretch-into-a-flatliner finish and we've got a new champ. A deserved standing ovation from the Chicago crowd. Really good, "must see" match. (4/5)

A video package explains how our next match came to be - Asuka defending her NXT Womens' Championship against Ruby Riot and Nikki Cross. There was little doubt that Asuka wouldn't win, so the goal of this match was to provide at least a few moments when that guaranteed finish might not be so guaranteed. I'm not sure it ever got to that point, but there were at least several moments when we got to see what makes Asuka so special (her facial expressions early were awesome and, later, her german suplexes looked particularly deadly) and why Nikki Cross may be one of the more intriguing women to watch over the next few years. Its almost a shame that Cross is (a) very British and (b) already aligned with SaNitY as she does a stupendous job as the psycho that she'd be perfect as the "Sister Abigail" character in the Wyatt Family. Oh well, maybe WWE could at least have her become some sort of Wyatt groupie - it would do a heck of a lot to make Wyatt interesting again. Back to the match, what may have hurt this more than anything was that while Asuka is easy to love as a Terminator, she's certainly not a babyface and hasn't been booked as one for a long time. Cross is (amazingly) unlikeable too. This left Ruby Riot as the crowd surrogate, but Riot, even in front of a "hometown" midwest crowd, doesn't really come off as a plucky underdog (like Bayley) or a cool, extreme fighter (like Lita or, for males, a CM Punk). A strong match, but an obvious placeholder until Ember Moon is back to challenge for the strap. (3/5)

Promo for the Prince-inspired Velveteen Dream debuting this Wednesday. 

The NXT Championship is on the line in the next match, which I assumed would've been the main event. Hideo Itami gets a pretty pedestrian entrance compared to Bobby Roode. Like his matches with Nakamura, I really didn't find myself entranced with this match until its final third. It doesn't help that most of Itami's signature moves were stolen by CM Punk and Daniel Bryan which takes away a bit of the "wow" factor of some of his sequences. Roode, comparatively, has an even less dynamic moveset and absolutely nothing that he can claim as solely "his" - even his airlift DDT is reminiscent of Edge and, to a lesser degree, what Mick Foley used to do (a Google search reveals it was also previously used as a finisher by Alex Riley). The match grabbed my attention when Itami started laying into Roode with ridiculously stiff open palm strikes and both guys started heavily selling damaged limbs, something we didn't necessarily get in Roode's matches with Nakamura. It may be cliche, but I thought the timing was spot-on for the GTS false finish and I liked that the actual finish was shenanigan-free and definitive without crushing any potential rematches down the line. This was above average, but I think these two could have a better outing if they both add some pizzazz to their movesets and, in the case of Itami, character traits that make us want to see him achieve his goal. (3/5)

Main event time - #DIY challenging The Authors of Pain for the NXT Tag Team Championships. First, I've seen some speculate that this moved to the main event spot because Itami was an unproven, fairly unknown challenger and Roode is not a flashy, "main event" act. While this may be true (I wouldn't argue against either opinion), I think its worth noting that #DIY has stolen the show at every major NXT event they've been on for roughly a year now - if there was ever a night when they deserved top billing, this was certainly it. Onto the match itself - another instant "must see" affair, a great straight-up ladder match built around huge "Holy Shit!" chants, but also an absolutely heart-wrenching, match-defining singular moment of brutality (the Authors prepping to behead Ciampa only for Gargano to sacrifice himself and basically volunteer to have his jaw broken by the top rung of a ladder). It was at this moment that the match took that step from being just very good to being the clear Match of the Night. Dunne and Bate may have had more fireworks in their match, but even before the shocking and brutal post-match angle, this one had topped it emotionally - and emotion will always win the day for me. Say what you will about the post-match and whether Ciampa's beatdown was excessive, it was easily the most effective heel turn since Rollins exited the Shield. I'd like to see Bate/Dunne wrestle again, but I need to see Gargano vs. Ciampa. (4.5/5)


Once again, NXT brought the goods. Though not every match was "must see," when 2-out-of-5 are, that's a pretty good batting average. The "worst" match on the card was still better than most of what you'll get on a typical episode of any TV wrestling show past, present, or future. The opening contest may not have been one for the ages, but it was arguably Eric Young's best showing since joining the brand and set the tone for the evening without needlessly throwing out every high spot possible. Roode/Itami may have been the show's low point if not for its spellbinding finishing stretch. Say what you will about Roode's methodical style, the proof of its effectiveness lies in the tension he builds and the dramatic climaxes that have defined his run as NXT Champ. Similarly, a somewhat ho-hum Womens' Championship bout was made special by the unexpected, match-stealing performance of Nikki Cross, who worked like she's a face tattoo away from being this generation's Luna Vachon, a madwoman who, paired with the right psychotic (and I don't think SaNiTy is it), has the ability to really spice up the stale midcard of RAW or SmackDown. With a Kwang Score of 3.5-out-of-5, NXT Takeover: Chicago firmly sits in the category of...

FINAL RATING - Watch It