Do I have it right that Dream was granted a title match for any title he wanted and he bypassed the NXT title for the North American one?

Yes, that is exactly what happened.

This week's episode was pretty good stuff.

I think Aichner and Barthel might be the most promising tag team in developmental since The Revival.

Apparently Trevor Lee made his NXT debut, I didn't even know he had signed with the WWE. He's an awesome wrestler with a lot of experience but still really young. Should be a great addition if they use him well. He could bypass NXT and go straight to 205 and be a top guy there.

There is absolutely nobody interesting in the women's division except for Shayna Baszlor. It's a good thin they called up Nikki Cross to have her do nothing.

Calling up Nikki Cross was dumb, but I don't think that's a fair statement. The Japanese women are good and Bianca Belair is fine. I think the four-way should be a solid match.

I have no idea what they what kind of match they are going to do at Takeover for the NXT title. Surely Gargano will be in it, but against who? Seems like Matt Riddle and Velveteen Dream are going to face each other. Aleister and Ricochet should be in the tag match, unless they're actually going to have The Forgotten Sons win the Dusty tournament (vomit). That doesn't leave a lot of options.

There's either Roderick Strong or Adam Cole I guess, but the UE hasn't won a match in ages. They could also hotshot Keith Lee or Dominik Dijakovic to the moon if they wanted, but that doesn't seem right either. I don't think there's anyone else, is there?

Yeah, they've really pillaged that roster to move a bunch of people up to Raw and SD now, where they're never even used. Cole would seem the most likely, but this roster is depleted on every level right now.

So...ADAM COLE...MAY-BE??

The two Japanese girls, who's names I can't even recall, seem to do nothing to stand apart. Bianca has the hair thing and says Un-da-fee-ted all the time even though she's lost, so she has that. She's fine, but not someone I need to make sure I see.

The more I think about it, it has to be Adam Cole. No one else is remotely credible.

Takeover is shaping up nicely imo.

Johnny Gargano vs Adam Cole - Vacant NXT Championship
Shayna Baszler (c) vs Kairi Sane vs Io Sharai vs Bianca Belair - NXT Women's Championship
Velveteen Dream (c) vs Matt Riddle - NXT North American Championship
War Raiders (c) vs Aleister Black/Ricochet - NXT Tag Team Championship
Dominik Dijakovic vs Keith Lee - Some gimmick match

Only put the last one in there because there's always five matches and can't think of any other possibility.

Hard not to pull for this guy.

Didn't watch, but did Ciampa attack the baby when it wasn't looking?

NXT: Kairi has her arm torn to **** by Shayna.
Main roster: Kairi is fine, dropping elbows like she always does.

NXT: The War Raiders (Rowe and Hanson)
Main roster: The Viking Experience Raiders Warriors (Ivar and Erik)

WTF?

An old man with amnesia is the boss of bosses.

I can't tell if that stuff after the Dijakovic/Mansoor match was the worst or best thing ever.

Was anyone aware there was an event tonight? Matches don't seem all that interesting.

I guess it's not threadworthy, but I'm definitely watching this, and I don't follow NXT regularly so I guess I disagree.

Looking forward to basically every match on the card, besides Shayna Baszler who I couldn't really care less about.

Especially looking forward to Velveteen/Breeze and Riddle/Strong.

The matches will likely be good, but it's just that they haven't done a good job of building anything besides the dissension between Undisputed on the way here.

I still just don't get Riddle at all. I mean how does a guy call himself the Original Bro when his gimmick seems to be almost literally a copy of RVD. Guys that wrestle barefoot have always bothered me for some unknown reason too, but maybe that belongs in the unpopular opinion thread.

I can't remember the last time that there was a Takeover event on a weekend without a PPV the next day.

I'll be watching when not busy with other things.

Quick predictions
Riddle over Strong: I'm not convinced the tension between Strong and the rest of UE is over. Riddle needs this win a lot more.

Dream over Breeze: Should be fun, but unless he's moving up to the main roster, there is no reason to take the title off of the Dream.

Shirai over Bayzler: It's time.

Fish and O'Reilly win the ladder match: This is going to be the Undisputed Era's night. They've taken a bunch of steps backward, but they'll be draped in gold at the end of the event.

Cole over Gargano: See above.

I assume the purists on this board won't love that match because....kickouts. But F that, that was awesome.

I'm a big BRO fan.

Omg that ladder match was insane. These guys just killed each other.

Maybe I’m an NXT guy.

I've never understood if the Dream is meant to be a face or a heel. It's not even just that his actions change from show to show, but he'll face a heel one week then a face the next and kinda keep alternating pretty much ever since that feud with Black.

Has the crowd been pro-heel the whole time or is it just Gargano they're crapping on?

think theyre just more pro-Adam Cole

Def feels like they’re crapping on Gargano. To be fair, Cole is super over and Gargano’s story feels way stale.

Cole kinda missed that Panama Sunrise. Landed right on his back with Gargano on top of him. No idea how that was supposed to hurt Gargano.