Matches were fine but felt like the least necessary Takeover ever

Really hoping they get some new blood from the draft

Don't really watch NXT hardly at all anymore, but caught the clip of the Ridge Holland injury.

My god.

Word is he suffered a dislocated ankle and dislocated knee. Sounds horrible. I can't bring myself to watch it.

Both legs mangled: Left ankle dislocation and fracture; right knee patellar dislocation and ruptured patellar tendon.

It was awful. Worst leg injury I've ever seen in wrestling. (Yes, that includes the Sid one).

Holland let out this absolute heartbreaker of a cry/scream as soon as he fell. Considering he's a former professional rugby league player, and therefore a really tough bastard, the pain must have been immeasurable.

Just saw this and if I hadn't known what had happened I may not have even noticed it except for the ref throwing up the X. But even that's become a work recently. It didn't look like either guy did anything wrong.

Shame for him, as it looked he was going to be part of their biggest angle, having someone pay him off (had to be Fin, but wonder if we'll ever find out) for taking out Cole. Two really gruesome leg injuries a few days apart (Dak). MLB Hall of Famers being picked off left and right. This year keeps getting better by the month.

Last few weeks have been solid despite the absence of the NXT title and Undisputed Era. I even popped for the gimmicky stuff with Michael Hays and Shockmaster.

Io vs Ria was very good. A bit surprised Ria took another pinfall there.

And I really like the way they've done the angle with Undisputed. They held them off TV for a few weeks while McAfee's group ran wild, making their return feel like a big deal.

Funny how just a few months ago, we were talking about a four way match for a vacant title containing only heels, but now Balor, Cole and Ciampa are firmly faces now.

War Games:

1 - Women's match was a bit of surprise, both in the fact that the face team was left laying and that I believe it may have been the first War Games match to give the face team the advantage. Makes sense that you can't always have the face team win though.

2 - Ciampa and Thatcher beat the **** out of each other.

3 - Dexter Lumis is a character that Vince would absolutely ruin within a month on the main roster. He gets over perfectly fine without saying a word. Strap match was fun, but Grimes is more a comedic character and it wasn't going to be much more than that.

4 - Triple threat match was okay. I don't get Austin Theory unmasking at the conclusion saying that it was him all along when there were like 10 guys in masks. He's saying he was all of them?

5 - Main event went really long, about an hour, but was strong. McAfee may be a jackass, but for someone who's had just two matches with limited training, he looks like he's been doing this for a while even if they did protect him as much as they could here.

Good overall, but I'm not sure there's anything that must be seen with Ciampa/Thatcher and the main being the standouts.

His name is Austin and he took off a mask, he had an opportunity and he took it.

Nothing spectacular about NXT this week, but last week was a very strong show (Cross/Priest, Balor/O'Reilly, Gonzalez/Ripley) and they've built up Thatcher/Ciampa well enough to where I want to see them beat the hell out of each other again next week.

Most importantly, I rarely feel like there's much of anything on this show that insults intelligence. It has a serious feel and there frequently seems to be some impact or consequences to the physicality. This is something I feel the other shows are missing. If I only watched NXT, I'd probably be much less frustrated with the current product.

Funny if true: https://www.thesportster.com/news/ca...-other-stocks/

In other news, this looks like such a week event tomorrow unless they're planning on running some big angle. Probably won't bother to watch it live.

They did, in fact, run an angle after the main and it came off as awkward. Heels attack the champ after the match is over and their guy has already lost, rather than try to interfere and help him win.

Here comes the UE. As they're helping Balor up, O'Reilly keeps pointing to his shirt for some reason. I don't know if he's trying to get Balor to join, wants to make sure he knows who saved him, or is just really proud of his shirt.

Cole kicks Balor then O'Reilly, Strong stands there with a stupid look on his face and that's the end of UE.

Felt like a fail for me because they just turned Cole face a few months ago.

I liked it. Cole as a face mostly sucks and he never really changed his demeanor/attitude anyways. This positions KOR to breakout as a face with a heated emotional feud, which is what NXT has been missing. I've been fast-forwarding a lot of the weekly show lately because it's just wrestlers doing stuff with barely any story/rooting interest and I felt the same way about the Takeover.

I see this as a positive that happens with a lot of NXT guys (Balor, Ciampa). Why change what got you cheered in the first place.

I'm not saying the story for the feud would be bad, but I kinda liked them together as a group. Would have liked it more if they'd never turned face, but KOR was leaning face and they all just kicked the **** out of him.

I also disagree with the direction of the show being bland too. Although I'd agree more about the last few weeks since the Dusty Cups started. I've otherwise found it to be the best wrestling show on the air currently. You also run into the issue of the main roster constantly raiding NXT because they need more people for comedy skits on Raw. I think it's remarkable how much they've kept my interest despite the attrition.

Short rant on a lot of these one move turns recently. They suck. Sheamus kicks Drew and then just leaves. Cole kicks KOR, Balor and then just leaves. What does that do? What ever happened to the turns where you they just beat the **** out of someone, which caused viewers to really want to see the babyface get their revenge. I single move and then leaving the building does nothing for me.

Millionaire Idiot Cameron Grimes is the funniest Wrestling character in years

Loved the Ted DiBiase tribute skits where he just gives up and pops the last guy.

The Cross match was awesome too.

Although I'm still not in love with turning Cole again so quickly, at least they're keeping O'Reilly off tv for a few weeks to sell the damage done.

What do we think of this major Karrion Kross push as NXT champion? To me it's strictly off of the look and nothing to do with mic skills or in ring ability. His promos are very meh and he looks lazy at times in the ring.

I watch a lot less than I used to, but he sucks.

He's incredibly dull and nowhere near good enough in the ring to make up for it.

Hell, he was boring in freaking Lucha Underground and they could even make Alberto Del Rio halfway interesting.

Why are they pushing him? It's bizarre. Is it strictly, we think, about the package of him and Scarlett?

He is somewhat strong, she's got the look. It seems like the Kross train isn't stopping any time soon. That it's only going to continue to the main roster.

I like him. He had that crazy destructive match with the cruiserweight faction a month or so ago. But I find that I can't stop cracking up if I just watch Scarlett making stupid faces during his promos. I think he might have some kind of MMA background too, which they always like.

Didn't see last night yet, but the thing they did last week with the three female champions really took me out of the whole heel/face dynamic of the show. Aren't two of them supposed to be heels? Not really digging Morrison's wife's new name or gimmick either.

So apparently Vince McMahon is going to directly exec-produce the NXT product now? Seems like that can only be the end of any usefulness it has had.

Lol, I was about to post that. WWE continuing its downward spiral.

WWE NXT will be produced by Vince McMahon and Bruce Prichard
https://wrestlingnews.co/wwe-news/re...ruce-prichard/
Does not compute.

Ah yes, the old NXT.

So HHH saw what Brince (Bruce + Vince) wanted to do with NXT and had a heart attack?

NXT was really the only thing I've kept entirely up with since MLB season started and I'm still a month behind, but that's probably going to end now. Seems Brince were upset that it was a much better program than the rest of the **** they've been shoveling at us and had to end that in a hurry.

Steiner's kid is fine and is almost a carbon copy of him in the ring, but they seem to want to strap the Roman rocket to him that'll make everyone hate him for the next decade.

The allure of NXT is that the would take unkown or barely known entities and turn them (or let them turn themselves into) can't miss entities. Then Raw/Smackdown would take the same people I couldn't miss on NXT and make them unwatchable. Now it's all a large pile of trash.