I got that as the worst takeover in a long time. I'm kind of over the Black/Richochet choreography. Riddle doesn't impress me (the person that said he looks like he's trying not to hurt his opponent was spot on). Walter just reminds me of Kozlov all slow and lumbering. I don't care about Bazler and haven't since she arrived. Main event was obviously unfortunate given the Ciampa injury. What was supposed to be a two year story was just a random Gargano/Cole match with a bajillion kickouts.


It's disappointing because I'm normally super high on NXT matches but today was like a 2/5 star event for me.

The NXT criticisms in this thread warm my heart. A lot of fans other places think the promotion can do no wrong, but I've been bothered by their spotfesty brand of storytelling for awhile.

A perfect example is in the main event when Cole puts Gargano through the announce table and fans are chanting "one more time." This is the babyface's huge crowning moment and the crowd doesn't even care about him because they like the heel (since he has a fun chant and does Canadian Destroyers) and enjoy all the huge spots and kickouts. They're just happy to be seeing a "five star match" in person. Everyone is more behind the product itself as a show than the actual wrestlers in the match, and it just bugs me. Everyone says the main roster is terrible, but on Sunday, the crowd will want Kofi, Seth, and Becky to win their matches.

I will give credit to Shayna Baszler for being a real heel and actually getting the crowd invested the way you are supposed to without doing a bunch of goofy "this is awesome" ****.

I think it was a poor takeover but 2/5 stars, really? It was still a pretty good wrestling event.

I don't like 2/3 falls matches and ye too many spots and kickouts but it definitely wasn't a bad match. I don't think there was a bad match on the whole card and the UK championship match was very good. I don't get how people call Walter slow and lumbering. I think he'll be very good in lots of matches for NXT and NXT UK. He just has absolutely no place on the main roster because at 6'4 you're not the big guy anymore.

It was very intentional that I earlier drew the distinction that I get how others enjoy this stuff more than I do. If you're more about a crazy athletic display than a great story, much of the NXT stuff will be more your thing than mine, and that's fine.

I don't dare say that much of this stuff is objectively bad, except for the superman kickouts, which I will gladly say are an objectively ****ing horrible crutch that they've booked themselves into by too often not knowing how else to manufacture drama in a match's story.

LKJ said it much better than I did in my now deleted post

All I could think of reading this is that every Takeover crowd has become the Full Sail crowds that they all hated so much.

Sure, not one of their better efforts, but I can't wait to see how everyone who hated this handles 8 hours of Wrestlemania tomorrow.

I'm gonna handle it great tbh. Honestly, for all its faults, I prefer the main roster style where it's about a story and characters and the moves actually mean something. I don't subscribe to the prevailing notion that this do a million moves and never sell anything style is what pro wrestling should aspire to.

The finisher kickouts tomorrow will dwarf anything we saw last night in terms of sheer numbers. We can only hope that there will be no sequences that top the absurdity of that Gargano-Cole endgame.

That said, like SR, I expect to enjoy Mania more than I enjoyed last night's show.

Yeah, for me it's less the finisher kickouts and more just the absurd impact/craziness of all the moves/strikes combined with not selling anything. Obviously the finisher kickouts are a part of that issue. People were kicking out of moves last night that should be hit like once every five years and look like they would kill someone.

I'm realizing one reason I like the women's division a lot is the amount of submission finishes, which means their matches tend not to devolve into the kickout formula. Hopefully the main event follows that trend.

Dave Meltzer said that Gargano/Cole was possibly the greatest match in WWE history because of course he did.

Good stuff. So that gets 7 stars for sure. Ciampa/Gargano from last years Mania weekend was infinitely better

After watching the first couple of matches I missed you are all definitely being downers on what was a good show.

I can't even feign surprise at this Meltzer stuff anymore.

I thought the show was great except for the main event. The main event sucked major ass.

100% agree.

WALTER/Dunne was fantastic. The women's match was great. Opener was a little spotfest heavy, but do a much lesser degree than most Ricochet matches. And Velveteen Dream is always great.

The main event was a pretty slow slog (it wasn't unwatchable, just hard to get invested in) just to get to Gargano eating big move after big move and not staying down. It reminded me of Cena beating Nexus singlehandedly.

Regarding Walter: I'll be interested in seeing where public opinion of Walter is in 3 years. Think I'm ahead of the curve on this one when I say that "guy strolls around between slapping a chest really hard doesn't have much staying power" but we'll see. His match with Osprey didn't do it for me and his match with Dunne didn't do it for me either. Has a good entrance theme and pose though!

Regarding Meltzer: Guy jumped the shark a while ago and has gone from wrestling journalist to wrestling clickbait writer. It's disappointing but in line with how all of journalism has gone so I can't say it's unexpected.

Regarding the Main Event: Anytime a babyface kicks out of a pin attempt at the end and my reaction is "well thats just stupid" instead of cheering, it means whatever it is they were doing didn't work for me. Especially considering I've been a huge Gargano fan for so long and I've been wanting them to pull the trigger on him for ages.


Normally I find NXT to be way better than the main roster but I think it's a near lock for me to enjoy Mania more this year.

This was much appreciated. Thanks!