Takeover New York

[BestSportsEntertainer]

Why are some fans booing Gargano? Some fans just aren’t ever going to be happy.

[BestSportsEntertainer]

Best match I’ve ever seen

[Spidey]

[BestSportsEntertainer]

Well good luck being half as good as this, WrestleMania

[Spidey]

Damn near perfect show I thought. I don't quite get WALTER's fan appeal but I'm not mad I watched him. Women's match was better for me. Maybe the best ppv I've seen beginning to end.

[klunderbunker]

Takeover: New York
Date: April 5, 2019
Location: Barclays Center, New York City, New York
Commentators: Mauro Ranallo, Nigel McGuinness, Percy Watson

We’re finally in the big city for what might be the best show of the weekend (I’m looking at you ROH/G1. Impress me.) with a new NXT Champion guaranteed in the main event. Other than that we have all title matches up and down the card with the United Kingdom Title on the line as well. I guess I can deal with this if I have to. Let’s get to it.

Click on the link below for the full review.

The Gold Show

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

Gargano continues to have MOTY candidate matches. What an outstanding match. Really good program, (Other than Nicolai Volkoff er I mean WALTER!!!!)

[Yer Maw]

Some of those near falls in the main event were bordering on ridiculous.

[Jack-Hammer]

Overall, TakeOver: New York may have been the overall strongest bout of matches of any NXT card in history.

The War Raiders vs. Ricochet & Aleister Black was just flat out fun from bell to bell, a 4.5 star outing that featured some genuinely fun athleticism from everyone involved. I thought Hanson's displays of athleticism were smoother than usual, though it's always fun to see a man of his size pull off some of the stuff he does and not look ridiculous doing it. A few times, I felt the War Raiders were in genuine danger of losing, WWE has made some surprising moves over the last few weeks so having a title change here didn't seem as unlikely as it might have otherwise even though Ricochet & Black were moving on from the main roster. Then again, based on some things Triple H has said recently, some may stay in NXT permanently, and still make main roster money, some from the main roster might come back, some might even work both rosters so while unlikely, it wasn't out of the question. The War Raiders retaining, however, was the right call.

The Velveteen Dream vs. Matt Riddle was another 4.5 star bout that featured great storytelling, tremendous selling from Dream and a lot of physicality. Both men looked like stars here and Riddle was keeping up with Dream, even outwrestling him in some ways, all through the match. There were some genuine moments where I thought Dream was going to lose, especially the end with Riddle had the Bromission firmly locked in. The ending is one of those that sort of puts me in mind of Savage vs. Steamboat at WrestleMania III in which both guys sort of hit everything they've got but the win comes about as the result of a brief lapse in concentration that leads to a quick roll up. Riddle didn't lose any momentum in this match, he gained quite a bit in my eyes.

Pete Dunne vs. WALTER was a match I wasn't all that sure of going in. I'm not that wild about WALTER, I just don't really get why so many people get their dicks hard for him as I don't really see anything special about him. It's not that there's anything bad about him, except for the fact he needs to hit the gym, but he's far from the best hoss I've ever come across. With that being said, I really, really enjoyed this match because of the different feel it had from the first two and the sheer raw physicality. As with the two previous matches, there were times in which I thought that Dunne was going to retain; these two beat the blue shit out of each other and I really liked that Dunne kept consistently hanging in there and giving as good as he got while still telling the story of WALTER being overwhelmingly strong and a hard hitter. I still cringe whenever I watch Dunne work an opponent's fingers; I'm suspicious by nature and I just can't help but think how easy it'd be for Dunne to really mess somebody up if he wasn't such a pro, or if he just felt like being an asshole with an opponent he had real beef with. I gave the match 4.75 stars, I'm still not all that crazy about WALTER and maybe a big part of this was due to Dunne but I just thoroughly enjoyed the near 26 minute war and I think it was also the right time for Dunne to drop the UK Championship. He'd been champion for nearly 23 months and I think he should be moved to the main roster or the NXT brand or something as there's just no real need to have him spin his wheels in NXT UK. I know that the UK brand itself is less than a year old but, again, Dunne was UK Champ for almost 2 years and he's at a point where he's bigger than the UK brand.

The NXT Women's Championship matche was the "weakest" match on the card, though it was still a very strong 4 star outing where all the ladies had a chance to shine. They avoided most of the pitfalls of these sorts of matches and the emotional upheaval between Kairi Sane and Io Shirai was fun to watch; they didn't really get into it with each other heavily and I liked that as I could see them saving it for later on. Bianca Belair looked like a beast during the match and hitting the double Burning Hammer with both Shirai and Sane looked phenomenal. Baszler did a lot of selling for her opponents and didn't look especially dominant, though she didn't really have to as it's already been established that she's high quality. Baszler retaining was a legit surprise as I saw her dropping the title either to Belair or to Shirai, but the fact she retained leads me to wonder if they might be moving Belair to the main roster soon or if they're just waiting for a singles match to definitively take the title off Baszler before moving her up to the main roster. I ultimately see a bout between Sane & Shirai to determine who faces Baszler one on one, which I see Shirai winning and becoming the next champ.

Johnny Gargano vs. Adam Cole was a near 40 minute spectacle of drama, storytelling, fantastic action and a super hot crowd that was on the verge of wetting itself for the last 15 minutes or so of the match. I thought this was a 5 star match due to all those reasons and the payoff of Gargano finally becoming NXT Champion; it would've been even sweeter against Ciampa but the situation with Ciampa's injury is just one of those instances that comes along from time to time that spoils epic greatness. If I wanted to nitpick, I can find a few little things that sort of annoyed me, like the fact there were about 785 superkicks in the match and I agree with Yer Maw that some of the near falls fell just this side of ludicrous. In most other matches with most other wrestlers, it probably would have come off as ludicrous but this match was all about Gargano winning the big one while convincing the crowd, multiple times in fact, that Gargano becoming NXT Champion simply wasn't meant to be; Gargano's journey to the title kept things in perspective and the commentators did a fantastic job with keeping me focused on that. Gargano became the 15th NXT Champion and NXT's first triple crown winner and all is right with the world.

So yeah, NXT TakeOver: New York was basically an epic where nothing even remotely resembling bad was anywhere to be seen or heard. You know you've seen a helluva card when the weakest match on the card is still a super strong A-. For me, this rivals last year's WrestleMania TakeOver in New Orleans as maybe the best and I simply don't see how WrestleMania tomorrow or the G1 Supercard tonight is going to be as good. This show gets an easy A+ grade, though that's par for the course when it comes to TakeOver events.

[#AbsoluteUnit]

I already know TakeOver will be better than Mania. This indeed, is a fact!