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Follow @TheDocLOP QUESTION OF THE DAY: Day late and a dollar short I may be, but would you agree that NXT Takeover: Dallas was one of the best WWE special events of all-time? I was originally planning on writing my NXT Takeover: Dallas review for April’s Month-end column. After a very long week of wrestling, I had not assumed that my thoughts on the event 7 days or more later would be all that current. However, I have had several people ask for my take once I finally got the chance to watch it. A confluence of events kept me from reaching Texas until 1:30AM ET, so I missed the show on April 1st and had a crazy clinic schedule to get through before I’d have had a chance to watch NXT TOD in its entirety. Well, I just finished the main-event. I feel like I have to write something now; if not just for the benefit of those wanting to get my thoughts, I simply need to get my enjoyment on paper to at least help quell the negativity still emanating from WrestleMania 32 memories. I absolutely loved that show. I expected it to be good and probably quite memorable, but it’s rare that almost everything that happens really clicks with you, especially when you’re diehard fans like us that watch so much wrestling. The opener was one of the best tag team matches of the decade and, though it’s not been a great decade for WWE tag team division quality, we’ve definitely seen some nice (if not pronounced) improvements in recent years; so, making a “best of the decade” claim is actually meant as a reasonably significant compliment. Jason Jordan and Chad Gable both have high ceilings in my opinion and I believe that their quest to win the gold from the expert duo of tag wrestling, the Revival (perfect name), was made far more engaging by the strength of WWE Network’s “Breaking Ground” show. I was truly excited for those guys to be on that show, have that good a match, and win the titles in the process. Even with the uncharacteristic gaffe from the Revival mid-way through, this was a tremendous tag team performance that shows that the future is finally bright for the Tag Team Championships. That was a four-star (****) match. Austin Aries vs. Baron Corbin was good filler material with this being the debut for “The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived” (bold). I’m still not overly impressed with Baron Corbin; I see the size but I don’t see the “it” or the presence. I root for him and I do think it was now or never to move him up and let him grow at the top (strange strategy as it may be; ask me if you want me to elaborate), but I’d be surprised if he was a success any time soon. He’s still very much a prospect. The match was fine for what it was; told a decent story. I’ve seen this match numerous times from Corbin, though, I feel. Minimal improvement across the last year or more to me (** ½). Alright, so let me take a moment to say that I think it’s incredibly hard for someone to be able to truly have the same kind of reaction to a match when they’ve been told it’s awesome before having seen it. There are only a handful of matches in history that you could watch in hindsight with so much smoke blown up their figurative rear ends. Nakamura vs. Zayn is one of those matches. I heard all about how incredible it was the entire weekend, so it had an amazing verbal standard to live up to. It’s one of those rare performances. I purposefully decided when I heard that this match was going to happen not to watch any of Shinsuke’s previous bouts from New Japan and beyond. I wanted a blank slate to see if this guy could back up the hype. He did. Let me just say that if that was Sami’s last NXT match, then what a way to go out! That guy’s story is one of the reasons why NXT is where it is as a brand; I don’t think there’s any doubting that. To have your sendoff be perhaps the best match of the year is pretty awesome. Nakamura was as good as advertised. The charisma is going to be the biggest thing for him; that’s what could make him a huge star on a different stage unaccustomed to his brand of pro wrestling. It was his little personality flairs (on purpose) that gave what was otherwise an exhibition bout a lot more vibrancy straight away. If it could have been more clear that this was what the crowd came to see, then I’m not sure how. The work in the ring was phenomenal (I’m quickly running through my hyperbolic thesaurus). Strong Style is unique; I quite like it. They blended faster paced action with excellent psychology and selling, making all of their moves count. Even the higher risks were taken with an added degree of cerebral thinking. I look forward to watching this one again and again in the years to come (**** ½). Asuka and Bayley had quite the act to follow, but there was a strong enough story in place and a deep enough connection to the characters established through admirable creative consistency to keep the audience locked in. It felt like a main-event, which is increasingly the case with the women of WWE, the superstars that they’ve truly become. If you’re in the infancy of your study of what makes a match great, notice the command that Bayley and Asuka have of their personas. The commentary was on point, as well. I called this match on my podcast last week, “NXT’s version of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object.” They wrestled like it. That was remarkable work by both champion and challenger. My favorite storylines of the last year have been delivered by the NXT Women’s division; this, ladies and gentlemen, is one of them and will continue to be. (****) Of all the matches on this card, the one I had the most questions about was Finn Balor vs. Samoa Joe. Though I quite appreciated their work at Takeover: London, I did not see enough in that main-event to make me clamor to see a rematch after four more months of simmering build. That said, I don’t get the impression that many others felt the same, especially not from the live crowd. I pay close attention to crowd reactions at special events, especially since I don’t watch the weekly TVs as much in this day and age. The attendees in Dallas seemed as hyped for it as the other top bouts on this card. I wound up loving this match. Any pre-match concerns I had about the feud not being hot anymore were erased by Joe getting busted open and creating an intangible narrative that I had largely felt the match from December had lacked. Even though the referees and ringside doctors kept getting involved, the wrestlers stayed focused on telling their story with a little added aggression, almost as if they recognized that Joe getting busted open the hard way was a gift from the wrestling Gods that could take their story to the next level of greatness. Balor, who I had mentioned on last week’s “Doc Says” needed to find a new gear for his babyface character, seemed to dig deeper. Joe just continued to show why he belongs in WWE. As much as I loved Nakamura vs. Zayn, I have a feeling that I’ll be revisiting Balor vs. Joe II nearly as often (**** ¼). All in all, that was one of the greatest WWE specials / pay-per-views of all-time; and I’m quite confident that such a bold statement will not prove to be hyperbole or knee-jerk-inspired. I was blown away. There were four matches on that show that I could see myself regularly rewatching. Tremendous! A 5-star event!
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