Posted in: Doctor's Orders
Doctor's Orders: NXT Takeover The End Peaked In Hour One
By The Doc
Jun 9, 2016 - 12:42:27 PM

The E-Version of The WrestleMania Era: The Book of Sports Entertainment is on sale for $4.99. Click here to order.

The first companion book in the WrestleMania Era series, The Greatest Champions Of The WrestleMania Era, is also available now!

”The Doc” Chad Matthews has been a featured writer for LOP since 2004. Initially offering detailed recaps and reviews for WWE's top programs, he transitioned to writing columns in 2010. In addition to his discussion-provoking current event pieces, he has written many acclaimed series about WrestleMania, as well as a popular short story chronicle. The Doc has also penned a book, The WrestleMania Era: The Book of Sports Entertainment, published in 2013. It has been called “the best wrestling book I have ever read” and holds a 5-star rating on Amazon, where it peaked at #3 on the wrestling charts.



QUESTION OF THE DAY: What did you think of Takeover? Match of the night?


Tye Dillinger vs. Andrade "Cien" Almas was a good opener and an impressive performance from both. Almas handled himself well and flashed moments of considerable personality that will help separate him from someone like Apollo Crews, who debuted against Dillinger as well if I'm not mistaken. Not being a regular, week-to-week NXT viewer, my exposure to Dillinger has been very limited, but I seem to always come away impressed by him. He had the good fortune of getting some verbal hype from Seth Rollins on Chris Jericho's recent podcast, so my interest in this match increased "ten" fold by hearing Rollins speak so highly of him. Such instances are beginning to stand out to me as the true definition of the "WWE Universe" - an expansive network of ways in which WWE remains in our consciousness, giving talents we might otherwise be less familiar with a chance to build a reputation via reputable word-of-mouth (among other avenues). (** 1/4)

The End kicked into high gear when the Tag Team Championship match took place. About six weeks ago, I joined forces with three of the four co-hosts from The Right Side of the Pond podcast to create a list of the ten best pure (2 v 2, no gimmicks) tag team matches in WWE history and American Alpha vs. The Revival from Dallas was included; it was that good and I have no qualms about its placement (no recency bias at all). During Mania weekend, we were provided an example of what I most desire to see from tag team wrestling: an action-packed and exciting style of wrestling every bit as good as that which we see from the headlining singles stars but specifically unique. No pairing of duos better exemplifies that style in the modern era quite like Gable and Jordan vs. Wilder and Dawson. My pal, Mazza (of TRSOTP and LOP columns fame), well stated the following during a social media interaction last night, "Around the turn of the millennium, 3 teams innovated tag team wrestling. They did it, however, using a bunch of tools. These two teams are doing it with the absolute basics." I see from Alpha vs. Revival what I saw from the Steiner Brothers vs. an Arn Anderson-led team twenty-five years ago; and I view that as about the highest compliment I can pay last night's match and its prequel. In fact, I'll go one better and say that the past is meant by nature to be bettered in the present and what I've seen from Alpha vs. Revival is actually superior. I could watch those teams wrestle every week just to see the nuance that they would create and the innovation that they would put into something as simple as "how to prevent the hot tag." For those of you that grew up on WWE tag team work from 2004-2014, what you witnessed last night was one of the greatest modern examples of "Tag Team Wrestling 101." Tremendous work! (****)

Shinsuke Nakamura had to follow the Tag title match two months ago and he responded with what many consider the Match of the Year front-runner. He had to do it again last night and delivered another great match against Austin Aries. I felt it, match #3 of 5, was near equally as good as match #2 of 5. There was something grittier about Naka vs. Aries as compared to the King of Strong Style's last Takeover encounter and I appreciated it. We're in an era right now when sometimes the matches are all so fluidly executed that it takes greater study to find their differences. While certainly not lacking in the execution department, Naka vs. Aries had the feel of a more legitimate fight at times. The match that preceded it got the nod for Match of the Night for me, but it was a close second on the list of Takeover: The End's superlatives. (****)

The NXT Women's Championship bout was intriguing to me primarily due to my wanting to see the progression of Nia Jax. A monster female would offer a fresh set of stories for the main roster division and Jax has the pedigree to pull off that role quite well if she can develop into her potential. Back in London last year, I thought she handled herself well and played to her strengths despite being such a novice and, while I did see some improvements yesterday from her first title match in December, I much preferred the Bayley match to last night's match with Asuka. Some of that was the dynamics in play with Bayley's character being such a natural underdog against a larger athlete, but some of it was definitely Nia's lack of substantial growth. One excellent character moment at the end before she was knocked out was not enough to carry the day in my view. The story was above average, but at no point did I - despite very much immersing myself in the saga - feel as though Asuka was in danger of losing the title. (**1/2)

That last sentiment could extend to Samoa Joe vs. Finn Balor as well. It felt very routine to me aside from a few well-timed cage-related spots. The main-event already had to overcome something that I briefly touched on a few weeks ago in reviewing Extreme Rules: the curse of the Cage match. It has been so very long since that gimmick worked well in a WWE environment. PG certainly does not help as it is primarily a gimmick that suggests a greater degree of violence. However, the main reason for its failure is that it has never replaced the violence with anything else; the Cage match could be a platform for a great deal of innovation (like the Ladder match can be), for instance, but it has instead become merely a watered down version of its former self. Joe vs. Balor, I thought, had the potential to add significant creativity to proceedings by way of athletic moves off the cage or unique escape attempts but, while we did get some of that, it was mostly limited to a production-wide effort (wrestlers, commentary, pre-match hype video, etc) to sell it as a hate-consumed war. With limitations on violence, that's a hard sell. It was still quite good, so I'll give credit where it's due. Something intangibly failed to click, though, and I cannot help but think the fault lies less with the wrestlers and more with the gimmick itself. I would be fine if WWE retired the Cage match. (***1/2)

Overall, it was another fine Takeover special. It peaked by the start of the second hour after the Nakamura vs. Aries match handicapped the night with a pair of 4-star efforts before the two headliners ever took place and neither singles title match could hold a candle to the work that came before them. From start to finish, though, a thoroughly enjoyable event.