In recent years the NXT Takeover before Summerslam has created many memories. Some would argue that past Takeovers have outshone the Sunday show. The first time that NXT came to Brooklyn, Sasha Banks and Bayley delivered a Match of The Year contender. The two years after that saw a title change hands in the main event. Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Samoa Joe, and Drew McIntyre defeated Bobby Roode. One of the best parts at looking back at the older shows is to see where these wrestlers are now. Nakamura for example, main evented Takeover two years ago and is now fighting on the Summerslam card defending his US title. NXT is the future of the main roster. Let’s see what the roster has to showcase on Saturday.
The five fight card starts with a grudge match. The only grudge match on the card. EC3 faces The Velveteen Dream. It doesn’t seem like there is too much of a story behind this match, but the in-ring action should be entertaining. An angle was done on the final episode leading up to the PPV where they confronted each other in the ring. EC3 won the unscheduled beatdown.
After a grudge match the rest of the night has title implications. The tag team champions and members of The Undisputed Era Kyle O’Reilly and Roderick Strong plan to “Shock The System” when UK duo Tyler Bate and Trent Seven A.K.A Mustache Mountain challenge for their belts. These two teams are very familiar with each other as they played hot potato with the belt in June. Mustache Mountain ended the 150+ day reign for The Undisputed Era, winning the belts back at NXT’s UK Championship show. The belts were won back only days after on NXT. Mustache Mountain have proven they can do it once, but now they have to do it again. Maybe it was a fluke that they won it once, or maybe they can find success once more.
NXT’s new North American Championship sees it’s first TakeOver appearance since it was won back at New Orleans in April. Adam Cole, who won the title via a ladder match sees himself facing Ricochet, another man who was vying for the belt that same night. Ricochet was the one who issued the challenge on NXT TV. Despite Cole not being too keen on the idea, the match was booked.
The final two matches of the show have lots of backstory to them. In the first one, Kairi Sane looks to become an NXT Women’s Champion when she faced Shayna Baszler. The two have met before, with Sane being victorious in that meeting. Sane defeated Baszler to become the winner of the Mae Young Classic last year. Since then Baszler became the NXT Women’s Champion, looking down on Sane and the rest of the roster. Sane fought her way to the rematch after winning a #1 contenders match on NXT TV. In the final week leading up to Takeover Sane tried to intimidate Baszler by beating Aliyah to a pulp. Sane hopes that history will repeat while Baszler hopes to end get the final laugh on their rivalry.
After betrayal in 2017, the long standing rivalry between Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano has another chapter installed into it on Saturday. Ciampa ditched the tag team called #DIY that he had with Gargano after a loss to The Authors of Pain back in 2017. Since then Ciampa battled back from injury, making his return at TakeOver in New Orleans, defeating Gargano in an “unsanctioned” bout. He beat him once again at NXT Chicago II. This match wasn’t originally scheduled to be just between these two, but became that way after Aleister Black suffered a groin injury. He was written off of NXT TV last week as footage showed that someone attacked Black on the campus of Full Sail University. After defeating Gargono two times in a row, this fight could be the last chance for “Johnny Wrestling” to prove himself.
NXT has an exciting lineup Saturday which has potential to put on many quality matches. Personally I am most excited about the tag bout and the women’s bout. The women’s one because I don’t know who will win, and the tag one because it looks like it will be an absolute barn-burner. NXT’s fourth time in Brooklyn has potential to be spectacular and if it holds that quality afterwords will be seen tomorrow.
JackWannan.com 