The Street Profits retained their titles!
Shayna Baszler retained her title!
The Velveteen Dream retained his title!
In fact, everyone retained their titles bay-bay!
Unfortunately Adam Cole and Johnny Gargano didn’t retain much HP, dear God what a bump
through the table.
And it looks like another top indy star is on their way to WWE after appearing in the
NXT crowd!
I’m Oli Davis, press the thumbs up button, give us a subscribe and answer our question
of the day in the comments down below: Who should Adam Cole face for the NXT title next?
Because I’ll be replying to people FROM OUTTA NOWHERE!
Also vote in the poll above my head to give your rating for the show, where you can choose
from: XTtrodinary, NXTcellent, EC3 Out of 5 (bit out of date that one), NXTerrible and
TakeOvers Will Never Get This - while Luke Owen and I review NXT TakeOver Toronto 2019!
The show opened with a video package to hype each match on the card soundtracked by the
latest Slipknot track that Triple H really likes.
But oddly, rather than show the video full screen, we saw it from a fan perspective like
Slipknot were there playing live.
Only they weren’t.
So we were just watching people watch a video.
And if you joined us for the livestream, that means you were watching people watching people
watching a screen and oh no I’ve gone cross-eyed.
The night’s action kicked off with Street Profits defending their NXT Tag Team Championships
against Undisputed Era of Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly.
With the Street Profits making their debut on Raw in the last month acting as a Greek
Chorus, it was heavily speculated that they would be dropping their belts to Fish and
O’Reilly - starting the show-long storyline of the Era being draped in all of the gold.
However that didn’t quite go to plan - as Street Profits retained their titles in a
shock victory following a Montez Ford Frog Splash.
It would be easy to say that Ford was the star of the match - after all he is dripping
in charisma that is Rock levels of crazy.
So much like The Rock is Ford that he even attempted to hit The People’s Elbow and
did hit The Rock Bottom.
The crowd were so behind him during his hot tag, but they were also super into him being
worked over by the heels and wanted to see him get the next hot tag to Angelo Dawkins.
But you can’t discredit how good Dawkins is.
His tag team with Ford has brought out a whole side of him we never saw when we was just
the Curse of Greatness guy who did the bowl and spoon thing.
He still is that guy, but he’s leveled up.
And his hot tag in the final portion of the match was absolutely spectacular - hitting
two enormous spears on Fish and O’Reilly to allow Ford to hit his even more enormaous-er
Frog Splash.
So while this followed the usual tag match formula, the overwhelming talent of all four
men in the ring elevated it to greatness.
This was a thumbs up opener.
Next up was Candice LaRae vs her former best friend forever Io Shirai, after Io had just
turned heel on her - a storyline that was always meant for Candice, and definitely not
for Io’s recently called-up tag partner Kairi Sane.
At least the main roster is making the most of her and pairing her with Asuk-PAIGE HERE.
DAMN YOU KABUKI WARRIORS This quite obviously switched plan, where
Candice was just slotted in a storyline originally meant for Sane, meant this storyline has failed
to gain momentum, and the crowd were initially disengaged.
But thanks to the skill and workrate of both women, they sucked the audience into the action
with an excellently told story, character work and a series of big spots and kickouts.
The two played out their blood feud as though Candice really had been Io’s tag partner
all that time - using stiffness to compensate for a lack of character backstory.
Candice even hit a reverse rana that, for once, didn’t just power up her opponent
to hit one right back, she actually held it in a pin.
The last few minutes told a terrific story of Io slowly snapping as Candice kept kicking
out big move after big move.
So Io tried something new - a new submission finisher, as Candice passed out in a modified
Koji Clutch.
Matt Riddle then burst through the crowd saying ‘bro’ a lot and called out Killian Dain
- who very much isn’t a bro - for them to have a slightly too long brawl.
But it was all worth it for No. 1: Riddle hitting a Go To Sleep on a random security
guy (CM Punk return confirmed).
Or a ‘Bro To Sleep’ as Matt Chapman said on the live chat.
And No. 2: for Dain to run off the stage with Riddle on his back, sending both men and another
random security guy through a table - even thought the security guard had a legit 5 whole
seconds to move out the way.
He was like a comedy henchman in Austin Powers.
We then cut to the crowd to see that current Evolve and WWN Champion star Austin Theory
was there to pose and announce that he was joining the NXT brand - later confirming as
much on Twitter.
Following Evolve’s 10th anniversary show airing on the WWE Network - which was totally
coincidental that it was the same night as Fight for the Fallen, you guys - it was pretty
clear that Evolve was going to be treated even more as the feeder system to NXT, which
in itself is the feeder system to main roster WWE.
Evolve the appetiser if you will.
Or the little canapes you get at weddings.
Maybe Triple H just wanted to create one more step to keep his wrestlers away from the main
roster.
And speaking of people who probably don’t want to be going up to the main roster anytime
soon, Velveteen Dream next defended his North American Championship against Roderick Strong
and Pete Dunne.
Dream is one of those guys who’s entrances at TakeOver shows are such a spectacle that
it would be impossible to botch that on the main roster - but we said the same thing about
Finn Balor and Bobby Roode and, well, here we are.
With NXT being in Canada and Velveteen Dream being obsessed with the wrestling of the past,
he came out to The Mountie’s theme complete with a Mountie marching band - which turned
out to be cheap babyface heat for the Toronto BirdRaptors, who won the NBA World Heavyweight
Championship in Basketball or something… touchdown.
What was interesting about this match as that while all the build to TakeOver: Toronto was
around Undisputed Era getting all the gold - in particular Strong going for Dream’s
title - he was more or less and afterthought in the actual match.
A very good afterthought of course who had his moments to shine, but the match was designed
to build a new feud between Dream and former United Kingdom Champion Pete Dunne.
Dream distracted the ref while Dunne hit the Bitter End on Strong and got the visual pin,
and then stopped the ref from counting the three when he finally got past his distraction.
Dream then hit the Purple Rainmaker on Dunne to pick up the win.
This was another really good match on the card, but perplexing in a sense that it completely
ignored all of the storytelling going into the match.
Maybe Vince already has some control over NXT ahead of them going to FS1 in October.
Mia Yim got the big entrance next for the co-main event’s Women’s title match, where
she came out with her squad she knows so well, she left the last person’s high five hanging.
Even though the story of this match was good, it never shifted into TakeOver gear.
Yim worked over Shayna’s right arm (the same limb she’d targeted when taking out
Marina Shafir and Jessamyn Duke), so Baszler had to use her legs to choke Mia out in a
triangle.
Sadly, it’s another less-than-stellar TakeOver match from Shayna.
She’s a great character, but she’s been booked so strong, it’s difficult to invest
in the drama - especially when her challengers are one-and-done opponents like Bianca BelAir,
Nikki Cross, and now Mia Yim.
She lacks that great long running foe to define her run.
Walter and Tyler Bate were then shown in the crowd.
Separately, of course, because they’re fighting for the NXT UK title later this month, and
then we got…
And the main event was the highly anticipated 2-out-of-3 falls match between NXT Champion
Adam Cole and Johnny Gargano - who came out dressed as Canadian icon Wolverine.
Earlier in the night on the pre-show, William Regal announced that the final fall of the
match would contested in a cage match of complete death that was surrounded by barbwire and
all sorts of weapons and plunder - but sadly no Mitch the Plant.
This was a really smart move, as it was very hard to hide a giant cage above the ring during
a live show and keep it a secret off Twitter.
The first fall was the regular wrestling match selected by Adam Cole.
But even though he requested the stipulation Cole resorted to cheap tactics by bringing
a chair into the ring and using it as a distraction to kick Johnny in his Garganos.
It wasn’t the finish however, which instead saw Gargano get himself intentionally DQ’d
so he can get into his street fight stipulation quicker.
And it was a Street Fight that could also be named, Adam Cole Goes Round The Crowd Tour,
Bay Bay.
The two brawled around the arena, with Gargano backdropping Cole through the Spanish Announcer’s
table, lawndart him into a chair, and lock in the Gargano Escape for the tap out win.
The third fall was easily the most fun and chaotic - with weapon shots, more weapon shots,
even more weapon shots, and a super duper Canadian Destroyer off the ladder.
Not to be outdone, Gargano went one better by hitting a Canadian Destroyer directly off
the top rope, spiking Cole into the ground.
And just when you thought it couldn’t get any scarier, the two ended up on a platform
at the top of the cage - with Gargano holding barbed wire - and saw the two crash through
tables on the mat below.
It was spectacular, and saw Cole get his arm across for the final fall and retain his title.
It was a crazy spectacle that went nearly an hour, and further proof that PG isn’t
what’s holding WWE back from putting on matches like this.
WWE.com then posted a video after the match, which showed a teary Gargano waving goodbye
to the NXT audience with William Regal - posting on Twitter that he has no regrets.
Prompting speculation that he’s leaving the black and gold brand for the shining lights
of the main roster, where he’ll likely be chasing R-Truth for the 24/7 title next week.
With the level of talent that NXT has, it’s virtually impossible to put on a bad TakeOver
event and Toronto 2019 was no different.
Each match had its own unique flavour, with fully three-dimensional characters, excellent
in-ring action and often inspired finishes that set up future matches.
While the Baszler/Yim match couldn’t stand up to the rest of the card, this was still
a tremendous and near-flawless show.
Even when it’s not as good as previous TakeOvers, it’s still utterly amazing.
NXT TakeOver: Toronto was NXTtrodinary.
Oli and I will be back tonight with a livestream of WWE’s Summerslam so make sure you’ve
subscribed and enabled notifications to find out when that will be!
And click the videos on screen right now to catch up with the latest WrestleTalk awesome
things in the meantime.
I’ve been Luke Owen, and that was wrestling.