WWE: NXT Takeover 2 Review

NXT Takeover 2 was quietly one of the more important shows the put on by WWE this year. For the first time, on this week’s Raw, the company finally made some moves towards intelligently integrating the Network with their flagship show. As fun as the over-the-top hammyness of the whole “Nine Ninety-Nine” shtick was, those segments were mostly memorable for how disquieting it was to see my childhood hero, Hulk Hogan being one step removed from hawking Slap Chops on QVC. Brother.

Instead, we were informed that actual live wrestling occurs on the Network, even given a preview of how well-worked some of NXT’s matches can be with the Sami Zayn/Adrian Neville vs. Tyler Breeze/Tyson Kidd tag match, which mostly served to show off Neville’s athleticism. The message was clear: if you love fast paced wrestling action, you’ll love NXT Takeover 2. And it’s only (say it with me Hulk) NINE NINETY-NINE on the WWE Network.

With that build up, the show itself delivering in terms of both seamless streaming and bell-to-bell action could provide a nice boost to subscription numbers. Overall, the show disappointed.

The structure of the card made sense, but it appears the latest roster purge has taken as much of a toll on the NXT roster as it has on the main show, as there was a LOT of camera time for some guys who are more dessert than main course.

Starting with a championship match was smart even if the “surprising” outcome was not. The Ascension, er, moving up to the main roster isn’t exactly a surprise even if it probably won’t end well. If there is the wrestling equivalent of the AAAA player, too good for the minors, but not good enough for the majors, it’s The Ascension. The gimmick is solid, and they’ve connected decently with the super smarks at Full Sail, but there isn’t a lot of “it” factor there. The match was just ok, marred a little by some fairly apparent gaps in the work which became something of a theme for the whole night.

One match where working snug wasn’t much of a problem was the quick squad of the ultra-annoying C.J. Parker by Baron Corbin (former NFL offensive lineman Thomas Pestock). The opening clothesline looked pretty solid, and maybe this means Parker is coming to the end of his run, at least in this character. The hippie CM Punk shtick doesn’t make him an effective heel, it just makes him annoying as hell. As for Corbin, we need to see him work a longer match to see if he can do more than be imposing and work stiff, but a promising start.

Speaking of annoying. Hair. I love Enzo Amore. I don’t love Enzo Amore rapping. I do love Enzo talking for a minute. I REALLY love Enzo yapping. I don’t much enjoy Enzo wrestling, especially when followed up by much too much Enzo talking. At least there was a whole second segment concerning the effects of depilatory cream, which has all the hallmarks of a Vince McMahon knee-slapper.  Too much time, overexposing Enzo and Big Cass, who can be massively entertaining in more contained doses.

The final segment of glorified filler was no especially satisfying, but probably necessary in terms of burying Mojo Rawley for a minute. It’s not hard to identify what WWE sees in Mojo. Former high-level college athlete. Great size. Vibrant personality. High energy. At the same time it’s also easy to identify how he is emblematic of the modern WWE “type” in all the worst ways. He’s an entrance, a few catchphrases and selfies with the kids in the audience before displaying a fairly laughable move set. Five moves of what happened I just dozed off, guess I couldn’t stay hyped enough. And neither could Mojo as he was squashed by the more old-school Bull Dempsey.

Preceding that much, but more of keeping with the meat of the second half of the show was the debut of Japanese legend KENTA, who repacked himself Hideo Itami for purposes of WWE maximizing merch revenue. Hard to say how he’ll be used, as his first action was to cut an in-ring promo and run off the departing Ascension. I wonder about the repackage, but switching from El Generico to Sami Zayn seems to have worked out just fine, so we’ll go with it.

With the chaff removed, the show finally got to the two matches around which the card was built.

First, Women’s champ Charlotte successfully defended her title versus Bayley. It’s a tribute to the women’s title matches at the first two NXT “special events” that this match was actually fairly disappointing. Again, there were a few missed or sloppily executed spots. Though they’re great individually, (especially Charlotte who should really be wrestling Natalya every night in front of 15,000) but the chemistry wasn’t quite right. The Sasha Banks run-in was unnecessary and added nothing.

Finally, the Fatal-Four Way between Champion Adrian Neville, Zayn, Tyler Breeze and Tyson Kidd. I can’t help but think the show would have been greatly helped by structuring this square feud as a mini-tournament with Zayn facing Neville and Breeze facing Kidd in the prelims before the winners matched up for the title.

In part this would have eliminated the extremely choppy first ten minutes of this one, which had all the continuity issues one might expect from the format – at one point Breeze was prone outside the ring for what seemed like an hour-and-half before rousing himself to clean house. More importantly, it would have greatly cut down the length of the Amore-Lefort snoozefest and eliminated the backstage segment.

All that said, the match absolutely delivered from the moment of Neville’s top rope suicide dive onto Kidd and Breeze on the rap. From there, it was one spectacular spot after another, culminating in whatever the powerbomb/superplex involved Zayn transitively planting Neville most of the way to the opposite corner. The messiness of a multiway match was put to good use as well, with Neville diving in to prevent Breeze from submitting to Kidd’s sharpshooter a neat touch.

Mildly surprising to see Neville retain, as he seemed bound for the main roster sooner rather than later (as does Zayn, I can only hope). Though perhaps with the addition of now-Itami, NXT is going to be home to a more Lucha oriented cruiserweight scene, in which case bring it on.

Overall Show Grade: B- In large part because the show suffered badly by comparison with NXT Arrival and the first NXT Takeover. Some unusually transparent work, a slight lack of depth in terms of talent made for a slightly disappointing but still entertaining two hours.