NXT Takeover: Toronto 2019

[Boss Rock]

Looks like it was 46:41 (I didn't watch the match). This has to be it for Gargano in NXT, right?

[NintendoLogic]

I think it's safe to say that the bloom is off the NXT rose. There was always a heavy emphasis on workrate after they transitioned from developmental territory to super indy, but these Gargano wankfests have stretched it well past the breaking point. And the never-ending Shayna title reign has left the women's division in shambles.

[KawadaSmile]

Not sure if the Gargano/Cole/Ciampa era of endless high spots fuckery is going to finish soon. The crowd still LOVES and CRAVES that type of shit, and they are going to do that until they are fed up.

It's a shame. Gargano can do so much more as a character, and so can Cole. They are being pigeonholed by the fans and the bookers.

[Mad Dog]

10 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

I think it's safe to say that the bloom is off the NXT rose. There was always a heavy emphasis on workrate after they transitioned from developmental territory to super indy, but these Gargano wankfests have stretched it well past the breaking point. And the never-ending Shayna title reign has left the women's division in shambles.

Yeah, the success of the first Gargano/Ciampa match really destroyed NXT.

[Boss Rock]

I will say that I thought the first Gargano-Cole match worked in the context that Johnny had basically been a failure for a year and for him to kick out of all those moves and overcome all that interference sort of in a way redeemed his crappy booking.

[Mad Dog]

Just now, Boss Rock said:

I will say that I thought the first Gargano-Cole match worked in the context that Johnny had basically been a failure for a year and for him to kick out of all those moves and overcome all that interference sort of in a way redeemed his crappy booking.

I thought the first one was good but too long and Gargano's redemption made up for any shortcomings the match had. I personally thought the second one sucked. There is just something so soulless about Adam Cole's work that drags his matches down.

[CarpetCrawler]

1 minute ago, Boss Rock said:

I will say that I thought the first Gargano-Cole match worked in the context that Johnny had basically been a failure for a year and for him to kick out of all those moves and overcome all that interference sort of in a way redeemed his crappy booking.

I've always said that they should've kept Cole and Gargano as far away from each other as possible wrt a rematch because they're gonna expose the both of them really bad with overbooking the "can you top this" kickout spots and that's exactly what happened.  They should've let Gargano keep riding that feelgood wave and moved him onto other challengers before plugging him and Cole back in with each other again.

[Boss Rock]

1 minute ago, Mad Dog said:

I thought the first one was good but too long and Gargano's redemption made up for any shortcomings the match had. I personally thought the second one sucked. There is just something so soulless about Adam Cole's work that drags his matches down.

Same. I could barely pay attention to the second match but it seemed like way beyond overkill.

[Mad Dog]

Just now, Boss Rock said:

Same. I could barely pay attention to the second match but it seemed like way beyond overkill.

There had to be at least 30 super kicks in that thing.

[Boss Rock]

Just now, CarpetCrawler said:

I've always said that they should've kept Cole and Gargano as far away from each other as possible wrt a rematch because they're gonna expose the both of them really bad with overbooking the "can you top this" kickout spots and that's exactly what happened.  They should've let Gargano keep riding that feelgood wave and moved him onto other challengers before plugging him and Cole back in with each other again.

Andrade getting called up and Ciampa staying screwed a lot of things up. Even still they could've easily given Ciampa something else to do or take him off TV again to let Johnny win the title and do other stuff. If the feud had to continue, they should've given it more time to breathe and not have the second match until Brooklyn.

[KawadaSmile]

Give me Gargano vs Gable for 8 minutes to wash away the taste of this damn match.

[Boss Rock]

I like to joke that the Progress guys have had too much influence on Triple H, but considering how a lot of those main events go I wouldn't be surprised.

[hammerva]

3 minutes ago, Boss Rock said:

I like to joke that the Progress guys have had too much influence on Triple H, but considering how a lot of those main events go I wouldn't be surprised.

Well I mean the main event of the first NXT UK match with Dunne vs Joe Coffey easily went over 30 minutes.  I would expect WALTER vs Tyler Bate to go about that long as well

[Coffey]

I hope the Mia Yim experiment is over.

 

[brocklock]

I'd rather watch that horrific abomination of the near 50 minute HHH/HBK Hell In A Cell match than any of these Cole/Gargano matches. I was a huge Johnny Gargano fan from the Ciampa CWC match in 2016 up until the Gargano/Ciampa series last year, but he has taken everything I liked about him and pushed it so far that I wish he'd go away for a while. And, I still like this current form of Gargano so much more than Cole. Cole is the one guy I just don't understand. I don't think he has a lot of charisma, he doesn't have a look that sticks out, his ring style is pretty dull, he doesn't do anything different than a bunch of other guys in wrestling do, his interviews are just sort of there. I'd probably be more into a O'Reilly or Strong NXT superpush than Cole. Yet with all that said,  he manages to get really over wherever he goes and he stays over no matter what he does. I don't really know why so many fans connect to him, but it's just something that I have to accept if I want to continue watching the NXT Takeovers.

A short summary, the main event of NXT is absolutely brutal at this point. There really needs to be a shakeup on the roster. I don't watch the main show. Is there any reason guys like Keith Lee, Kushida, ACH, Shane Strickland, and Trevor Lee or whatever their new names are aren't doing anything or on these cards. It would shake things up from how all the cards from the last 2 years feature Undisputed Era, Shayna, Dream, Gargano, Ciampa (He's hurt but I imagine when he returns they do a long Ciampa/Cole title feud), and Dunne.

[Jimmy Redman]

I'm probably still on Team NXT more than anyone else who regularly posts here, but the booking of the women's belt is killing me. I love Shayna to an embarrassing and unsettling degree, she is my big gay mood and I still belt her theme music out in my car all the time but God fuckin' damn does she need to lose that title.

This was the time to do it. Regardless of how you feel about Mia or her performance here, this was the time. She had the big babyface push with the redemptive underdog story. She spent the build taking out the dorks to remove the cheap run in finish from the equation. She wasn't intimidated by Shayna, and she came in here and got in her face and cheated out the ass to get the upper hand. She gave her a big arm injury early on that Shayna sold big time, and even did the big symbolic *do Shayna's arm stomp on her own arm* spot that is literally 2 years in the making.

And she still lost clean as a fuckin' sheet.

Like... what more can anyone do to Shayna at this point? How is anyone supposed to beat her? You'd have to get a literal bullet out and shoot her, and she'd probably still turn that into a submission.

The women's match was dead because, at best, everyone was waiting for the dorks to run in before buying anything as a finish, or at worst, nobody believed Shayna would lose at all. The women's division has been treading water all year, with the exact same cheap finishes in every title match. They finally got the dorks out of the way and she STILL wins. What are they waiting for? "Not ready to call Shayna up until we know about Ronda" isn't good enough. Just have her do something else. She's been dominant for her entire NXT run and the division is dead now. At least with Asuka, Ember was the heir apparent and there were people waiting in the wings, plus it felt like a special, history making run. Shayna's run has just killed everyone in sight.

Also, I know I'm preaching to the choir here but woah boy, that main event. Hot garbage.

[Tim Evans]

Shayna is going through the Asuka effect where no one looks credible against her. I expect that she won't lose the title and they will just have a tournament to crown a new women's champ. The time to have Shayna lose was vs Bianca. I did enjoy Io/Candice. Heel Io is great and Candice got the crowd into the match which is impressive. First time in NXT where Candice didn't look like Candice Gargano.

Roddy/Dunne/Dream was disappointing. I think Roddy is one of the best guys in the company along with Gulak. This just didn't click. Maybe it's because Dunne was shoehorned into the match. It was fine but would have been better as Roddy vs Dream.

Tag title match was the best match. Dawkins actually looked like he could be on Ford's level which was nice. Liked all the double team moves from Kyle and Bobby. The finish shocked me as I thought for sure the profits were gonna lose.

As for the main event, It was what I was expecting. I just pray that they don't do Ciampa/Cole.

[Jmare007]

I haven't kept up with NXT in a long while, haven't even seen the last 2-3 Takeovers, so this is a legit honest question. What's the main difference between Asuka's reign and Shayna's? Asuka had the belt for almost double the time and she didn't even put anyone over for it, yet I don't remember reading half the complaints about her title run compared to Blazer. Which is saying something because there was a very vocal portion of the fanbase that really didn't like Asuka's last few months as champ.

 

I loved reading this thread's reaction to Gargano/Cole. Bless all y'all putting up with that nonsense, specially because you knew what you knew exactly what kind of nonsense you were gonna get

[NitroFan]

The NXT fanbase love this shit. Meltzer will give it 5 stars.

Anyone who thinks these overkill matches are going anywhere is kidding themselves 

[El-P]

That thread was classic PWO. Hope you guys do the same thing tonight.

[rovert]

 

1 hour ago, NitroFan said:

The NXT fanbase love this shit. Meltzer will give it 5 stars.

Anyone who thinks these overkill matches are going anywhere is kidding themselves 

Meltzer absolutely hated Cole/Gargano. You guys need a new talking point.

[FMKK]

1 hour ago, Jmare007 said:

I haven't kept up with NXT in a long while, haven't even seen the last 2-3 Takeovers, so this is a legit honest question. What's the main difference between Asuka's reign and Shayna's? Asuka had the belt for almost double the time and she didn't even put anyone over for it, yet I don't remember reading half the complaints about her title run compared to Blazer. Which is saying something because there was a very vocal portion of the fanbase that really didn't like Asuka's last few months as champ.

 

I loved reading this thread's reaction to Gargano/Cole. Bless all y'all putting up with that nonsense, specially because you knew what you knew exactly what kind of nonsense you were gonna get

I'm not hugely connected to NXT but perhaps the difference is just that Shayna has come second doing a similar type of reign to Asuka and people are tired of it. It seems like HHH just doesn't know how to book conclusions. We all thought his too long matches, too long feuds and too long title reigns were ego gone wild during his reign of terror but maybe the guy just doesn't know how to do anything else...

[Stiva]

I guess the highly touted September NXT class is going to have someone in it that'll unseat Shayna? Or maybe they are just stretching this as long as possible to lead into a feud with Ronda.

And I thought I hated post-Jesus Shawn Michaels matches but I think i despise Shawn Michaels agenting even more.

[rovert]

 

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, Stiva said:

I guess the highly touted September NXT class is going to have someone in it that'll unseat Shayna? Or maybe they are just stretching this as long as possible to lead into a feud with Ronda.

Don't count on that.

Dakota Kai was building up to finally standing up to Shayna on NXT TV before she got injured.

Bianca Belair was planned to be Shayna's opponent last night but NXT Creative decided to give it to Mia Yim for whatever reason.

So those two are the likely picks.

Waiting to hear if Shayna actually injured her shoulder also. Maybe it was just selling?

[El-P]

1 hour ago, rovert said:

 

Meltzer absolutely hated Cole/Gargano. You guys need a new talking point.

This. Favourite Meltz match of the G1 thus far is Tanahashi vs EVIL, which is about as understated as you can be as far as big moves go and is all about psychology and storytelling from Tana. The obsession about Meltz star ratings is annoying anyway, but "lol movez" coupled with "Meltz gives this a billion star" is even more annoying. And boring, quite frankly.

But yeah, that match sounds unbearable.

1 hour ago, Stiva said:

And I thought I hated post-Jesus Shawn Michaels matches but I think i despise Shawn Michaels agenting even more.

Isn't the whole overdramatic stuff that has marred Gargano's last two programs, from what I understand, coming straight from Micheals vision ? I mean, "Sorry, I love you" may be the starting point of this style of ridiculous, very badly acted kind of epic.