NXT MARCH 28TH 2018
Ciampa was shown arriving at the building earlier in the day, getting booed by the fans waiting to get in. Ciampa confronted Regal about Gargano’s recent actions, which have been playing out on social media, where Gargano is going to Ciampa’s house and trying to attack him at shows. Regal proposed an unsanctioned match between the two at Takeover. If Gargano wins he gets his job back, but if Ciampa wins then Gargano is banished from NXT forever, just like that time he lost to Andrade “Cien” Almas and never showed up in NXT again oh wait. To be fair, in isolation, they’ve done a decent job with this storyline. But, aside from it feeling really rushed, I find it hard to get into a firing storyline at this point. It’s wrestling, a storyline like this shouldn’t be any less believable than a lot of other ones going on, but for whatever reason or reasons, the firing stuff feels particularly played out at this point. Nevermind that they’re doing it on Smackdown at the same time as well.
Regal came out to begin the show proper, with his big announcement. The announcement was the addition of an NXT North American Championship at Takeover, to compliment the United Kingdom Championship. The announcement brought out EC3, who assumed Regal had created the championship to award to him on his very first day. Regal said he was happy EC3 was finally an NXT competitor, but no-one was handed anything in NXT. He said EC3 would be in the match at Takeover, which would be EC3 against 5 other competitors, in a ladder match. EC3 looked annoyed initially, but claimed Regal could line up the entire roster, he’d prove he was in the top 1% of the industry.
Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic hype segment with Charly, recapping the Burch and Lorcan versus Strong and Dunne match last week.
TM61 were interviewed at the Performance Center about losing to AOP. This was just a set-up for Shayna to be shown in the background arguing with Serena Deeb, until Ember showed up and the two got into a pull-apart brawl.
Almas and Zelina were shown arriving.
DUSTY RHODES TAG TEAM CLASSIC SEMI FINAL
The Authors Of Pain vs. Street Profits
This was a little strange. The match started out normally enough, with Dawkins getting worked over by AOP before clearing the ring. At that point, Montez celebrated around the ring until he almost bumped into Ellering. Montez offered Ellering his cup, Ellering slapped it down and while Montez pursued Ellering up the ramp, AOP hit the Fall Of Man on Dawkins and won. This kinda made Montez in particular look an idiot. Maybe this would have been less glaring in an early round, but this was the semi final.
Charly recapped that and threw to Cathy, who asked Regal who else would be in the ladder match. Regal confirmed Adam Cole would be the second entrant, before Velveteen Dream interrupted, claiming that him being put in the match would make it the experience the NXT Universe needs. Regal agreed. I’m interested in seeing what Dream does in a ladder match, I’m expecting at least one big spot from him.
Lars Sullivan vs. John Silver
This was Lars’s first appearance in more than two months, when he beat Lio Rush. They managed to find someone basically Rush’s size in Silver to make Lars look extra big. Pure squash for Sullivan, Silver got no offence and was put away with the flying headbutt off the top and the Freak Accident.
Cathy met with Regal again, who spoke with Lars as he came back from his match. Regal put Lars in the ladder match and Sullivan said he’d bring the destruction only he could, but not just with his hands this time, with a ladder. He asked for a match with Killian Dain in the meantime and Regal announced Dain was in the ladder match, before making a singles match between two next week.
Dakota Kai was scheduled for a match, but they cut outside the arena during her entrance, to show Almas attacking Black. Almas took Black to the ring and hit him with a chairshot across the back, before yelling at him to respect Zelina and posing with the title.
DUSTY RHODES TAG TEAM CLASSIC SEMI FINAL
Sanity vs. Roderick Strong and Pete Dunne
The crowd, having been hot for the rest of the show, seemed subdued here. All four guys worked really hard, but for whatever reason, they couldn’t quite reel the crowd back in and that hurt this quite a bit. Seeing Dunne against Sanity seemed odd to the eye, I guess because he’s only recently started interacting with the non-UK lads. Dunne and Strong ended up getting control over Young briefly, to set up not really a hot tag, but rather Wolfe and Strong going at it. The last few minutes became a hectic finish between all four, with what felt like more pin break-ups than there probably were. After Wolfe had made the save for Young, Dunne allowed Strong to hit End Of Heartache on him. Strong and Dunne then hit what amounted to a double team Bitter End on Young to win the match. Strong and Dunne face AOP in the final to see who faces Fish and O’Reilly at Takeover. Both matches make sense logically, but Strong and Dunne’s whole reason for teaming is a feud with Undisputed Era, so it seems like that’d be most likely.
Cathy was with Regal one last time, looking to find out who the sixth ladder match participant would be. Regal said he’d just finalised it and Ricochet came out of the office saying “see you at Takeover”. So it’s Dream, Cole, Dain, Lars, EC3 and Ricochet. At first glance I’d prefer Dain and Lars weren’t both in, but they had interaction in the fourway a while back and Dain is best when he’s providing big moments in multi-mans. There’ll be plenty of personality between EC3, Cole and Dream, Cole and Ricochet should make the most of the ladder match setting and I’m tipping Dream to have at least one big spot in the match as well.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING: Everything outside of the Dusty Classic made for good Takeover build, while the two semi finals were both watchable, but had their own problems. The EC3 return and the Almas attack on Black are probably the standout segments on the show.
NXT WEEK: The Dusty Classic final with Strong and Dunne against AOP and Lars Sullivan versus Killian Dain.