[CaptainCrunch]

Yeah, he was carrying his shoulder for the last part of the match.


My thoughts on takeover.


Balor vs Thatcher


From a technical standpoint this was a pretty good match, the problem is that neither worker has much charisma or character. The reason why Balor flopped on the main roster is really apparent, he's just too workman like and not all that interesting or someone that makes you want to buy a PPV. For a veteran Balor doesn't sell a leg injury all that well.


Winner Balor rating 2/5


Reed vs Grimes vs Priest vs Dream vs Gargano in a ladder match fir the NA title


A pretty good ladder match, some really good spots, having Grimes try to climb too ladders only for them to get pulled apart and splitting him like Van Damme was a nice bit of humor. They tried a lot of high danger spots with the ladders that were just off on the timing and makes you go "That looks fake". Once again my pet peeve of a crowd gathering outside of the ring "fighting" and staring at the ring while they wait for a guy to throw himself into the crowd. The timing needs to be better, its just been bad for that lately. Candace LeRae was the start of the match as she interfered with a couple of great spots, A hurricarana off the ring apron. She interferred with Grimes on the ladder and in the spot of the night she climbed on Reeds back and held on as he jumped off the ladder and splashed her husband. It looked amazing and her screaming all the way down was great. It was a good ladder match not great. WWE really needs to figure out something different going forward.


Winner and new champion Priest, who I guess I'm ok with though he's been there for a while and I have no clue what he is. 3/5 stars.


Pat McAfee vs Adam Cole


Remember when Rhonda came to the WWE and I labeled her a natural as far as understanding the psychology of the business. McAfee makes her look slow, he's an incredible natural heel in everything he does, from his group wearing Cole sucks shirts to his promos to the little things that he does in the ring that just make you want to see his smug face punched in. The guy is plainly and clearly a athlete. The awesome thing is he threw in a combination of well executed movers with little heel tricks like gouging and raking Cole's back. He had a great spot where he lept on on Cole in the corner and tried to do a Superplex, but Cole countered and Pat flipped off, landed on his feet, jumped back on the turn buckle and did the superplex. it was an awesome sequence.



I almost feel like I have to double rate the match.


From an execution view point, this was technical a good match with pace, and Cole and McAfee worked really well together. For a guy with a few weeks of training he hung with a 12 year veteran. So if I was going to judge the technical parts of the match, this one is a 4/5


From a storyline perspective, this match did make Cole look week and the WWE put in the whole Pat hurts himself which leads to Cole winning. Unless this story is ongoing, they basically blew Cole's brains out by turning him and UE faces and then making Cole look pretty weak 1 out of 5 stars.


IO vs Dakota Kai


Dakota gets forgotten or under rated, but she's just a really good performer and a surprisingly good heel. She's like Bayley turned up to 11. The WWE just does a better job with Japanese woman wrestling then Impact or AEW, I don't know why but its like they understand how they work. This match was really high speed low drag with both wrestlers getting their stuff in. Io did a great job by selling an arm injury by wrestling with one arm. Raquel Gonzalez interfered in the match but it didn't save Kai as IO showed why she's the Genius of the sky and beats Kai.


4/5



After the match Gonzales comes in and attacks Io and Rhea who has been missing in action comes out to do the staredown setting up a giants match.



Keith Lee vs Karrion Kross


I stated my objections to this match earlier. This was way to soon into Lee's reign to have this match.


First of all that entrance "Fall and Pray" by Scarlett and Kross is memorizing. This was a typical big man matches with more brawling then wrestling. Here's the problem with it. there was a lack of defined babyface and heel in this match. I know that Lee is a baby face. But Kross just isn't really a heel, he's just a guy that lays down a honest beating. Neither of these guys really understands how the psychology of the role works (more on that a bit later). Stunningly they had Lee lose his title this soon into his regin. I feel that really hurts Keith Lee unless they're promoting him to the main roster, which I don't think is a good idea.


A good match but in the context of other matches tonight it wasn't good enough
3/5


Thoughts.


The match of the night was the Cole versus McAfee match, and McAfee definitely stole the show. The woman's match was a strong contender but none of the other matches had a big fight feel like the Cole match.


Add on


WWE ran a special after Takeover that talked about Bayley and Banks match at Takeover Brooklyn. This thing is a must watch if you own the network. There were so many surprising tidbits here


1) Bayley and Sasha put together the match, this wasn't producers and writers this was those two designing an excellent match.
2) They didn't rehearse their match or talk to anyone about it, at the time the Diva's thing was still huge and they were worried that the producers would tell them to take the bigger moves out because they weren't for woman's matches.
3) when they both started at NXT they were taught hair pulling and other girl wrestling moves, but Sara Del Ray kind of took them aside and taught them privately.
4) When they started talking about the match and what happened, Banks showed how smart she is in terms of heel psychology. She learned to listen to the crowd and throw in little heel tactics. A nasty kick to Bayley while she was arguing with the refs. How she talked to Bayley during the match to help Bayley's face character. it was really interesting
5) At the same time Bayley talked about face psychology and how her greatest joy is taking a beating to make the Heel look like a heel.
6) One of the big spots was Bayley doing a reverse Rana off the top rope, a move that she had never done before and was terrified of, but talks about how Banks encouraged her big time when they were setting up the move.
The above two points was what was missing in the Lee Kross match btw.
7) Its pretty clear how close these two are to each other and how they feed off of and encourage each other.



Again a must watch, really interesting to see.