10 Things You Learn Binge Watching Every WWE NXT TakeOver
The black-and-gold brand's undisputed golden era, from rise to rust.
WWE's business is booming in just about every aspect in 2023, but there was a period in the not-too-distant past where the WrestleMania brand was doing an incredible job of disguising a wider public malaise.
Vince McMahon's insistence that, after WrestleMania 22, the company were never to downscale the 'Show Of Shows' was such a smart one. The undisputed market leader was that in name alone at various points throughout the 2000s - a lack of real competition had blunted the company's creative blade, and a serious lack of clear post-Attitude Era identity was turning viewers away from wrestling as a whole rather than creating an audience for TNA, Ring Of Honor and other smaller operations.
The state of the future was as bleak as the present too. Developmental became a farcical prospect for anybody with anything unique to offer, and the main roster product became a landing point for those mostly too scared to colour outside of the lines or do anything that wasn't reduced to "pleasing Vince McMahon" on any given day. When that changed with the weather, so too did the trajectory of another generic and jacked greenhorn.
NXT's 2012 relaunch - and especially the quarterly "TakeOver" brand launched in 2014 - was the change Triple H spied from the inside, and delivered from his fairly protected catbird seat. The calls were coming from inside the house but Triple H's best trick was temporarily fooling people that wasn't the case.
For around 7 years, he did rather well...
10. Lost Classics
Genuinely lost, genuinely classics.
They're hard to come by in this era of content super-service and everything being available everywhere, but the Full Sail era of TakeOvers in particular left behind a legacy of contests that added WWE to conversations the Vince McMahon-led version of the brand had never been in.
Adrian Neville Vs Finn Bálor from TakeOver: Rival. Charlotte Vs Sasha Banks from TakeOver: R: Evolution. The Ascension Vs Kalisto & El Local from the original TakeOver. The Baron Corbin squashes as counted along by the Full Sail crowd in one of the closest ever comparisons to the magic Paul Heyman summoned with 911 during mid-1990s ECW's creative peak.
These are - unlike all the images and clips constantly re-shared on Twitter - matches and moments nobody talks about.
"The WWE roster in 2008 was STACKED", but so too was the first ever "NXT TakeOver" event, held in May 2014. "Randy Orton was a MENACE in 2009", but Tyler Breeze was a bigger one as the black-and-gold brand grew, working awesome and dramatic bouts with Sami Zayn and Hideo Itami either side of an electrifying TakeOver: Fatal 4-Way main event that also featured Zayn, Neville and Tyson Kidd. "SmackDown Live In 2016 Was FIRE" but NXT one year earlier was a raging inferno by comparison.