7 Ups And 3 Downs From WWE NXT TakeOver: Toronto
1. Phantom Knee Injury
From the get-go, the NXT Championship match was series of vicious assaults by both champ Shinsuke Nakamura and challenger Samoa Joe, which is exactly what you would have expected.
Joe smartly attacked Nakamura’s knee, driving it into the mat, kicking at it and locking in a kneebar. However, after an all-out assault on Shinsuke’s knee, the champ went on offense – almost exclusively using his knee to attack. Nakamura hit his running knee-life and several knee strikes, showing next to no pain.
It’s understandable that a wrestler has to “shake it off” and “fight through the pain,” otherwise he would never go on offense. But for Nakamura to show no ill effects from Joe’s attacks was just a poor move. Grabbing at it, pausing between moves, etc. would have helped immensely. Instead, Shinsuke basically shrugged off the attack for half the match.