8 Ups & 9 Downs For WWE NXT In 2020
5. TakeOver
Clouded slightly by the aforementioned Tampa Bay catastrophe, the TakeOvers that did go ahead as (mostly) planned all had the action and - where possible - the energy to stop the prestigious brand feeling horribly laboured in these laborious times.
Portland was excellent (and better than that in places), but then it was one of the final visions of the old world before the year's strange theme took hold. TakeOver: XXX was a confident course correct after the brand's difficult summer, TakeOver: 31 was a carefully constructed presentation of the new effort made to build new stars from the ground up, and TakeOver: WarGames was a thrilling dose of pre-holiday violence buoyed by perhaps the most dedication to the theme since it was revived in 2017.
For those of a certain age - your writer included - TakeOver: In Your House was a delierious trip down memory lane in a manner most unexpected. Adam Cole did Bret Hart's IcoPro advert, Johnny Gargano entered through the blue door on the set, (that f*cking set, by the way), Todd Pettengill anchored the pre-show, and everybody had a good excuse to go and dive into some forgotten 90s classics on the Network. NXT's struggled to capture key demographics in the last 18 months - but they knew exactly how to drill into some of the things a niche audience absolutely adored.