10 LIVE Observations From NXT TakeOver: New York
2. The Good And The Only Very Slightly Bad Of The Main Event, Part 1
To answer Brian's question: that wasn't a ***** match.
To like, you know, it's like, borrow the simplest reduction of the decision from the man who popularised the star rating system, if it doesn't feel like a ***** match, it isn't a ***** match.The first two falls didn't feel like a ***** match. Well-worked but tentative, owing to the duration and the stamina required to get to that finish, this suffered initially as a result of the blow away two hours that preceded it.
The reaction to Johnny Gargano was striking, too - or more more accurately, the reaction to his opponent. Adam Cole was so f*cking over in that building man. Myself and the WhatCulture lot were buzzing at the very prospect of saying the words Adam, Cole and BayBay, purely because we wanted to bring a level of noise unheard across the rest of the hottest wrestling weekend ever. He felt like the coolest star in all of wrestling. That is no exaggeration. Johnny Gargano was jeered, resoundingly, as he made his entrance. Given the upcoming finish, this was the opposite of ideal.
Gargano and Cole had to craft a masterpiece to enrich the years-long coronation. It would have resonated as genuinely depressing, otherwise.
There was a sense, in the crowd, that NXT had tinkered too optimistically with Gargano's ambitious and ambiguous character. Cole, in contrast, was so starkly simple to react to. He's cool, and we all wanted to be like him.
Until Johnny Wrestling restored himself, and the dynamic.