10 Quick Fixes For WWE When Crowds Return
6. NXT TakeOver's Free Hit
The world has changed beyond recognition since February 2020's NXT TakeOver: Portland, and the same could be said for the black-and-gold brand too.
Back then, it hadn't yet definitively accepted life as second best in the Wednesday Night War, and the white hot crowd that night highlighted just how important the Network specials were to keeping the brand prestigious. In the absence of proper versions of the former god tier show and a futile need to win a ratings war, NXT lost all the focus that once defined it.
TakeOver: The Return (or whatever) has to serve as a reminder of what this was really all about all those years. Five or six total bangers over a tight two and half hours with a title change or two (more on that momentarily), performed in front of a crowd spent to the point of physical decay from all the pops.
The Tuesday night show may never fully recover from the hammering it's taken with the emergence of AEW as the pre-eminent brand for the discerning North American fan, but about once every three months, they have the opportunity to be the best at something again. And August isn't even that far away.