10 Things You Learn Binge Watching Every WWE NXT TakeOver

1. The Pandemic Expedites The End

Sami Zayn
WWE

NXT was heading for a number of different icebergs in 2020, but like The Titanic itself, wealth and extravagance would have continued to obscure that until the brand fully capsized under the weight of its own arrogance in the end.

The NXT Capitol Wrestling Center was a marginally better solution to the empty arena feeling that WWE's original Performance Center tapings, but even when people came back, the grimy aesthetic was simultaneously too sludgy and too polished to register in the way Triple H intended.

Every aspect of the presentation was - the loud roaring music was fine when accompanied by loud roars supporting a popular and theoretically counter-culture brand, but those days had long, long passed. The last NXT logo under Triple H's original tenure was an abomination true to the mutated vanity spectacle the black-and-gold brand had become. A big chrome "X" atop the existing NXT logo with its own big X (as if 'The Game' wanted one each for him and Shawn Michaels) adorned with skulls couldn't have related less to the wrestlers coming through the curtain, further decreasing a decaying connection with a diminished and/or deadened crowd.

TakeOvers weren't without minor moments of magic. Mining 1995 for nostalgia was a choice, but June 2020's In Your House was a cute play on words and an aesthetic dream factory. TakeOver: XXX offered up Adam Cole and Pat McAfee's awesome payoff even if the atmosphere was too haunted for such charismatic figures. And Walter provided the brand's last classics against Tommaso Ciampa and Ilja Dragunov at TakeOver: Stand & Deliver 2021 and TakeOver:36 respectively.

But, like all too many classic NXT programmes, the ending was protracted and drawn out. The 2021 2.0 reboot wasn't for everybody, but it was more of a necessity than many were willing to admit.

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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett