4 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE NXT TakeOver: WarGames 2020

4. Broken Psychology

WWE set themselves up for WarGames failure by having the babyface teams score the numerical advantage in both matches ahead of the event, breaking the stipulation's inherent psychology.

The 2-on-1 pendulum should usually be swung in the heels' favour. This is pro wrestling psychology 101, and allows the villains to unfairly beat the babyfaces down before the final participant makes a big, heroic entrance, and those no-good punks finally get what's coming to them. As with any other trope, there should be room to subvert this, but WWE systematically failed to do so last night and dug their own grave by trying to be too subversive.

The women's match was largely pointless until all participants were in the ring. It was a long, unengaging series of worthless face control sequences broken, temporarily, by a new heel's arrival. WarGames is supposed to be a heat stipulation, but you can't generate heat when the alleged sympathetic parties are in total control.

Raquel Gonzalez could have been thrown in as the first heel: she's a monster, so having two faces work her over is believable, and she'd look like a beast by stifling both, leading to Rhea Ripley entering to nullify her. Alas, WWE went with a less compelling option. Later, they tried to dig out of their own psychological mess by delaying Io Shirai's entrance, succeeding only in making their Women's Champion look like a dope.

WWE got too cute in trying to work around the babyface's advantage in both WarGames bouts. Each suffered until we hit the old Match Beyond, though neither ended up troubling the stipulation's classic offerings.