7 Ups And 3 Downs From NXT TakeOver: New York

Black-and-gold brand continues raising the bar.

by Scott Carlson
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WWE

Holy hell.

Dear WrestleMania 35, good luck following TakeOver. Try not to screw it up with 150 angles and video packages. NXT’s latest offering gave fans plenty to stand up and cheer about, and many certainly did.

Friday’s card featured five title bouts, as every regular NXT title, as well as the WWE United Kingdom Championship, was up for grabs. We ended up with a memorable show that set the bar extremely high, with the NXT Championship match once again leaving everyone shocked.

We also saw the modern-day Vikings, the War Raiders, square off against the hottest tag team in WWE, Ricochet and Aleister Black. Velveteen Dream defended his North American Championship against the up-and-coming Matt Riddle. Shayna Baszler faced three challengers for her women’s title. And Pete Dunne put his UK strap on the line against WALTER.

If that doesn’t fire you up as a fan, then you better check your pulse.

So with that said, let’s find out what charged ahead into battle, ready to conquer, and what came back, fallen on its shield. Let’s get to it…

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.