7 Ups And 3 Downs From NXT TakeOver: New York

2. Johnny Champion Arrives

Adam Cole Johnny Gargano NXT TakeOver New York
WWE

Oh NXT, you love to play with our emotions and get our heart rates racing.

Fans have been waiting for what feels like forever to see Johnny Gargano hoist the NXT Championship above his head, and everyone thought that Friday night had to be the night. So after getting the first two falls of the 2/3 falls match out of the way, it was just a matter of time before Johnny Wrestling did the inevitable.

Only… it didn’t quite go like that. Adam Cole kept abusing Gargano with superkicks and Last Shots, only for Johnny to kick out time and time again. When Gargano kicked out of a Canadian Destroyer, fans lost it. But when Undisputed Era got involved and Cole then hit a Last Shot, fans became unglued.

But somehow, Gargano recovered enough to take out the Undisputed Era and lock in the GargaNO Escape for the win and the title.

It was a surreal moment that summarized everything that’s great about NXT and everything that’s wrong with WWE. Just a phenomenal ending.

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Contributor

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.