8 HUGE WWE NXT TakeOver: In Your House Predictions You Need To Know
Can fantastic branding reverse the fortunes of a once-fantastic brand?
Is wrestling good to and for its fans?
To appreciate it as an art form is to submit to its silliness in return for the moments that really matter. To be rewarded with those moments is to feel a hit worth chasing until the next one, no matter the emotional or financial expense.
It manipulates like a toxic addiction, and mirrors the feeling by coursing through veins when it's good. All of this is to say that WWE's Empty Arena Era hasn't been capable of providing much of that, save for one key reveal to one key demographic.
To many of the older fans watching NXT, the TakeOver: In Your House logo was the most exciting thing the company could have presented in any era. But right now, as they're putting the mid into mid-2020? Forget about it.
They've failed repeatedly at capturing atmosphere in the Performance Center, the good matches are rule-proving exceptions, and the cinematic offerings have been as outstanding (Firefly Fun House Match, Boneyard Match) as they have awful (One Final Beat, Money In The Bank).
But that logo, with its meshing of New Generation neon and black-and-gold prestige, that logo found feelings laying dormant. It's bought the show a month of build, and now comes the pressure of delivering on expectations when the former developmental brand needs it most.
In Your House never drew in spit of its immense quality. TakeOver: In Your House desperately needs the latter without the pressure of the former...
8. The Stage
Yes this gets its own entry in this list and yes it needs to be lovingly recreated or updated because yes this was the first thing any longstanding fans thought of when Shawn Michaels, Triple H and Road Dogg flashed the logo up on the screen last month.
WWE might have gone cute with the theme of this particular TakeOver due to the shared location of most of the audience, but there's no reason not to assume and/or expect that luxurious and oh-so-90s white picket fence Floridian-style house to take up the bulk of the stage in place of the sterile scaled down TitanTron they've got as a perma-set in the Performance Center.
A modernised version offers so much potential for the matches on the show too - the six-woman brawl could see the heels thrown through doors, windows and planters, Johnny Gargano could scale the roof to avoid Keith Lee or Karrion Kross could set the whole thing on fire, much as he has NXT since arriving last month.
And that's without factoring in some of the show's cooler entrances...