8 Ups And 3 Downs From NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn II

2. Strong Style Champ

shinsuke nakamura samoa joe
WWE.com

From the moment he debuted, Shinsuke Nakamura was destined for great things in NXT. He was a star before ever competing in the promotion, and he’s easily become one of the (if not the) biggest stars in NXT in just a few short months.

Saturday, Nakamura completed his ascension to the top of the company by capturing the NXT Championship from Samoa Joe. While their match wasn’t quite as epic as the buildup suggested, it still was an excellent bout, with a lot of hard-hitting offense. Joe showed why one of his nicknames is the Samoan Submission Machine, at one point smoothly transitioning from a powerbomb to a Boston Crab to an STF a crossface.

Ultimately though, Shinsuke overcame a Muscle Buster and the Kokina Clutch to deliver two Kinshasas to become the new champ. The only downside to this? It likely means that we won’t see Nakamura in WWE proper in the next couple months. But perhaps Joe could be on the way…

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Contributor
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.