8 Ups And 4 Downs From NXT TakeOver: Orlando

The third brand kicks off WrestleMania weekend with its solid offering.

bobby roode shinsuke nakamura
WWE.com

Once again, NXT has thrown the gauntlet down at WWE’s feet and dared the main roster to top the developmental territory’s offering.

NXT TakeOver: Orlando was not the epic show we’ve seen from the smaller promotion in recent years, but it was mostly good with few down spots, with the performers delivering decent to really good matches. True, we didn’t see a whole lot of change – save for new titles being unveiled – but as a primer for WrestleMania weekend, it wasn’t a bad opener.

Given some of the match results Saturday night, we might have gotten an idea of some of the talent who might debut in WWE either at WrestleMania or shortly after. We saw DIY and the Revival basically will the tag title bout into a solid affair despite both teams coming up short. We saw the King of Strong Style knocked off his pedestal again. And we saw the Perfect 10 held down for a 3 count.

We also saw the "debut" of Drew McIntyre, who has returned to the WWE fold via NXT. It might not be listed in the "ups" category, but it's definitely a positive development for the brand.

WrestleMania should produce a couple good matches, but with a bloated card that feels like it could run seven hours, there’s bound to be plenty of down spots to it, while NXT breezed by in 2.5 hours.

With that said, let’s find out what made the grade and what has to repeat class next semester. Let’s get to it…

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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.