8 WWE NXT TakeOver: WarGames 2020 Impulse Reactions

The opening third of the WarGames main event was a little on the drab side, truth be told. There was much to like - if not love - about the exchanges between Pete Dunne and Kyle O'Reilly, but the early-going succumbed to walk-and-brawl stuff until Roderick Strong evened the sides at Three Vs Three.

His entrance was cut off by the Tag Team Champions, permitting the Kings Of Wrestling to maintain their dominance until wonderful gobsh*te and last heel entrant Pat McAfee loaded the ring with personalised tables for The Undisputed Era. Strong went through his own before Adam Cole literally extinguished their fire ahead of a tremendous babyface fire-up.

Things got into gear from there, and a series of sequenced table spots for The Undisputed Era's lasted until only a banged up Pat McAfee remained. In a rewarding moment, the sh*thouse took the sh*tkicking he'd been owed for months before another breakdown in the battle somehow ended in the former punter hitting a swanton bomb from the top of the cage.

With the bodies laid out, Dunne and O'Reilly got a showcase spot infinitely more exciting than their opening salvo before Cole still failed to get requisite revenge on McAfee when he kicked out of a Panama Sunrise. Kyle O'Reilly got it done in the end with a knee to a chair on the face of Oney Lorcan.

Free from much in the way of a big angle, the match itself brought the best out of everybody eventually. A lack of thickening plot here was jarring, in truth, but that panic can wait another week.