The cut to Samoa Joe in the opening seconds of his NXT Championship match against Finn Balor could have derailed the TakeOver: Dallas main event. The action had to be stopped numerous times to try to get the cut under control, which broke up the flow of the match. But both men worked through the delays and delivered a really good bout that saw Joe fall just short again of winning the title. Despite that, Joe looked like a legit monster, covered in his own blood and beating on Finn constantly, only losing when Balor walked the ropes and turned a Kokina Clutch into a pin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTWPlLeiDn0 Balor is clearly the face of NXT (more so now that Sami Zayn has moved to the main roster), and Joe is a force to be reckoned with. If anything, he showed that he could be a vicious heel on the main roster right now, beating the tar out of opponents. This match might not have been as action-packed as Sami Zayn/Shinsuke Nakamura, but it was probably better than the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match well see at WrestleMania on Sunday. Time will tell on that one.
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.
