The Real Reason WWE Brought Back In Your House
How NXT's unexpected take on 1990s nostalgia can fix what was starting to feel broken beyond repair.
Everything old is new again. Or, thankfully, not everything. For a change, it's just the good stuff.
Months removed from a Ruthless Aggression docuseries seemingly designed to misinform the younger generation of fans that the company actually created more than two stars after the Attitude Era, WWE have elected to mine an era they almost never turn to in times of trouble.
Perhaps it's an indication of just how troubled the times are? NXT, and WWE at large, are being forced to think outside of the box a lot lately, but going looking inside the gaudy VHS ones from the 1990s was a wonderfully unexpected upgrade from "the risk" of getting thrown off a building matching "the reward" of a cursed briefcase.
In June, the company will bring back a beloved (and often-ignored) old institution with NXT TakeOver: In Your House. The reveal of the logo was enough to disable and disarm the primary functions of most that lived through the time, let alone how they book the show. It's gorgeous. It's neon, it's reductively zany, and it's interestingly the sort of thing NXT specifically wouldn't ever go near. Almost in direct response to vocal critics of the product of late, it's...fun.
It's also nostalgia dragged out naked in front of the watching world no different to the loaded and ludicrously awful Raw 25 and Raw Reunion shows, but the TakeOver branding protects and preserves it in a way Vince McMahon wouldn't have even considered for his former flagship.
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