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Less than a month ago on April 7, 2018, the WWE produced the 19th NXT Takeover event in New Orleans and fan response was clear: this not only was perhaps the greatest Takeover ever but one of the greatest events in the history of the entire company.
Of course, it came as no surprise that COO Paul "Triple H" Leveque and his team could produce a great show. NXT has been so consistent in outperforming the often drab main roster pay-per-views over the last two years that it's become a cliché for internet fans to rhetorically wish Raw and SmackDown performers good luck in trying to compete for the next night (Takeovers happen Saturday night before major Sunday pay-per-views, as part of a weekend of events).
This night in particular though stood out as a watershed moment for the black and yellow brand. It showed that there's virtually no limit to how good these shows can be given the right talent roster and proper storytelling. Particularly over the last year, every Takeover literally feels like an arms race to outdo the last.
There's something to be said about a division intended to be a developmental league that's instead taken the wrestling world by storm and become the hottest thing WWE has done since the end of the Attitude Era.
NXT is an established refuge for disaffected fans tired of the PG era's questionable booking decisions. It's rarified air where move sets are far less watered down and simple backstage interviews take the place of drawn out 20-minute scripted promos.
While the weekly NXT program has at times struggled to stay watchable, the scarcity of Takeovers (usually just five shows per year at under three hours long) has allowed NXT' s producers to maintain such a high level of quality control that these nights of captivating entrances, high-caliber in-ring performances and shocking twists and turns have the feel of a Wrestle Mania every 2-3 months.
Ranked by this writer's subjective taste in quality and the general consensus across the Internet Wrestling Community, these are the ten greatest NXT Takeovers of all time.
#10 Takeover: Philadelphia (Jan. 27, 2018, Wells Fargo Center, a crowd of 14,000+)
NXT's foray into the city of Brotherly Love for Royal Rumble 2018 weekend went down as the night when the brand's main event scene came back to form. Following Takeover after Takeover where women, tag teams and special mid card debuts outshined the final match of the night, TO: Philly brought us something different.
The focus went back to the top stars as Aleister Black plowed through Adam Cole in an excellent Extreme Rules match whilst Andrade "Cien" Almas and Johnny Gargano put on an epic encounter that spanned more than a half hour and earned a well-deserved 5 star rating from the Wrestling Observer newsletter (a first for NXT and sixth for WWE as a whole).
Rating: 7/10
#9 Takeover: Respect (Oct. 7, 2015, Full Sail University, the crowd of 400+)
The follow-up to NXT's watershed event in Brooklyn was the night where the women's division became fully cemented as a force to be reckoned with. Sasha Banks and Bayley's rematch for the NXT Women's Championship made history as the first women's Ironman Match and first women's main event on a major WWE pay-per-view style show.
The emotionally-engaging rivalry between the two at this time became such a foundational part of their narratives that the California natives are still intertwined in a longterm storyline now on the RAW main roster brand.
Although it may not have taken place in a big arena, Takeover: Respect was the proving ground where they showed that the fire they sparked in the Barclays Center wasn't just a fluke. Samoa Joe and Finn Balor's Dusty Rhodes Tag Team tournament win, Asuka's noteworthy debut and a solid Apollo Crews win over Tyler Breeze helped round out the quality of the card.
Rating: 7.5/10
#8 Takeover: Toronto (Nov. 19, 2016, Air Canada Centre, the crowd of 12,000+)
An electric night in the Canadian city over Survivor Series weekend in 2016 proved NXT could excel no matter which country they are in. Bobby Roode's spectacular choir-led entrance before his victory over Tye Dillinger, Shane Thorn's (of TM61) amazing steel truss dive onto the Authors of Pain before the latter team snatched the second Dusty Rhodes Tag Team cup and the return of veteran ex-Women's Champion and future Hall of Famer Mickie James in a title match against Asuka were just the beginning.
The spotlight purely belonged to The Revival and DIY as they put on one of the greatest tag team matches in the history of WWE with phenomenal in-ring storytelling and a fist-pump inducing finish as the fan favorite duo of Johnny Gargano and Tomasso Ciampa finally won the Championships after a medium-length buildup, leading to a brief tag team renaissance in NXT than spanned almost a year.
Shinsuke Nakamura and Samoa Joe closed the night with a quality rematch that surpassed their previous encounter and gave us a surprise ending result, with Samoa Joe winning and becoming the first two-time NXT champion.
Rating: 7.5/10
#7 Takeover: Chicago (May 20, 2017, Allstate Arena, a crowd of 10,000+)
The emerging UK Division in WWE stole the show at the Allstate Arena as Chicago fans loudly roared for British indy stars Tyler Bate and Pete Dunne's fantastic 15-minute classic, arguably a match-of-the-year contender with Pete Dunne coming out victorious as the second United Kingdom Champion (Bate having been the first after defeating Dunne in the UK Title Tournament months earlier).
While the Women's Championship triangle match underwhelmed to an extent due to the absence of an injured Ember Moon, Bobby Roode and Hideo Itami put on a strong NXT title match and the Authors of Pain and DIY finished the card with a satisfyingly brutal tag team ladder match main event. Of course, the epic moment when the WWE logo appeared during DIY's post-loss farewell, giving the impression the show was over just before Tomasso Ciampa's despicable surprise attack on Johnny Gargano, sealed the night as a memorable moment in time. Rating: 7.5/10
#6 Takeover: Brooklyn III (Aug. 19, 2017, Barclays Center, a crowd of 15,000+)
A card that was poorly promoted and hardly expected to amount to NXT's normal standard became one of the greatest Takeovers ever, where each successive match seemed to improve over the last.
Johnny Gargano and Andrade "Cien" Almas marked the opening with an intense, high-stakes bout that finally brought the former Mexican lucha libre star out of his losing streak (thanks to his "business partner" Zelina Vega), the SAnitY finally ended the Authors of Pain one year undefeated streak and took the Tag Team Championships (but not before stablemate Nikki Cross was brutally sandwiched between two male wrestlers and a table).
Aleister Black and Hideo Itami put on a hard-hitting affair which at times resembled a Pancrase shoot fight, and Asuka faced evenly-matched rival Ember Moon in one of the greatest women's matches in WWE history.
While the main event of Bobby Roode vs. Drew McIntyre underwhelmed compared to the undercard, it still ended up a solid outing and the surprise debut of Adam Cole forming a then-unnamed stable with Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly) was the icing on the cake that made it easy to rank TO: BK3 ahead of the previous years event at the Barclays Center, while not quite surpassing the original Brooklyn Takeover. Rating: 8/10
#5 Takeover: War Games (Nov. 18, 2017, Toyota Center, crowd of 14,000+)
The originally-planned Takeover: Houston was taken three notches higher when WWE COO Triple H decided to bring back the old WCW gang-fight match concept known as War Games.
While some old-school fans feel that the NXT iteration of the match, featuring the Undisputed Era, Sanity and Authors of Pain along with Roderick Strong in a 9-man triangle format, didn't embody the true spirit of War Games by taking the roof off the cage for aerial dives and focusing on highspots more than gang fighting, the match nevertheless succeeded in bringing some old-school flavor into a modern brand and at nearly an hour long, the War Games main event was by itself an enjoyable car wreck of ruthless punishment.
The phenomenal undercard matchup between Aleister Black and Velveteen Dream was also glaring proof that NXT bookers know how to create compelling characters and storylines, and the heartwarming moment of Asuka crowning her real-life friend Ember Moon with the NXT Women's Championship made for excellent
TV, along with Andrade "Cien" Almas' surprising and well-deserved NXT Title victory over Drew McIntyre.
Rating: 8.5/10
#4 Takeover: R-Evolution (Dec. 11, 2014, Full Sail University, a crowd of 400+)
A somewhat overlooked Takeover, perhaps due to the fact that it took place at Full Sail University rather than a huge arena,
R-Evolution was nevertheless an excellent, action-packed show that gave us the NXT debut of Kevin Owens (albeit botched by a broken nose from CJ Parker aka NJPW's Juice Robinson) the tag team alignment of Finn Balor and Hideo Itami over the Ascension, a solid outing by the Lucha Dragons over the Vaudevillians and a strong Women's Title bout between Sasha Banks and Charlotte which became a harbinger for the rise of the Four Horsewomen.
The main event between Adrian Neville and Sami Zayn, both indy veterans by this point, for the NXT Championship capped off the night with an incredible in-ring performance and Sami Zayn's long-awaited and much-beloved victory.
Naturally then, the future of NXT became even more must-watch by the end of the night when Zayn's best friend Kevin Owens, who along with half the locker room had come out to congratulate the new champ, suddenly did the unthinkable and attacked him out of pure jealousy, creating NXT's first cliffhanger moment.
(Fun Fact: Internet fans on the wrestling section of Reddit were so impressed by this show that they actually chipped in and mailed a fruit basket to NXT head honcho Triple H).
Rating: 8.5/10
#3 Takeover: Dallas (Apr. 1, 2016, Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, crowd of 8,000+)
Perhaps the show that began the "good luck tomorrow, main roster" cliché, Takeover: Dallas was a sort of passing of the torch as the second generation of stars would begin to fully take the spotlight as most of the initial roster had left or were on their way out.
The card was strong on paper and absolutely lived up to its own hype as the Friday night event before WWE Hall of Fame and WrestleMania became the best show of the year, easily surpassing the dud that was Wrestle Mania 32 in eyes of most fans.
The Revival and American Alpha got massive crowd pops for their high-energy Tag Team Title opener, Austin Aries debuted in a solid effort against Baron Corbin, Asuka began her reign as NXT Women's Champion following a high-quality win over Bayley, and Samoa Joe and Finn Balor's NXT Title match, though somewhat marred by personnel stopping the match to tend to Joe's blood-gushing cut, was still a satisfying main event.
Nothing on the card, however, could come close to the masterpiece that was Shinsuke Nakamura's insanely good debut against a main roster-bound Sami Zayn. The two charismatic athletes, who'd never wrestled anywhere before, made history in 20 minutes of hard-hitting, high-flying, technical brilliance that made Takeover: Dallas a defining moment for NXT.
Rating: 9/10.
#2 Takeover: Brooklyn (Aug. 19, 2017, Barclays Center, crowd of 16,000+)
NXT's first massive event in a large arena in the biggest U.S. city couldn't be outdone until recently, nearly three years later. Ironically having the feeling of Wrestle Mania during Summerslam weekend, Takeover: Brooklyn would come to be the cornerstone WWE Network special where women's wrestling in WWE was reborn.
Sasha Banks and Bayley surpassed all five men's matches on the card and proved female Superstars were absolutely capable of building classic feuds and stories, something unheard of in the years leading up the show.
The narrative of Banks, the nasty, arrogant heel champion who made her spectacular entrance in an SUV with black-clad security guards, finally meeting her match against the dorky, child-like Bayley was a shimmering sight to behold, and Banks' post-match humbling of herself in embracing Bayley during a kayfabe-breaking curtain call with fellow Horsewomen Charlotte and Becky Lynch made the night even more special.
A one-off appearance by NJPW's Jushin "Thunder" Liger against Tyler Breeze, a Blue Pants-assisted Vaudevillans Tag Team Title win over Blake & Murphy, the debut of Apollo Crews and a solid-to-good ladder match main event between Finn Balor and Kevin Owens rounded out the nights uber feelgood aura.
Rating: 10/10.
#1 Takeover: New Orleans (Apr. 6, 2018, Smoothie King Center, crowd of 13,000+)
Takeover: New Orleans was the closest NXT has ever come to hitting 5 home-runs over 5 matches. The opening 6-man ladder match, to decide the inaugural North American Champion, was a human demolition derby. A springboard shooting star plancha, rolling death valley driver, ladder-topped elbow drop and "Freak Accident" bodyslam through a ladder were just a few of the insane moments.
Ember Moon and Shayna Baszler cooled things off with an admittedly subdued, but traditional "fight" looking Women's Title match that was very solid overall, and Roderick Strong shocked the NXT Universe by turning on tag team partner Pete Dunne to join his former Ring of Honor cohorts Undisputed Era, allowing the team to retain the titles and win the third Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic.
Aleister Black and Andrade "Cien" Almas put on a clinic with their intense and fast-paced NXT Championship match which would have been a perfectly fine main event...if it wasn't for the absolutely incredible storytelling of Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa's Unsanctioned Match finisher.
The nearly year-long build-up to this slow and satisfying storyline conclusion, with which was filled with callbacks and allusions on top of the bloodthirsty barbaric ferocity with which these two enemies fought (powerbombs on concrete, metal crutch shots, and more) made for arguably the most heartstopping match in NXT's history, and the fierce, vociferous commentary of Mauro Ranallo along with Percy Watson and Nigel McGuiness added another layer of depth and dimension.
The tale of close friends breaking apart after betrayal, the more righteous of the two nearly losing his career only to persevere and emerge victorious with his supportive women by his side is an ageless storyline arc that more than fulfils WWE's mission statement of putting smile's on people's faces. It certainly put one on mine, from ear to ear.
Rating: 10/10.
