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One of the highlights of NXT TakeOver: Portland was the grudge match between Finn Balor and Johnny Gargano.
Despite coming up short, it was a big evening for Johnny Wrestling as it marked his 16th match at TakeOver events - more than any other Superstar.
It is such consistency that has earned him the nickname Johnny Takeover or Mr. Takeover. To some on paper, this would indicate that he has been dominant at the event, which hasn’t been the case, with Gargano losing more often than he has won.
This sort of contrast bears a striking resemblance to an icon of the sport with quite the influence on NXT - Shawn Michaels.
Throughout his Hall of Fame career, HBK earned the moniker Mr. WrestleMania for his electrifying displays. Despite this, he too holds a losing record at his signature event, with six wins and 12 defeats to his name.
Compare this to Gargano, whose loss to Balor was his 12th at TakeOvers, propped up with just the four victories.
The comparisons don’t stop there between Mr. TakeOver and Mr. WrestleMania. I conducted some analysis of both men’s performances at the event with interesting results.
#4 Length of matches
Whilst not always an accurate judge of quality, there is often a correlation between match length and how good a bout often is.
Even though Michaels went over one hour with Bret Hart back at WrestleMania 12, his average Mania match length sits at 21 minutes and 20 seconds.
This is just under six minutes shy of Gargano’s average of 27 minutes and 24 seconds. Indeed, over his 16 Takeover matches, Johnny Wrestling has never had a single figure timed match, with his shortest being the first encounter between DIY and AOP from NXT Takeover: San Antonio.
HBK, on the other hand, had single figures matches in his first two WrestleManias.
#3 Quality of match
Given the fact that wrestling is subjective, judging how good each man’s matches have been will cause some debate.
Amongst fans, there are two common methods that seem to be used more often than not. One is that from the Wrestling Observer, which sees journalist Dave Meltzer give his respective star ratings. The other is an application called Grappl, where fans can put in their ratings, producing an average number.
Over both these metrics, Gargano once again comes out on top. He fares very similarly across both The Observer and Grappl, scoring an average rating of 4.58 and 4.45 respectively.
Looking more closely at the numbers, Johnny has had 15 Takeover matches that received more than four stars from the Observer. The best of these, his first bout with Adam Cole, receiving a WWE record of 5.5 stars. Whilst still scoring well with Grappl users (4.6), the match which averaged out the best on the app was his second match with Andrade from 2018.
Michaels also has a five-star rating to show for on his CV, with his WrestleMania 10 match with Razor Ramon receiving this honour. Despite this, he didn’t score as well across both metrics, hitting an average of 3.88 on Grappl and 3.77 with The Observer.
#2 Non-tag team matches
Looking at Michaels’ numbers, he suffered from several low-rated tag team matches earlier in his career.
When removing these from the analysis, he compares better with Gargano, scoring an average rating of 4.09 on Grappl and 4 from Meltzer.
Despite having some stand out tag matches with Tommaso Ciampa in NXT, removing these from analysis saw Johnny hit a higher average (4.75) with The Observer.
#1 Post-retirement HBK
It’s often argued that following his return from retirement in 2002, Michaels was a much better performer than when injury hit him four years prior.
His rating numbers at WrestleMania certainly back this up. In singles matches from 1992 to 1998, he averaged 3.6 and 3.7 with Grappl users and the Observer respectively.
Compare that to the numbers from 2003 to 2010, where he was hitting numbers of 4.43 from Grappl and 4.25 from Meltzer, with his only less than four star match in this time being his Street Fight with Vince McMahon at WrestleMania 22.
Summary
Whilst I am in no way saying Johnny Gargano is at the level of Shawn Michaels, or that NXT TakeOver is as big as WrestleMania, it’s fair to say Johnny Wrestling treats it as such every time he comes out to compete on the Black and Gold brand’s biggest stage.
Perhaps one day in the not-too-distant future, we can see Mr TakeOver put on some Mania classics that would make Mr. WrestleMania proud.
