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Thank you Johnny.
If this was really the end of Johnny Gargano’s career in NXT, it was an impressive and very violent end. He has truly carried the brand to some unbelievable main events for nearly two years. While the main event was tremendous fun, the rest of the card was an interesting mixture of style as well.
We had a fun tag team opener, an entertaining triple threat match and a show-stealing women’s match as well. There will likely be some mixed thoughts about the Women’s Championship match but it was another wonderful NXT TakeOver show. They will never disappoint us.
With all of this in mind after another great Gargano-Cole match, here are the top five most surprising moments of WWE NXT TakeOver: Toronto 2019.
#5 Street Profits retain the NXT Tag Team Championships
Montez Ford is really good.
It was not too surprising to see the athleticism of Montez Ford on display in Toronto but to see Angelo Dawkins’ excellent power moves led to another fast-paced tag team opener for an NXT show. It doesn’t hurt that Undisputed Era was involved in the match either. Has Kyle O’ Reilly and Bobby Fish ever had a bad match? I cannot remember one in NXT.
The big surprise was seeing the Street Profits win the tag match clean. They have been showing up on Raw for months now and it is hard to see why they aren’t wrestling on the Raw brand now. Will this lead to the Street Profits dropping the NXT Tag Titles like the Viking Raiders? I hope not because I want to see more of the Street Profits building their skills on the NXT brand instead.
#4 Io Shirai and Candice LeRae steal the show
I love a heel Io Shirai.
A lot of NXT fans, myself included, were disappointed that Io Shirai didn’t beat Shayna Baszler for the NXT Women’s Championship at the last TakeOver. But it did lead to the interesting choice to see Io snap on her friend Candice LeRae after a steel cage title match. It was a very surprising choice to have a second women’s match on an NXT TakeOver show. It paid off in a big way on Saturday night.
The match was easily the best NXT women’s match of the year. Io Shirai is one of the best in the world with her amazing high-flying offense. But it was surprising to see her heel mannerisms so perfect as well. Candice LeRae more than held her own with the incredibly fast pace of the encounter. The crowd clearly believed the near falls Candice LeRae got throughout the exciting fifteen-minute match.
After Io Shirai “snapped” she was able to pick up the quick submission victory. It was the most unexpected great match on the card and has clearly established both Candice LeRae and Io Shirai as two of the best the NXT women’s division has to offer. I want to see more of both in the future.
#3 Velveteen Dream “Steals” The Win
It was surprising to hear the Mountie’s entrance theme in 2019. But we should expect the unexpected when you have the Velveteen Dream on an NXT TakeOver show. He will always have an entertaining entrance.
Triple threat matches are hard to pull off convincingly. Pete Dunne, Velveteen Dream and Roderick Strong did a very good job of keeping the offense going throughout the nearly twenty-minute match. Watching the multiple power moves and submissions involving all three performers was quite impressive to see. Roderick Strong, the veteran of the group, looked like a star with his wonderful stiff strikes.
The ending of the match was a bit of a surprise. Pete Dunne was going for a pin when Velveteen Dream threw him out of the ring. Dream then hit the Elbow Drop to retain the title. It is surprising to see Dream win in that fashion and continue an already lengthy North American Championship reign. Here is hoping Velveteen Dream moves up to the main title picture again soon. He certainly deserves it at this point.
#2 NXT Women’s Championship match disappoints
This is likely one of the weakest NXT TakeOver matches in a while. It was clearly Mia Yim’s chance to shine and she sadly disappointed. Her brawling style was way too similar to that of Shayna Baszler’s style. It led to a painfully slow pace among a show of truly exciting matches. By comparison, it seems very dull and average.
Shayna seems to work her best with different fast-paced styles like that of Ember Moon, Kairi Sane and Io Shirai. Mia Yim clearly doesn’t fit that bill. It didn’t really seem like she had a believable chance in Saturday’s match. While the other competitors fought against Baszler’s submission, Yim tapped out right away. I don’t know if that bodes well for her as a future title contender of any kind.
The question is where Baszler goes from this point. She has, other than a two-month Sane reign, held the Women’s title basically for nearly two years. It will seem like a big deal if someone actually beats her but her matches are becoming really repetitive and bringing down the quality of TakeOver shows overall.
#1 The NXT Championship match
Johnny Gargano and Adam Cole had put on two classic matches at the last two NXT TakeOvers. How could their third encounter top it? They decided to have a very dangerous finish to end their amazing feud.
The two out of three falls was as exciting as the rest of their TakeOver encounters. The regular fall was high quality with the surprising choice to have Johnny Gargano purposely get disqualified in the fall. It is still really surprising to see a babyface cheat in a meaningful way in 2019 professional wrestling.
The Street Fight was pretty brief and seemed to be a good excuse for some fun interactions with the loud Toronto crowd. What set this match apart was the third fall in a steel cage. They proceeded to beat each other up with chairs, ladder, tables, sledgehammers, and kendo sticks. The crowd bought every single near fall, and there was a lot of them.
The finish is clearly what will be remembered. It was quite dangerous to go flying off a table at the top of the steel cage and attempt to hit the tables well below. A lot could have gone wrong to give us this clear finish. Having Adam Cole basically just land on Johnny Gargano for the pin was the only real logical choice. How else could this feud truly end?
It seems after the show Johnny Gargano received a farewell from the Toronto crowd. He doesn’t really seem to have anything left to accomplish in NXT. But I know that I and many NXT fans will miss the amazing main events he has given us for nearly two years. Thank you Johnny Takeover. You will be missed.
