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The entire main event of NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver Night Two can be described in one word: painful. Here's hoping that Kyle O’Reilly and Adam Cole get a few days off after that hellacious battle.
NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver Night Two was an excellent follow-up to the strong first night. It was arguably a better show from top to bottom on Thursday Night. We had an exciting opener, a fun Women’s Tag Team match, another good Johnny Gargano TakeOver bout, a changing of the guard during Kross vs Balor, and a brutal main event.
NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver Night Two has certainly set a very high bar for WrestleMania to follow later this week.
So without further delay, we present the list of the top five most surprising moments of NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver 2021.
#5 Decisive Victories at NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver 2021
The two nights of NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver gave wrestling fans a pleasant surprise. In a professional wrestling world where underhand tactics are the norm, WWE decided to go another route.
On NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver Night One, every single match ended in a clean and decisive pinfall. Night Two continued with this idea.
Santos Escobar ordered Legado del Fantasma to head back so he could decisively defeat Jordan Devlin during their incredible title unification ladder match.
Shotzi Blackheart and Ember Moon cleanly defended their titles. Johnny Gargano had some help from Austin Theory but still hit his finishers to retain his North American Championship.
Karrion Kross destroyed Finn Balor to win the NXT Championship without any outside interference and Kyle O’Reilly ended his match against Adam Cole with a brutal but clear victory.
It is pretty rare in professional wrestling to see so many clean and decisive victories in all the major pay-per-view matches. It will certainly help establish all winners going forward as top stars.
#4 The Amazing and innovative Ladder Spots at NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver 2021
At NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver, we had a Ladder Match to unify the Cruiserweight Championship.
We have seen so many ladder matches in recent years that it is hard to think of new ways to innovate and surprise in this dangerous format. In the opening match of NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver, they found a way to pull off some innovative spots in an incredible opener of Night Two.
Jordan Devlin and Santos Escobar pulled off some creative moments in their exciting 18-minute match. The first surprising and incredible spot was Devlin’s moonsault off the top of the ladder. We have never seen anything like this in such a match. It seemed like he was floating in the air.
A few minutes later Devlin hit a Spanish fly slam off the top of the ladder that caused him and Escobar to crash into the ring below.
They recovered from this and went to the finish when Jordan was knocked off the ladder onto another one that was set up against the turnbuckle.
How he didn’t get seriously hurt in the bump is hard to believe. Escobar is now the Undisputed Cruiserweight Champion.
He should thank Jordan Devlin for some incredible moments in an exciting match at NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver as he continues his dominant title reign.
#3 Johnny Gargano retains at NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver 2021
Johnny Takeover delivered yet again at NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver. It was a surprising choice to see Bronson Reed win the Gauntlet Eliminator match on Night One.
They hadn’t really built up their feud up over the recent months. It also created a unique situation where the size difference between Gargano and Reed was enormous. However, they made it work on Thursday night.
Johnny Gargano did a really good job of working on Reed’s ribs throughout the fast-paced 16-minute match for the NXT North American Championship.
The Colossal One tried to put Gargano away with his power moves while the champ tried to take advantage of the challenger's injured ribs.
When you add in some interference by Austin Theory, The Way was able to successfully anger Reed through the match at NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver. This allowed the bout to end with Johnny TakeOver hitting two One Final Beat DDTs to clearly and decisively retain his North American title.
It is surprising to see Johnny Gargano booked so strongly in recent months. He hadn’t successfully defended a title at TakeOver until 2021. You have to wonder if it is Dexter Lumis who will finally take down the Champion soon.
#2 Karrion Kross destroys Finn Balor to win the NXT Championship at TakeOver: Stand & Deliver 2021
Finn Balor had held the NXT Championship for a record combined 504 days heading into NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver.
His second title reign reached 212 days and during that time he defeated the likes of Pete Dunne, Adam Cole and Kyle O’ Reilly in some incredible battles. It seemed like Balor was unstoppable at times.
But all that changed in shocking fashion when Karrion Kross destroyed the greatest NXT Champion of all time at TakeOver Stand & Deliver.
The match was a physical brawl for its entire 17-minute running time. Finn Balor smartly worked on Kross’ previously injured shoulder earlier in the match. Kross overcame these attacks and proceeded to launch dozens of forearms into the back of Balor.
After a Doomsday Saito Suplex and forearm smash to the back of Balor’s head and neck, the match was over in quick and decisive fashion.
Kross had simply overpowered and destroyed the great Finn Balor at NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver.
These two shows have done a good job of establishing new and dominant champions in the Men’s and Women’s Division. Kross and Gonzalez destroyed the dominant champions to climb to the top. If Karrion Kross can destroy the great Balor, who can stop him now? It will be fun to find out.
#1 The Brutality and Match Length of the Unsanctioned Match NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver 2021
It was fitting that Kyle O’Reilly and Adam Cole main evented the second night of NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver.
The three-and-a-half-year run of the Undisputed Era was one of the best in NXT History. It was still shocking to see Cole turn on his UE brothers at TakeOver: Vengeance Day.
We were expecting a battle at TakeOver Stand & Deliver. However, NXT went past our expectations and what we got was a brutal war between the two former teammates.
For over 40 minutes, Cole and O’Reilly beat the hell out of each other. They used a chain in particularly vicious ways. They used many chair shots, hard table bumps, and even a tire iron to script a beautiful story.
Cole tried to take down Kyle throughout the match and make him quit. Even after crashing through the ramp, both men refused to break.
After 40 minutes, O'Reilly wrapped a steel chain around his knee and jumped from the top rope onto Adam Cole's neck that wrapped inside a steel chair. It was a shocking and brutal end to an intense match.
One of the biggest complaints was the length of the match. It was certainly surprising to see O’Reilly and Cole brutalize each other for forty minutes at NXT TakeOver Stand & Deliver.
Is that too long? It might have been but you cannot deny they left everything on the table on Thursday night and this feud certainly deserved an ending like this.
