WWE NXT TAKEOVER: 31
Damian Priest vs. Johnny Gargano
Gargano may technically be a heel who does some cheap heel stuff now, but he really is still the same workrate geek that he has always been. And this was a yet another super generic, completely soulless & completely uninteresting workrate Gargano style match. Movez & kickouts. Felt like it was never gonna end too, which is also unsurprising. Priest also offered nothing interesting to the table, as he just essentially was one of the many dance partners of Gargano. *
Kushida vs. Velveteen Dream
Kushidaaaaaa, fuck yeah. That man was completely on point here with his relentless assault on Dream throughout -- he was nasty, he was punishing, he was focused. Absolutely lovely stuff by him on the offense, and while Dream's lil' heat segment wasn't all that interesting, I thought his brief answers to Kushida's onslaught were good & his selling (of the arm, and overall too) was great stuff. ***1/2
Isaiah Scott vs. Santos Escobar
I think this might be the first time I'm watching Santos Escobar in NXT, and the dude definitely left somewhat of an impression. Charismatic fella. Him & Swerve had kind of an epic here, and while I didn't care for the absolute majority of it, I thought there were a few good bits here n' there. I liked some of Scott's arm targeting, and Santos busted out a few brutal looking maneuvers as well. An okay match all around. Super forgettable, but not bad. **
Candice LeRae vs. Io Shirai
The kind of a pairing that you can always trust to have a rock solid, strong match. They did exactly that here -- had a good match with everything looking good. Candice's big heat segment was solid, as she made every move look great, and Io's eventual big comeback & the more 50-50 that followed was solid stuff, as well. SOLID really is the keyword here, because that's what this match truly was. Rock solid. ***
Finn Bálor vs. Kyle O'Reilly
The video package for this match was goddamn fantastic. Between it & the one for Reigns/Uso, WWE has been knocking it out of the park with 'em lately. I've been a pretty big Kyle O'Reilly fan since 2013, so seeing him in a big main event spot like this warms my heart. The match itself was really, really good. I thought Finn & Kyle brought a very nice amount of grit & struggle into the bout, which is something the NXT main events haven't seen in a while. Some very solid technical wrasslin' in the beginning stages, and once Bálor delivers that big spinning kick to Kyle's mid-section, the big story kicks in. Kyle sells the ribs really well throughout I thought, especially in those big knockdown moments, and Bálor was pretty damn good with his work over those said ribs. There were a few moments where he was busting out some real lame looking stomps, but then he totally made up for them a few moments later with a big irish whip chest-first into the corner or a big boot to the mid-section. All in all, it was probably some of the most compelling work he's done on the offense in his WWE run thus far. Kyle finding an opening with that low dropkick to the knee was awesome, and him continuing that attack to counter Bálor's ruthless destruction of his mid-section ruled -- there was quite a few great singular moments in the match, and one of them that stood out for me was when Kyle grabbed that leg, he was desperately looking to go for _something_, Bálor counters it into an abdominal stretch & we briefly get an awesome image of Kyle in big trouble, bloody mouth and all. Now Kyle got out of the hold very quickly, but I thought the whole little sequence there ruled. Great sense of struggle, despair & tenacity. The "big" leg-drama towards the end with the dragon screws on the ropes, and the leglock stuff was solid, even though I do think that the leglock-part of it fell a bit flat -- funny enough, I've always thought that Kyle's leglocks look a bit weak, and such was the case here. The rest of that stretch was pretty great though, and the actual finish w/ the Coup De Grace was awesome, and made all the more sweet because Bálor finished him off by delivering the deathblow to the bodypart he had been targeting for most of the match. REALLY GOOD SHIT ALL AROUND. Did I want it to be even better given the hype? Yes, but I am also satisfied with what we got, because it was indeed awesome. ***3/4
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