Is This Goodbye?
I like to keep things as positive as possible.
I like WWE.
I like AEW.
- Mr. Money in the Bank… Finn Balor! - November 28, 2023
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In light of recent news/rumors coming out, I find myself in a state I found myself back in the middle of 2003. I stopped watching wrestling not long after that feeling with several things being the reasoning for it. My favorite of the two companies, WCW, had been gone for a little over 2 years at the time. Stone Cold was seemingly done with his in ring career and a new crop of talent was finding their way on to television. None of them clicked with me right away and that was it, I stopped watching. I would return a few years later a casual watcher. There was a few bright spots that would keep me tuning it, each week longer than the previous. CM Punk was a breath of fresh air. John Cena was the superstar that I had lost when Steve Austin called it quits. And some of the mid carders that I loved watching before had found their way in to the main event scene. I enjoyed watching it again, but I still wasn’t as excited for the product as I once was and this would be the case for quite some time.
Fast forward to May 18th, 2015. John Cena is confronted by the NXT Champion Kevin Owens on Monday Night Raw. I immediately was drawn to Kevin. He looked different, he had attitude and he could talk. Then, I watched him beat John Cena and I had to know more. This was my real introduction to NXT. I obviously knew about it through the show and the NEXUS angle but I had never cared enough to venture out and see what it was that I was missing. So I tuned in, and eventually went back and started watching all the NXT I could handle. I fell in love with this brand.
What’s more important about me tuning in to NXT is that it made me want to know more about these guys I was seeing on this show. With Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, it made me go back and watch some Ring of Honor to see what I had missed. With Nakamura and Balor, it made me check out New Japan for the first time ever which would allow me to also discover the Bullet Club and Kenny Omega. NXT expanded my entire world to what else was out there and at the time, I was eating it all up. Over the years, I would learn to love women’s wrestling for the first time. The 4 HW made women’s wrestling my favorite thing about wrestling in general. And whereas I don’t keep up with ROH or NJPW due to time I don’t have these days, I still loved going back and experiencing some of that stuff that was fun for me at the time.
Then the biggest shocker of all came to me. Triple H is a guy whom I never cared for during his wrestling career. I know he was good, but he just never clicked with me outside of the D-X days where he was leading X-Pac, New Age Outlaws and Chyna. The rumors of his backstage politicking also did him no favors in my eyes. And don’t get me started on how he ended the Summer of Punk. But now I am finding out that that same guy is running this show that I love? How could that be? Over the years, that “hate” would turn in to respect and admiration. He was putting his heart and soul in to this show and putting together the best wrestling shows in the world(in my opinion). And for every year that passed by, the shows would get better and I would become more invested. How was Triple H able to continue to build this brand when he would lose talent at the drop of a dime? It was masterful.
When NXT moved over to USA, I was excited. Instead of a taped 1 hour show on the network, where I would hear spoilers from the day after, we would be getting a 2 hour live show. And whereas a lot of people think that the live element took away from what NXT so good, I happen to think it got better. Stories would have more time to breathe for all the talent. It was a well produced show, much like the other WWE products but the wrestling never changed. The Takeovers never changed. The love for that brand never went away. And now, not even 2 years later, it appears as if that show will be going through a major overhaul without Triple H as the head.
So with this sombering news, I find myself wondering how much longer I will continue to watch wrestling week in and week out again. But before we get there, I decided to go back and revisit 3 of my favorite matches from NXT’s history.
Charlotte Flair vs Sasha Banks vs Becky Lynch vs Bayley
NXT Takeover: Rival
NXT Womens Championship Match
It isn’t the best women’s wrestling match but it is the most important to me. Any match with Sasha and Bayley. Sasha vs Becky at HIAC. Becky vs Charlotte pretty much anytime they face off. All are better matches. But those all came afterwards. This was my eye opening moment. I am not knocking any of the females that came beforehand because there was plenty that were very talented. But when I watched this fatal 4 way for the first time, which wouldn’t be much long after the Kevin Owens introduction, I was mesmerized. These ladies were doing things I had never seen the ladies do before. They were kicking each others ass. They were brutal. And they had attitude to them. For the first time, I was watching the ladies because of how good they were and not because of how good they looked. From this match on, I was obsessed with women’s wrestling. I watched it with a different eye and became a huge fan of what they do every time they step in that ring.
Sami Zayn vs Kevin Owens
NXT Takeover: Rival
NXT Championship Match
So with Kevin Owens being the guy that brought my attention to the show, it was only natural that I go back and check his NXT matches first. This was the first Takeover I watched from beginning to end, which is how I would see the women’s match listed above for the first time as well. Kevin Owens is a guy that looked like an every day guy that had intensity through the roof, with an attitude of a guy that not only could whoop your ass but honestly wanted to. And now I’m finding out while watching this match that the man can actually wrestle with the best of them. Kevin Owens would obliterate Sami in this match and leave him unable to continue. “What? This is cool af!” was the impression this match left on me. Watching the shot of the two girls legitimately concerned for Sami Zayn after he rolled his shoulder up was such a sweet moment. Sami was dead, but his instincts refused to give up and the fans ate up every bit of it. I would later find out that these two had been battling forever and to this day, still do. It is my all time favorite rivalry and this is the match that kickstarted that.
Adam Cole vs Ricochet vs Lars Sullivan vs Velveteen Dream vs EC3 vs Killian Dain
NXT Takeover: New Orleans
NXT North American Title Ladder Match
I enjoy ladder matches. I wish other matches would leave the ladder out of them and make them exclusive to the ladder match. Up until the day I watched this, TLC 2 was the pinnacle of all gimmick matches. This match overtook it. This Takeover would kick off with the most jaw dropping match I had ever witnessed in terms of in ring action. The opponents chosen for this match were picked so masterfully. Two big guys to clean house, two medium guys to put up a fight and 2 smaller guys that could get thrown around and take the big bumps. We are usually treated to a handful of spots that make you say damn, but this match blew through those expectations and had the crowd saying “oooooh” with almost every move.
This was the first time I got a glimpse at Ricochet and he left my jaw on the floor with his backflip off the falling ladder to the floor and his springboard shooting star press to the floor. Velveteen Dream dropping the elbow from the top of the tallest ladder in the match. Adam Cole’s superkick party on every opponent after EC3 stole his moment with an EC3 BAY BAY! EC3 powerbombing Velveteen off the ladder on to the ladder in the corner followed up by hitting a TKO on Adam Cole off the ladder. The Vader Bomb on the ladder with Adam Cole on Killian’s back and EC3 under the ladder. Velveteen hitting the the rolling death valley driver on the ladder propped up in the corner. Lars Sullivan smashing EC3 through a ladder that Velveteen lay on outside the ring. Killian Dain smashing Adam Cole through a ladder that Ricochet was laying on outside the ring would follow. You couldn’t keep me sitting down for this match and when it came time to show my son why I watch wrestling, this was the match I showed him. And what better ending for this match than to see Adam Cole grab the North American title to become the first champion.
I could have probably done a top 20 list, but then why would I stop there? Why not 50? 100? I decided to keep it simple. It has been very rare that I found anything in NXT that I didn’t enjoy. The characters, the matches and the crowd. I can’t forget that crowd. Truly electric. The Takeover crowds are almost as important to how amazing these shows were as the talent is. They made we want to be there, chanting along with them. “NXT! NXT! NXT! NXT!”
So if this is truly the end, it was a great run. Thank you Kevin Owens for bringing my eyes to the product. Thank you Triple H for the best damn wrestling show I’ve ever watched. This is NXT!
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