Tye Dillinger, Roderick Strong, Kassius Ohno & Ruby Riot vs. SAnitY (Eric Young, Killian Dain, Alexander Wolfe & Nikki Cross)
***1/2
A pre-show angle saw No Way José injured by SAnitY, which led to Kassius Ohno coming out to a huge pop. This match was a cluster in the best way, with Dillinger presiding over a batch of new faces who all got to show their stuff. Riot (the former Heidi Lovelace), looked great as she started out with Cross, who has been the most interesting member of SAnitY from the start. A tag for Ohno brought all the spinning kicks and elbow death we know and love from Chris Hero, and Ohno looked absolutely furious as he took the fight to Wolfe. An extended period of Strong getting cut off from tagging out slowed the pace a bit in the middle, mainly because Strong is so much better than anyone on the opposing stable that even with the size discrepancy no heat built. But the climax of the match is just wild, with everyone brawling both in and out of the ring. Tye ate the pinfall for what may be his last time in NXT, and was a fitting choice to protect all the other new hires, who all got their shit in even as they made SAnitY look good for working as a unit and not just a collection of great workers. (Yet again, NXT shows a greater understanding for tag-team dynamics than the main roster brands).
Aleister Black vs. Andrade "Cien" Almas
***
After floundering in the company, Almas has finally hit his stride by, who would have guessed, playing up the persona that got him signed in the first place. Instead of being the swarthy but bland quasi face, now he's amping up his Los Ignobernales indifference to great effect. His tranquilo mood clashes wonderfully with the no-nonsense attitude of Black, who justifies the absolutely stupid name he's been cursed with by the NXT gods with an entrance that makes him come across like Undertaker's bastard son. Though Almas takes too much of the match, he at least preserves the momentum he's at last started to gain, while Black makes a splash with his vicious, strike-oriented offense. Being at the end of one of Black's kicks looks like a particularly crappy way to earn a paycheck. Whether he reforms his tag team with Ohno in WWE or they become enemies, these two are money waiting to happen on a brand in desperate need of draws, and I can't wait to see more of Tommy End's brusing, terrifying style in WWE.
The Authors of Pain (Akem & Rezar) (c) vs. The Revival (Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder) vs. DIY (Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa)
Elimination Match, NXT Tag-Team Championship
****
The Revival and DIY are incapable of putting on bad matches with anyone, much less each other, and the Authors of Pain are on the receiving end of the dark-horse best booking in NXT right now. This should have been a match-of-the-year contender, and for a while it was. The story of the match was bitter rivals DIY and Revival putting aside their differences, if only for a few seconds at a time, to deal with the more pressing threat of the colossal Authors. This culminated in yet another show-stealing spot from the teams when Gargano and Dawson hit the DIY finishing knees before Ciampa and Wilder move in with the shatter machine as the whole place erupts. The incredible energy comes to a dead halt, however, when the elimination stipulation rears its head and DIY are pinned without much fanfare, sucking the life from the building before AOP hit their super collider finisher for the win. It's a baffling, disappointing conclusion to a match that was escalating like crazy, though what remains is still another example of how much the tag team division has carried NXT for months.
Asuka (c) vs. Ember Moon
NXT Women's Championship
****1/4
The match I was most looking forward to on this card and it didn't disappoint. Moon has been booked strongly since her debut as the only feasible competitor to end Asuka's dominant NXT run, and at no point in Asuka's tenure with the company has she looked remotely as in danger as she did here. A spirited open run of locks and arm drags caps off with Asuka teasing a handshake and pulling back with a savage look on her face. This is a prevalent issue across the board in the modern wrestling style, but the women's matches in WWE in particular have shown too much of the work, telegraphing moves by carefully setting up for spots. But Asuka and Moon make this look like an honest to God fight, with Moon meeting Asuka blow for blow in a number of great exchanges that rely on little more than strikes to get over both as fierce competitors. Asuka blocks all of Moon's attempts to hit the Eclipse springboard stunner, protecting Moon's finisher and also lending credence to its power by making NXT's most dominant figure scared of receiving it. Asuka's brutal-looking style left the door wide open for her to turn heel without much fuss, and they go for it here, with the camera calling attention to her mocking body language and teasing facial expressions, to say nothing of the ref-abusing finish. It's hard to say whether or not Asuka's heel routine will stick, as her monster wins continue to get pops, but both she and Moon played their parts perfectly here, with Moon looking strong in her first defeat and Asuka maintaining dominance while also betraying some vulnerability. Their rematch is currently the brand's hottest prospect.
Bobby Roode (c) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
NXT Championship
**1/2
If Asuka and Moon showed how to work a largely safe, throwback style that nonetheless felt current and invigorating, Nakamura and Roode came across like they were reenacting a NWA taping from 30 years ago. In theory, this is not necessarily a bad thing; after suffering two straight years of serious, plan destabilizing injuries on the developmental and main rosters, WWE coaching a safer, lower-risk style should absolutely be encouraged. What's more, when done right, it's outrageously effective and gripping (see: the slew of four-star matches The Revival pull off in their sleep). But too much of this match, like so many of Nakamura's matches since joining NXT, have struggled so hard to keep their top new signee undamaged that they end up making him look lazy.
On its face, this match is largely a re-do of the pair's excellent San Antonio main event, but where that bout boasted arguably the finest selling of Nakamura's NXT tenure, this is a deflated, perfunctory affair in which Roode consistently targets the knee and is rewarded with a few seconds of his opponent favoring the leg before hitting his usual offense anyway. Roode's limb targeting was great in their first match, an old-school style that made him come off like a jerk. But everyone knew this was Nakamura's sendoff to the main roster, and to leave the belt in someone else's hands definitively required better character work than the generically smug routine Roode put on in response to Nakamura sleepwalking through his crowd pandering. Roode needed to be either a vicious brute or a despicably clever shit, but even as he made Hail Mary dives into Nakamura's knee, he just came off as a shrewd performer. In fairness, it's hard to buy Roode's offense when he lands a sick looking stomp on Nakamura's knee, only for Nakamura to immediately block a Glorious DDT attempt with the same knee before hitting another leg strike for good measure, all with only a slight stumble to suggest pain.
It's dispiriting that on a show that otherwise marked the best talent build NXT had put together in a year was capped off by the ostensible ace going through the motions on his way to bigger and better things and his successor to come across as largely a less juiced, slightly younger Triple H. I want to like the guy but he feels too much like a main event entrance theme tacked onto a midcarder. Nakamura should set the main roster on fire, and keeping him safe is worth some letdown matches in what is still the developmental brand, but here's hoping that the wave of new hires and reshuffled characters gets NXT back to its old self.
Overall
Despite the letdown of the main event, TakeOver: Orlando may not be the best TakeOver since Dallas, but it's certainly the most important one. For the first time in ages, this brand feels like it has a direction, with rivalries and storylines that could lead all the way to the next TakeOver. All of the brand's specials have felt transitional for months; here at last is one that actually gives the impression of nearing the end of that transition.
Grade: B-
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