WWE NXT TakeOver: Vengeance Day - 14/02/2021
Women's Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic 2021 Final Match: Ember Moon & Shotzi Blackheart vs. Dakota Kai & Raquel Gonzalez
Really cool opening match to get someone like me, who is coming in cold and uninvested, into the show. It was kinda long but it grew into itself. I dug Kai being isolated by the face side as the obvious weaklink. Many matches opt for the standard formula and this deviated somewhat. Kai sold well in both making their opponents look good and coming across as a chickenshit. ***1/4
WWE NXT North American Title Match: Johnny Gargano (c) vs. Kushida
I feel like the biggest takeaway of this match is Kushida initially wearing a wifebeater. What for? It doesn't fit the Marty aesthetic at all. I digress however. I thought this was a really fun match. Whenever Kushida had firm control, the match was quality. Kushida went for Gargano’s arm which was the focus in the lead up and he did a great job at using a variety of attacks ranging from his many submissions, cool suplexes and the ring itself. Gargano in turn worked decently on the defensive too, complimenting Kushida's work. However the match failed to reach the next step because the action would always get awkward and the pacing would suffer when Gargano got an extended run of offence. Too many rope running sequences that didn't look good or sequences where both would hit the same move consistently. It stood out in a bad way in comparisons to the work on the arm which had no wrinkles. Bit still Kushida ruled in this. ***1/2
Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic 2021 Final Match: MSK (Nash Carter & Wes Lee) vs. Grizzled Young Veterans (James Drake & Zack Gibson)
MSK looked so good. Many teams don't really come across as synced as a unit but these two do. Their chemistry is very apparent, even more so than it was in the indies. Their double team moves looked very impressive and worked within the match. Wes Lee, especially, looked terrific. Grizzled Young Vets did their job well. They cut off the ring, they themselves had good chemistry together. GYV opted for a more grounded style to make MSK’s aerial assaults stand out even more so. Quality match. ***1/2
WWE NXT Title Match: Finn Balor (c) vs. Pete Dunne
Firstly, great angle at the end with The Undisputed Era coming out to help Balor from Dunne and Crew. It looked like Balor and KOR patched things up and Balor was perhaps going to form an alliance with TUE or even join them, perhaps until Cole kicked Balor’s head off, signifying that he's after Balor. O’Reilly is pissed and was obviously not informed, neither was Strong who is conflicted whe Cole kicks KOR in the face. All that was good. Great angle to follow a really good match. Balor is continuously having these really good nxt title matches. First with KOR and now with Dunne who is hit and miss in these main event spots. I thought the early grappling was really good. Dunne’s finger spots don't really do much but they kinda look cool so that's a positive. Balor’s selling is what truly made this section of the match as good as it was. Balor was excellent on the defensive with his counter work and selling. I'm glad he's showing his worth after a few iffy years on Raw. The back end of the match wasn't as strong as the first but it was a good climax to end the match on. ***1/2
DDT Kawasaki Strong 2021 - 14/02/2021
DAMNATION (Daisuke Sasaki, Mad Paulie, Soma Takao & Yuji Hino) vs. ALL OUT (Akito, Konosuke Takeshita, Shunma Katsumata & Yuki Ino)
This was given a girthly amount of time and it used it very well to tell individual stories - Ino v Hino - as well as the team effort. Takeshita looked terrific as per usual with his smooth strikes and outstanding suplex variation. ***1/2
DDT Universal Title Match: Yuki Ueno (c) vs. Yukio Sakaguchi
The student defeats the master with his own specialty - submissions. Sakaguchi put Ueno through the ringer with his offence. Relentless strikes and submission attempts with Ueno hanging on by a thread at several points in the match. Ueno said in a press conference that his win wasn't necessarily because he was more skilled than Sakaguchi and the match showed that. He was out skilled but Ueno showed great heart and conviction in everything he did. And that's how he scored the victory. This was a pretty great title defence for Ueno. Yukio Sakaguchi was so good at the ripe age of 47. ***3/4.
KO-D Openweight Title Match: Tetsuya Endo (c) vs. Jun Akiyama
A little below the Akiyama/Takeshita matches and the Endo match at the D-Ou but this was a great title match. It’s not even a surprise how good Akiyama at this point. Akiyama totally nuterialised Endo’s attacks by focusing on the neck and using many of his exploders. Endo tried to fight back by attacking the knee but he kept getting shut down. Endo’s selling in the critical moments was great. Super intelligent match. ***3/4
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