Best Coast Bias: It's (nearly) All Good, BAY BAY BAY BAY

Results, stray thoughts, and takeaways from the third iteration of Takeovers out of Barclays just as soon as Sinclair figures out which Briscoe to give which title (they're the only ones left besides Dalton Castle, right?)...

Results: 

• Andrade "Cien" Almas pinned Johnny Gargano after a hammerlock DDT.
• SAnitY's Eric Young and Alexander Wolfe (after some early confusion) beat the Authors of Pain to win the NXT World Tag Team Titles.
• Aleister Black defeated Hideo Itami by pinning him after a Black Mass.
• Asuka successfully defended her undefeated streak and NXT Women's World Championship by making Ember Moon tap out to the Asuka Lock.
• Drew McIntyre become the 11th different man to win the NXT World Championship by pinning Bobby Roode after a Claymore kick.
• After the match, Adam Cole, Kyle O'Reilly, and Bobby Fish beat McIntyre down.

General Observations: 

• In a nice change of pace, Code Orange played live to open to show with one of the card's many themes while the opening video package played on the DustyTron in the arena.
• Since this was his first stint as lead announcer in BK, did Mauro Ranallo get off a Biggie reference quicker than Usain Bolt running the 100?  I feel like he did, but it was close.  
• Crowd out in force with the closed-eye-smiley-face signature signs of Johnathon Grapples, and his new attire and Tron seem to be making reference to his being The Whole Shebang with bombs on them, so look for that nickname to get drummed into your brain until you acquiesce.
• Nice showing from the outset Cien could hang with Johnny on the mat for a while, but he wasn't going to win that.
• A reverse facelock elbow drop from Almas?   DELIGHTFUL!
• Early in the match, Cien got Tranquilo in the ropes and then immediately followed it up with his Tarantula-esque cross-armbreaker.  He tried it again later on in the match and got superkicked in the face and tope suicidaed in the chest for that, so while Zelina Vega's cut out the Playgirl poses on the mat itself she's still got work to do.
• Hope to see more of her charge using the tornado inverted DDT, as it's pretty while being impactful, which should be his motif going forward in this career renaissance.
• Like around 95% of the viewing audience, I assumed the Gargano Escape was it, so I was pleasantly surprised to see it countered with a one-armed buckle bomb from the luchador.
• Scratch that earlier bullet point, as Vega showed her worth in the finish, tossing Johnny a #DIY shirt (TOO SOON!) as it looked like he was going to finish off Cien with the basement superkick, thus leading into a sudden dropkick and a hammerlock DDT for the mild upset.
• It's like Gargano's never seen a piece of pop culture before; just because you're finished with the past doesn't mean the past is finished with you. Great way to make Vega seem like a brilliant difference-maker, Cien with a sudden ability to close out that's eluded him up until their alliance, and to keep Tommaso Ciampa present in the story going forward without having the need to have him do anything at all.  Brighter as El Idolo's future looks now that he can win, if they get to the #DIY Explodes! match it'll probably blot out anything else they could do that isn't a singles title match.
• Roderick Strong was talking to Kurt Angle in the press box.  Team Australia was talking to OUR MAIN MAN D-BRY next to that conversation.  2017, everybody!  
• Per the semi-official Homecoming motif, Corey Graves came out to guest announce the NXT World Tag Team championship match.
• There was a Pier 4 before it even got underway with Eric Young pulling out Chekov's Table.
• Early on, Wolfe took a beating while Killian Dain stood on the apron.  When it came time for him to tag out, EY jumped on the apron and KD hit the floor after he accepted the tag; this was all fine since Dain hadn't done anything in the match proper and got a good pop from the crowd for the smarts of it.
• But how in the turquoisest hell did New Day not do that spot before the Purge: Full Sail?
• Not as blatantly brilliant was another Pier 4 breaking out with the illegal men in the ring, thus presumably drawing the referee's attention and keeping him from counting the legal men brawling into the crowd way beyond what would've been a count of ten.
• Shoutout to the Authors for continuing to expand their repertoire via a backdrop into a Dominator, as well as a powerbomb/neckbreaker hybrid late in the match that the challengers survived.
• Alexander Wolfe played the crazy man's Ricky Morton, and the crowd was Here For It.  Had it not been for the full force of Cien's coming-out party in the opener he would've had the most people talking about how successful he was in establishing himself as a force when there'd been scant evidence to back that theory going into TO:BK3.  Him T-Bone suplexing an Author and hitting a German (appropriately enough) on the other Author was his signature moment of the match.
• Great moment with Nikki Storm holding onto EY's legs to block an attempted powerbomb superplex attempt; as a result, Hemingway laid out Steinbeck (or was that the other way around) and gave them a modified power play.
• Storm got the pop of the match when it looked like she and Ellering were going to throw down; instead, it was an unofficial signal for the closing run that slammed the book shut on an undefeated streak and a title reign.
• She Steamboat pressed an Author on the floor, who caught her, and then caught Dain's Flying Knox that sent all three of them through the table.  
• They had the numbers advantage, they made the match chaotic for the most part, and the assisted flying neckbreaker got them their first championships.
• Four shadows were briefly created in the ring, as Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly broke up the party and increasingly loud show of respect from the crowd by laying out not only the new champs, but the old ones as well.  ROH emigres laying out a new champion before they even had a chance to celebrate?  
• And now, a word from Keenan Ivory Wayans.
• Here's why predetermined works sometimes where the real doesn't.  Between matches they played Faces In The Crowd: Homecoming Edition and switched from Neville, stonefaced and grumpy to Shinsuke Nakamura inexplicably next to Kalisto, both laughing and doing the other one's signature crowd-beloved hand gestures.  Mama Bliss bless those nerdlords.
• If they're bringing out Good Ol' J.R., you had to figure it was Slobberknocker O'Clock time.
• Incendiary appeared to play Black out, who rose from amongst them while they played his theme.  Another live performance on this thing and it might as well be renamed North by Northeast.
• Hideo Itami got in his face before the bell, Aleister's mama ain't raise no punk, and thus the match started with them kicking each other in the face at the same time a few times before going forehead to forehead with the other to the roar of the crowd.  It wasn't full-out ultraviolence but it was damn nice.
• Seriously, this match didn't seem to have too much reason to exist besides "watch these two dudes beat the crap out of each other" and BOW HOWDY did it deliver on that end.  Despite taking what seemed to be the bigger beating early on, Itami did enough damage with some strike(s) that when he got to slowing the match down after he took control Black was bleeding from the nose.  Drake (of course Drake the Younger reffed this match) donned the gloves but nothing came of it and the match didn't even stop.
• Feigning giving the crowd what they want before putting on a chinlock, Itami?  KO was right there, you're lucky he didn't mistake this place for a parking lot.
• Props to his adding a mocking sitdown to his mocking back kick.  Too bad that's like poking the bear in the land of black and yellow.
• While bloodbaths are unnecessary, this is another NXT match with accidental blood where it elevates everything going on.  And with Mauro and Nigel at the controls, they seamlessly worked that legitimate injury into a story as the match unfolded.
• For the first time, Black's speed on it made the log roll look like something painful and to be avoided.
• He landed such a Cro Copian shot that it legitimately looked like it finished off Itami, and the aforementioned announcers (not you, Percival) sold it as such.
• The only bad thing about Itami's avalanche Falcon Arrow was that you knew Black would kick out, since they hadn't fired each other up yet.
• Stiff.  Stiff.  Stiff.  (in order: an Itami backfist, his follow-up overhand right, and Black's bicycle knee strike.)
• Hideo: less time yelling about respect, more time avoiding getting Black Massed again.  Stamford's official photo gallery has a moment of impact and for intents and purposes it looks like he did a picture-perfect job of trying to block it with his jugular.
• Last year, there Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks stood.  This year, Bayley joined them.
• Thought before the NXT Women's World Title match: this should really be main eventing.
• Thought after the NXT Women's World Title match: that really should have main evented.
• Thought after the NXT World Title match: that NXT Women's World Title match really should have main evented.
• Ember got a bit of spark with a new robe and green accents to her attire, but she wasn't going to outshine the SLAY KWEEN coming out in golden mask with attached tiara and headpiece.  She was right, because the Empress always  is, even if no one was sure if this was Day 504 (!) or Day 505 (!) of her reign: no one is ready for Asuka.
• Actually, that's not true. Ember Moon drilled her with a single leg dropkick at the bell, then swarmed her to the point where she had a nearfall in the opening minute and landed a cannonball from the ringpost to the floor in the next one.
• Asuka thought she'd slowed Moon down by tossing her into the stairs but didn't really gain control until she had suplexed her onto the steel part of the ramp and got to work with some joint manipulation after a pair of roundhouse kicks to the arm she'd injured months ago.
• Even more props for her alternatively waving and smiling at the Horsewomen in attendance while making Moon eat more of her offense.
• How was Asuka's German into the corner not the craziest part of the match!?
• Moon even got the Asuka Lock on its progenitor, only to be the first victim of a backpack Asuka Lock.  Never try to beat somebody with their own thing unless they're already unconscious, they learn the counters right after they learn how to do it!
• Moon, to her credit, laid Asuka out with a nice tornado suplex and an even better diving forearm of all things.
• The Eclipse came two days early.  Asuka still kicked out of it, however.
• Moon's disbelief over this turn of events was great, since she herself was virtually undefeated headed into the match (maybe with an asterisk next to the Chicago loss) and Full Sail's literally spent a year selling that move as a death blow.
• Speaking of Chicago, Asuka used the ref to block another attempt.  This being the evolution of that, Ember dove off with a Steamboat press, only for Asuka to roll through and hold the tights, only for her to get caught in that incursion.
• Even with what happened in/after the main event, Moon hit the prettiest, hardest-hitting superkick on the evening, Asuka kicked out of that, too, and the challenger's subsequent one-armed low-level .4 Reso tantrum felt like a shoot, bruddah.
• Asuka played possum long enough to get a cross-armbreaker, and that was the thing that got her to the Lock and eventually, another win.
• The camera hung long post-match, and it seemed like the possibility of something bonus in the offing giving what had directly preceded it (as well as what was to immediately follow) but it was merely to stick with the challenger.
• Her draped over the bottom rope in resigned failure bore more than a passing resemblance to Sami Zayn accepting the loss to Cesaro at the first Takeover, whether by accident or design.  It was like the standing O that resulted from her Herculean effort meant nothing.
• And for the third straight year, the NXT Women's World Championship match at Takeover the night before will probably easily outclass any thing put on during the seventeen hours SummerSlam now takes in that very ring in that very spot.
• Seeing them briefly in separate cutaways reminded me of one of the most shocking things in NXT's history: Samoa Joe and Kevin Owens had one match that went to a schmozz, and it happened almost immediately on the weekly program instead of in a Takeover epic.
• And with the NYPD Emerald Society Pipes and Drums playing out the Scot, NxNE was born in earnest.  
• Also, should an undefeated #1 contender, advocate for the people, and humbled returnee be getting that muted a reaction?  More about this later.
• Besides the Big piano playing a prelude and some rolling fog to cover it once Glorious Domination started, it was a pretty standard Bobby Roo entrance.
• It took a few minutes for Bobby to do something that could've had lasting damage, and even that was a too soon GDT attempt that Drew fended off.  Still, he was Very Proud of himself!
• Drew controlled the opening third up to and including a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker into the apron (the hardest part of the ring! Drink!), but Roode rebounded with three neckbreakers: one into the middle rope as McIntyre was re-entering the ring, a flying Blockbuster off of the apron, and a standard Roode Awakening after that.
• In this match, Roode hit a nice-looking second rope dropkick for the first time in his NXTenure.  He should continue incorporating it for big matches.
• McIntyre sold his neck after the trioka of neckbreakers very well, even when he had the upper hand.  His time in Full Sail hasn't had to have him in extended trouble like this match, so it was nice to see.
• The Future Shock would be taken more seriously as a nearfall worthy move if it had finished off anyone on WWETV in the last five years.
• Maybe no more Drew con hilos, since this landing looked particularly nasty.
• Roode eats opponent's finisher but gets a foot on the ropes?  Check!  One GDT not enough to finish?  Dri... uh, check!
• To his credit, Roode tried the double down chained GDT that had finished Hideo, but Drew headbutted free and won the belt very shortly thereafter.
• At first it seemed emblematic of the entire last twenty-odd minutes of the show as the credits came up that the crowd was more interesting in something going on in the crowd than the fact Roode's nearly year-long reign of vaingloriousness had been brought to a decisive, clean end.
• While it still was, it turned out Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly magically appearing on the apron were merely precursors for You Know Who.  Bonus points if this trioka is dubbed the Men of Dishonor.
• At least this will end all of Roode's troubles...oh, wait....

Match of the Night: Ember Moon v. Asuka (c), NXT Women's World Championship - It seemed like she was going to do it, didn't she?

It was crazy how every single thing seemed to point to a title change leading into the Asuka/Moon rematch.  The injury, the chicanery for the champ to even survive the first time, and the fact she hadn't lost in two years and had been an undefeated champion verging on eighteen months.   Every single thing seemed aligned for the former Texas stalwart to hold the gold come match's end from her surprise attack at the bell to her going strike for strike up to and including hitting the Eclipse cleanly.

There was only one problem with that, and it's been the story since October 2015, these other women are damn talented professional wrestlers...but Asuka is history.

Not just creating it through her backfists and armbars, but living, breathing history that's surpassed every man short of Bruno and every woman short of Moolah, and if you add in the diceiness of the Fabulous one's longest reign then all that stands between her and the mountaintop regardless of gender is Mr. Sammartino.

It's why she was able to smile and wave at Bayley, Becky Lynch, and Sasha Banks while she was literally in the biggest fight of her Stateside life.   All the accolades those three of the Four have accumulated, all the titles they've held combined on the big brother live shows, and it seems to be known  at least by the Empress that the only reason they've been able to muster any of that traction is that she's been in Full Sail staying around to obliterate their old records and wreck shop on any woman foolish enough to get in her way.

Like Rakim in 1987, when you look back on NXT's history there's going to be a clear line of demarcation between everything that led up to Asuka and everything that came after her.   She's gotten to the point where by transitive property she's doing the work of four women and doing better than any man in Stamford canon post-Nixon.  And sure, she can be arrogant, and she might even bend a rule occasionally.

None of that deters from the fact that the next woman to beat her will be the first one.  She took a major ass-kicking, then as is her wont, she dished a bigger, harder, more vicious one right back.  And really at the end she didn't even need to cheat to get her umpteenth win, which will be the last one until the next one.

Poor Ember.

Poor, poor Ember.

What a damn fine wrestler...who once again ran into the brick wall of history.

Next!

Overall thoughts: Earlier in this recap, the question was posited of if someone who'd they'd built up and burnished as much as they had McIntyre upon his rearrival should be getting polite responses in a World Title match equivalent.

The short answer is no, and the long answer is fuck no.

They did every single trick possible to make DMC the sympathetic white hat leading in, up to and including having him get laid out in the show "three days" before the event they by their own admission think of as their WrestleMania, and he literally got the most tepid reaction out of any babyface on the show.  Hell, SAnitY might've gotten more love than he did. Adam Cole got a bigger reaction coming through the crowd, let alone when he picked up the belt after laying the new champ out. It was so loud not even their official videos could ignore it.   Even after they'd cleared the area, people don't give a damn that Drew's the new champion.  They chanted "3MB" louder than they did for him during and after the match.

This doesn't mean that the Drew McIntyre reboot is producing subpar matches or that they should scrap whatever plan they had and find a new champion as of Tuesday's tapings, BAY BAY.  But if you think the sort of nerdlord that inhabits Full Sail is going to boo the debuting, charismatic A.C. over the DMC they've had months to rally behind and are still sort of lukewarm about fully accepting, you might be on Marion Barry's weight loss plan.  Unless you got set up, of course.

There's no way any objective member of the NXT Universe, be it fan or press, newcomer or old-timer, should objectively review the card in completion and come to the conclusion the main event was the worst match on the card, on probably the biggest card of the year.  And it's pretty indefensible for such a milquetoast, paint-by-numbers main event, not a bad match, but one that triggered widespread apathy in the arena and in homes alike, to go on after such an excellent, excellent bout in Asuka/Moon II.

It's a shame that occurred, since up to the ending of the World Women's match it seemed like there was going to be another entrant in the "Greatest Takeover ever?" discussion that seems to bubble up seasonally.  The opener defibrillated Cien's formerly floundering time in Florida, the tag title change went over well and had the first ROH alums post-match of the evening that seemed to set up that division's story going forward.   (As much as I didn't enjoy the main, that post-match sets up that story as well as the online video showing Roody/Bobby is still going to be a contretemps going forward, so that would make three matches you could probably set in pencil for the next Takeover already.)  Hideo/Black was a highly entertaining and vicious bout that showed off the ever-ascendant Black and made Hideo's new found black hat something worth wearing even if he could've used a win like Cien to put some meat on the bone of it.  And the Women's match went beyond MOTN into low-level MOTY territory, as explained below.

All of that greatness made the main all the more baffling, as well as the decision to make it the main over a superior match with deeper history that still could've played out as a conclusive ending even if it didn't have the surprise factor the gents had.  {Asuka did it again, holy crap, is she going to die champion, etc.)  That being said, the Men of Dishonor going for the men's singles belts while we find some new meat to feed the Empress are clearly going to be the two main overhanging stories for Ranallo and McGuinness to dissect over the autumn, as well as the possibility of a third Dusty Classic.

The thing most of us thought would happen did.  It jolted a somewhat sleepy crowd and ended the third Brooklyn Takeover.  It seemed appropriate that Adam Cole pulled the trigger and overshadowed DMC's moment in the spotlight; that may turn out to just be the warning shot that presaged a fusillade, putting a bullet between the eyes of the main event scene in NXT as we knew it before their arrival.

It may turn out to be just the thing the old girl needed.