WWE News on NXT Title Match at Takeover: New York, Updated Takeover: New York Lineup With Five Matches (Includes Spoilers)
There are WWE NXT tapings tonight at Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida. They are the last set of tapings before the NXT Takeover: New York event that will take place on Friday, April 5th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
The former NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa had major neck surgery last week and he had to relinquish the NXT Title. Since then, fans were wondering what WWE was going to do. Tonight, we got some answers. (Thanks to WrestlingInc and their correspondents for the updates.)
At the NXT tapings tonight, Triple H opened the show and revealed that he was going to announce Ciampa vs. Gargano for the NXT Title at Takeover: New York. However, due to Ciampa’s injury, he is out while Gargano will still get to compete for the NXT Title at Takeover: New York. The match Gargano will have will be a 2 out of 3 Falls match.
It was announced that there would be a Fatal 5-Way match at the tapings tonight with the winner of that match moving on to face Gargano at Takeover: New York. The five men in the match were Ricochet, Matt Riddle, NXT North American Champion Velveteen Dream, Adam Cole and Aleister Black. And the winner of that match was…Adam Cole.
That means Johnny Gargano will face Adam Cole for the vacant NXT Champion in a 2/3 Falls match at NXT Takeover: New York. Neither man has been NXT Champion before, but both of them were the NXT North American Champion.
Also at the tapings tonight, the team of Ricochet and Aleister Black won the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament. That means they will challenge War Raiders for the NXT Tag Team Titles at Takeover New York. That match will likely be the end of Ricochet and Black in NXT since they gave their NXT farewell speeches to the crowd after the tapings tonight.
As for the women of NXT, their Takeover match was announced during the NXT broadcast tonight. It’s Shayna Baszler defending the NXT Women’s Title in a Fatal 4-Way vs. Kairi Sane, Io Shirai and Bianca Belair.
The NXT Takeover: New York lineup looks like this:
NXT Championship (Vacant): Adam Cole vs. Johnny Gargano
NXT North American Championship: Velveteen Dream (c) vs. Matt Riddle
NXT Tag Team Championships: War Raiders (c) vs. Ricochet and Aleister Black
NXT Women’s Championship: Shayna Baszler (c) vs. Kairi Sane vs. Io Shirai vs. Bianca Belair
NXT UK Championship: Pete Dunne (c) vs. Walter
That’s probably the whole show because they like to stick with five matches at NXT Takeover events.
TJR Thoughts: I think Gargano vs. Cole is the right call for the NXT Championship. There have been reports that WWE may have decided to keep Gargano in NXT full time rather than continue to use him on the main roster, so they might put the title on him here and give him a decent run as champion. Then again, Cole would do well as a heel champion with the Undisputed Era stable there to watch his back.
As for the NXT Takeover New York lineup, it looks amazing. That Dunne vs. Walter match is going to be special.