WWE NXT TakeOver: San Antonio Review: Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Bobby Roode

NXT TakeOver: San Antonio, WWE.com

Follow along with our review of the NXT TakeOver: San Antonio live special.

On Saturday night, WWE’s Royal Rumble Weekend will kick off with NXT TakeOver: San Antonio. This will take place at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, TX and be the brand’s first live special of 2017.

Five matches will be seen at TakeOver—three of them have championships on the line, with the other two being standard singles bouts. A handful of Superstars are also making their TakeOver debut, including Roderick Strong, Nikki Cross, Peyton Royce, and Eric Young.

In potentially the show’s opener, Young and Tye Dillinger will square off. This feud began when EY wanted the Perfect 10 to join SAnitY, but refused the invitation. A brawl would ensue and lead to all four members of the stable attacking Dillinger. Can he get his revenge on Saturday night?

Strong and Andrade “Cien” Almas will go head-to-head after seeing tensions escalate over the past few weeks. Which Superstar will get a much-needed win at NXT TakeOver: San Antonio?

In the NXT Tag Team Championship match, Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa are putting the belts on the line against the Authors of Pain. This could be a David vs. Goliath like matchup with size being a difference between both teams. Can DIY retain their titles?

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Asuka will put the NXT Women’s Championship on the line against not one, not two, but three Superstars. Nikki Cross, Billie Kay, and Peyton Royce will all get a title opportunity for the first time in their respective careers, so can any of them supersede the Empress of Tomorrow?

The main event of TakeOver will see Shinsuke Nakamura put the NXT Championship on the line against Bobby Roode. This is the first title match since August 2015 that will not feature Samoa Joe, who isn’t set to be on the card. How glorious will Roode need to be to stop Nakamura’s second championship reign?

The full match card for NXT TakeOver: San Antonio can be seen below:

NXT Championship Match
Shinsuke Nakamura (c) vs. Bobby Roode

NXT Women’s Championship Match
Asuka (c) vs. Nikki Cross vs. Billie Kay vs. Peyton Royce

NXT Tag Team Championship Match
Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa (c) vs. The Authors of Pain

Eric Young vs. Tye Dillinger

Andrade “Cien” Almas vs. Roderick Strong

Next: Potential Moments, Predictions for TakeOver: San Antonio

Beginning at 8:00 p.m. ET, follow along with our coverage of NXT TakeOver: San Antonio. What could happen at the show?

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Tye Dillinger vs. Eric Young

Result: Eric Young defeats Tye Dillinger via pinfall.

Rating: 3.25 out of 5 stars

Young starts the match by trying to give Dillinger a SAnitY jacket. He considered for a few seconds, but threw the clothing item and started the brawl.

Early and often, the numbers game would get to Dillinger, who got laid out at ringside from Killian Dane (the former Big Damo). It led to a slow build of Young mostly dominating the match for a time. However, the eventual breakout from the Perfect 10 would ignite this match.

Dillinger got overwhelmed by the numbers toward the end after Alexander Wolfe interfered, along with Dain. They both took offense before Young came back, but even he got hit with the Tye-Breaker until SAnitY caused more interference. It would be a great way of building the odds against Dillinger, who had the crowd fired up and behind him for this entire match.

However, EY caught Dillinger with the wheel-barrow neckbreaker after more interference. It came off a great transition too with the long-time NXT star skinning the cat, before Young caught him for the finisher.

Dillinger losing keeps up his NXT underdog role, which is somewhat reminsicant of Sami Zayn’s run in late 2014 and early 2015. This eventually resulted in him getting an NXT Championship win, so could that happen down the line?

Young keeps the momentum going for SAnitY, whose night isn’t done just yet; they have Nikki Cross competing for the NXT Women’s Championship later on against Asuka, Peyton Royce, and Billie Kay. The former TNA star may even be in line for a title shot against Shinsuke Nakamura or Bobby Roode at some point.

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Andrade “Cien” Almas vs. Roderick Strong

Result: Roderick Strong defeats Andrade “Cien” Almas via pinfall.

Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars

Almas spent a majority of the first part of this match going after Strong’s left arm. He locked it up a few times, including putting on the Fujiwara Armbar. However, Strong broke out with a comeback and got decent fan support from the crowd with “Roddy” chants. His backbreaker arsenal would also be broken out on multiple occasions.

Cien went back to the arm locks near the end of the match, but Strong barely got back to the ropes. Subtle “This is awesome” chants began, which is a little surprising because the crowd reaction had been somewhat muted for this match.

Strong pulling out the win isn’t too surprising given he has more upside on WWE NXT than Almas. He’s still only 3-4 months into his stay and has a long way to go, but having matches like this at TakeOver will help. The crowd seemed in and out of what he was doing, however, trying to get chants going in favor of the babyface. They didn’t pop too much for his win, but if he can get some more momentum after this, maybe crowds will be behind the former ROH star as we get to the WrestleMania Weekend TakeOver.

As for Almas, this is his second straight TakeOver loss. His seven months in NXT have been a disappointment, as he’s never found his stride since being hyped up in June. There had been potential there for Cien’s run without a mask, but it’s not connecting.

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NXT Tag Team Championship Match
DIY (c) vs. The Authors of Pain

Result: The Authors of Pain defeat DIY via pinfall to win the NXT Tag Team Championship.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

From the moment this match began, Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa played the underdog role to the much bigger Authors of Pain. Gargano took a heavy attack midway through, including being tossed around like a rag doll and being slammed into the ringside barricade. DIY got some offense in between, but only in spurts.

A positive for the first half of the match is the crowd bought into the underdog role of Gargano’s, who made a hot tag to Ciampa to get things going for the champs. The former ROH star sent both members of AoP on their backs with belly-to-back suplexes that got the crowd riled up. They were two great feats of strength that you probably wouldn’t expect out of the Psycho, which really put the momentum in favor of DIY.

The double spear spot on Rezar was a great spot too. These seemingly impossible tasks of the smaller Superstars gave them plenty of fire with the NXT Universe.

The next intriguing part of this story would be DIY putting AoP into the simultaneous submissions, which is what won them the titles in Toronto. Like they did in November, Gargano and Ciampa channeled back to a previous match finish and integrated it beautifully. That’s textbook wrestling that makes bouts fantastic.

The Authors closing out with the win off the Super Collider Powerbomb gave them their first NXT Tag Team Championship win. These two monsters now get to run rampant through the NXT tag division with a ton of momentum, which they built plenty of during this match alone. Beating an underdog, fav-favorite tag team will get you a negative crowd reaction anywhere. So putting the tag titles on Akam and Rezar in this fashion works perfectly.

Paul Ellering’s duo also had their best and longest match yet. Maybe this was due to DIY being phenomenal in the ring, but they held their own

Fans will be disappointed that Gargano and Ciampa’s reign lasted just two months, but they’re back to being the chasers. This should lead to a great and dramatic rematch after NXT TakeOver; San Antonio.

The Revival also lurk in the background after saying before TakeOver that they want whoever is the champion by the end of the evening. Are we on our way to a feud with AoP?

Seth Rollins Calls Out Triple H

Right after this match, Seth Rollins stormed the ring to call out Triple H. What better place to do so than the brand that he runs? It made too much sense and a logical, but surprising call since main roster stars never appear on NXT, let alone NXT TakeOver shows.

This was a hot moment for the Rollins-Triple H feud, which will lead us into the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania 33.

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NXT Women’s Championship Match
Asuka (c) vs. Nikki Cross vs. Billie Kay vs. Peyton Royce

Result: Asuka defeats Nikki Cross, Billie Kay, and Peyton Royce via pinfall.

Rating: 3.3 out of 5 stars

The teased matchup we saw for weeks had been Asuka vs. Cross, and we got it within seconds after the Aussies escaped the ring. They would quickly be discarded, however, so we saw a longer amount of action between the Japanese and Scottish Superstars.

The action between the Empress of Tomorrow and Cross wouldn’t be anything too crazy, but we got another tease of a potential singles match between these two. This eventually led to Royce and Kay showing up, teaming together, and trying to take out Nikki; they did so by putting the SAnitY member through a table. They turned to Asuka in the ring and started methodically taking her out too.

Coming into this match, the Aussies seemed like afterthoughts since the attention didn’t necessarily get focused on them. They still took the loss after Asuka kicked the living daylights out of them. Their roles were well-defined and they played them soundly to make this a somewhat short and entertaining matchup.

What this match definitely told us is we’re getting Asuka vs. Cross in a separate singles match, potentially at NXT TakeOver: Orlando. From the short one-on-one between the two, everything that happened in the weeks prior, and the closing stare as the Scottish woman laid on the broken table, it seems they’re headed toward a date in just a few months.

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NXT Championship Match
Shinsuke Nakamura (c) vs. Bobby Roode

Result: Bobby Roode defeats Shinsuke Nakamura via pinfall to win the NXT Championship.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

The first five minutes of this match stayed at a very slow pace. Nakamura and Roode methodically worked at each other in the ring with little hard-hitting offense. However, things picked up at ringside with the Glorious One using the outside barriers to his advantage. Actually, everything went to another level.

The match steadily saw Roode take over and actually dominate Nakamura, which is a bit surprising for any match of the latter’s. He grounded the former NJPW star for minutes, not really working on any part of his body, but keeping him in control

The turning point would be the knee injury to Nakamura, which was an element of the match. It happened after a knee to Roode on the apron.

Somehow, Nakamura had been able to hit the Kinshasa, but immediately went down and had the trainers check on him for minutes. But when he got back into the ring, this became all Roode. Two Glorious DDTs and a vicious half-crab did the 37-year-old in, who took a beating by the time the match closed. All the offense that had been built up became too much and ended up doing Nakamura.

This may have been the best NXT TakeOver main event since Bayley vs. Sasha Banks at NXT TakeOver: Respect in October 2015. Finn Balor and Samoa Joe had fun headliners. So did the latter and Nakamura. However, none of these matches had the kind of drama and build up that this had. There was the drama with the knee and crescendo in pace. Roode picked it up and Nakamura certainly did too, combining for a match that the Freeman Coliseum invested themselves in.

What fans now have to embrace is Bobby Roode as NXT Champion and the third consecutive TakeOver with a title change in the main event. This is his first reign since coming to WWE and will bring with him the momentum he’s built since NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn II. He has the backing as a heel champion and should represent a fresh face to the title scene.

As for Nakamura, the talk will be about him going to WWE. There’s one issue, however—there’s nobody to replace him as the top babyface. So if you’re hoping he goes to the main roster, don’t be so sure it happens just yet. Maybe NXT is going to rely on Chris Hero/Kassius Ohno, but how marketable is he as the top face?

That does it for NXT TakeOver: San Antonio. What did you think of the show? Let us know below.