NXT TakeOver: Chicago Results: Highlights, Analysis, and Grades

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NXT Women’s Championship Match
Asuka (c) vs. Ruby Riot vs. Nikki Cross

Result: Asuka defeats Ruby Riot and Nikki Cross to retain the NXT Women’s Championship.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Once a Fatal Four-Way, these three women took to the ring to battle for the NXT Women’s Championship. It looked like it would be Ember Moon’s story, before she got hurt at a recent NXT taping.

The action here was much more tempered than what we just saw, which is fine. You’re not going to top what Bate and Dunne just did. However, the women kept things active with a pace that never slowed down.

For a while, Asuka wasn’t the one that stood out here. This match looked all about Cross and Riot, whose story was mostly told. They had feuded for the past month, which had been one of the two planned feuds being intertwined into this bout. Cross and Riot barraged each other with their offense, before the Empress eventually took a bigger role.

Riot missed a move off the top rope, leading into the Asuka Lock that nearly ended this match. Cross barely saved this, and she then just unloaded on the champion, taking a brief advantage. It represented just how stiff of a bout this was.

A nice thing about this match was seeing all three women looking even here. This is unlike the Fatal Four-Way from January, which looked all about Asuka.

Oh, and the Japanese Sensation is so good she pinned both Riot and Cross. This came after she missed her timing on a running attack to Riot, leaving both women down and getting the successful fall.

Not much of a surprise with the finish here. The story was going to be about Moon and Asuka, but with the injury, it will extend things to the summer — likely for TakeOver: Brooklyn III. That should be Moon’s moment, so we’ll have to wait on anything bigger for Cross and Riot.

We’ll see how much longer Moon will be out. Otherwise, we’ll need a new competitor for Asuka.

Patrick Clark Vignette

We had a vignette for Clark’s “debut” on the NXT roster. He’s being played up as the “Velveteen Dream.”