WWE NXT TakeOver Philadelphia: Highlights, Grades, and Analysis

Credit: WWE NXT on Twitter

Velveteen Dream vs. Kassius Ohno

Result: Velveteen Dream Wins Via Purple Rainmaker

Rating: 3.0 Out Of 5.0 Stars

Before the match, the Velveteen Dream stated that he would defeat Kassius Ohno in 30 seconds when he accepted his award for Feud of the Year (the feud with Aleister Black that culminated in a fantastic match at NXT TakeOver: WarGames). We’ll see if Dream’s bold words come to fruition.

Immediately, Velveteen Dream was boxing the turnbuckles in preparation to knockout, and he actually did get Kassius Ohno down within 30 seconds. But he started celebrating as if he already won it, and he got rewarded with a stiff elbow seconds later. Ohno kicked Dream out of the ring and started to take control due to Dream’s inexperience. But Dream promptly retaliated with a back elbow.

The crowd was enormously behind Velveteen Dream, chanting his name as he got to work on Ohno after a vicious spinebuster. He went with a strike-heavy attack against the “Knockout Artist”, too, and we’re already seeing another great story unfold in one of his matches.

A lot of Dream’s attacks and holds involved hair-pulling, furthering the notion that he’ll do anything to get a win.

Ohno had a big comeback at one point, hitting Dream with a “Cyclone Kick”, but he almost got caught on a back-slide after the near-fall. Dream hit his awesome DDT, but Ohno kicked out of that one, too. He even kicked out of a Death Valley Driver to keep the match going. We had yet another near fall when the Dream kicked out of a Rolling Elbow, and the crowd started to get behind him again after this kick-out.

Dream got the Death Valley Driver again, ascended the top rope, and hit a Purple Rainmaker for the win from across the ring.

This was another solid match that started off hot. The issue is that nobody could really buy into the near falls in this match, so it wasn’t as exciting as it could have been at the end. But still, the final Death Valley Driver and Purple Rainmaker were more than satisfying.