WWE NXT TakeOver New Orleans: Highlights, Grades, And Analysis

NXT tends to steal the show during Big 4 PPV weekends, and tonight’s WWE NXT TakeOver New Orleans figures to follow suit. The card is stacked, the themes are excellent, and the crowd is hyped for the stories that are about to be told. Follow along with us as we review the show live.

WWE NXT TakeOver New Orleans has big shoes to fill. Because two months ago, NXT TakeOver Philadelphia was one of the best wrestling shows of the year. Johnny Gargano vs. Andrade “Cien” Almas earned the WWE’s first five-star review from the Wrestling Observer News’s Dave Meltzer since John Cena vs. CM Punk in 2011. The all-out match between Adam Cole and Aleister Black continues to go underrated, too, and those were just two of the great matches on that memorable night.

But tonight’s show might be even better. “Cien” is on fire, and his NXT Championship defense against Black will be filled with plenty of drama. Almas already has two exceptional title matches under his belt against Drew McIntyre and Gargano, and this battle with Black should be no exception. The build to this match has been intense, as it is Black’s first opportunity at the NXT Championship after being robbed by the Undisputed Era prior to TakeOver: Philadelphia.

The NXT Women’s Championship match is a repeat of a bout that took place at TakeOver: Philadelphia, when Ember Moon defended the title successfully against the menacing Shayna Baszler. But her win came at a great cost, as she suffered an arm injury. Will Moon be able to survive Baszler this time after a somewhat fluky victory two months ago?

There are two additional title matches with a bit of show-stealing potential. Pete Dunne and Roderick Strong have put together some ridiculously good tag team wrestling ever since being paired together, and it’s been remarkable to watch the chemistry between them. Can they pull off the upset in a Triple Threat match with the Undisputed Era (Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly, as Bobby Fish is out with an injury) and the Authors of Pain?

NXT debuted its North American Championship as sort of a “mid-card” title, but there’s nothing “mid-card” about the six men in this ladder match. Ricochet, EC3, Killian Dain, Lars Sullivan, the Velveteen Dream, and Adam Cole are six of NXT’s most talented wrestlers, and any one of them could be an excellent inaugural North American Champion.

All four of these matches will be fantastic, but there’s one match that stands out above the rest. It is perhaps the best-built match of the entire weekend (though some will understandably make the case for Cody vs. Kenny Omega) and is packed with raw emotion.

Tommaso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano. If you’ve been keeping up with this feud, you know that words can’t do it justice. But maybe this hype package can.

Either way, we are headed for an awesome night, so bookmark this page and follow along with us live. I’ll be handing out grades for all of the matches and offering some commentary on exactly what transpired during each of these highly-anticipated encounters.

NXT TakeOvers always deliver, so be sure to tune in tonight at 8 p.m. ET on the WWE Network.