WWE NXT TakeOver Chicago II Results, Highlights, And Grades

Aleister Black (c) vs. Lars Sullivan For The NXT Championship

Result: Aleister Black Wins After 3 Black Masses

Rating: 3.75 Out Of 5.0 Stars

Lars Sullivan begins by laughing at Aleister Black and staring in his face, talking about how much he’s going to hurt Black. However, Black isn’t phased, and he goes right after Sullivan with a bevy of strikes. After landing on his feet when Sullivan launches him in the air, Black goes for the Black Mass. And gets caught again. But he quickly recovers, throwing Sullivan out of the ring and uses his quickness to level Sullivan on the outside.

When Sullivan regains the momentum, the crowd roundly boos him. Everyone is obviously 100% behind Black, who has no trouble turning the tables on Sullivan with the help of the ring post. Unfortunately, he went for too big of a move, as Sullivan caught Black straight out of the air on the moonsault attempt. Lars rewarded Black by smashing his face on the ring apron.

So Lars started to take total control of the match, using headlocks to ground one of NXT’s quickest wrestlers.

Sullivan is so strong that Black couldn’t even muster enough strength to roll him up! So it seems like the surprise roll up is out of the question. This means Black needs to hit that Black Mass on a man who has ALWAYS caught those attempts.

As Lars talked trash to Black, “You’ve got nothing”, Black could only muster meager punches that had no effect on the “Humongous Hominid” (to borrow from Mauro Ranallo).

An early turning point came when Lars went up to the top rope with his diving headbutt, because he landed on Black’s left knee. The move hurt both men, but Black started to hit his comeback soon after this missed headbutt from Sullivan. With the crowd behind Black, he finally hit a moonsault on Sullivan, but this momentum swing didn’t last long. Lars showed off his ring IQ by going after Black’s left knee with a SICK stretch muffler. He isn’t just a monster.

Sullivan went for the “Freak Accident”, but Black pulled a ridiculous counter to save himself, hitting Lars with a DDT. Not long after Black started hitting a flurry of offense, Lars hit him with a powerslam on the apron before finally hitting his diving headbutt. But Black kicked out!

Black hit Sullivan with a “Black Mass”, but he didn’t get all of it and Lars kicked out. He went for it again, but Lars caught him and turned the champion inside out with a wicked clothesline. Black countered the “Freak Accident”, hit a knee on Sullivan, and then hit Black Mass. But Lars got up! Bloodied in the mouth he got up!

So Black hit him with Black Mass for a THIRD time to retain the NXT Championship.

This was a good match, and it makes Black feel like the biggest deal in NXT. That says a lot, given how stacked this roster is.

Can we please get Black vs. EC3 next?