The 10 Greatest NXT Takeovers of All Time
Less than a month ago on April 7, 2018, the WWE produced the 19th NXT Takeover event in New Orleans and fan response was clear: this not only was perhaps the greatest Takeover ever but one of the greatest events in the history of the entire company.
Of course, it came as no surprise that COO Paul "Triple H" Leveque and his team could produce a great show. NXT has been so consistent in outperforming the often drab main roster pay-per-views over the last two years that it's become a cliché for internet fans to rhetorically wish Raw and SmackDown performers good luck in trying to compete for the next night (Takeovers happen Saturday night before major Sunday pay-per-views, as part of a weekend of events).
This night in particular though stood out as a watershed moment for the black and yellow brand. It showed that there's virtually no limit to how good these shows can be given the right talent roster and proper storytelling. Particularly over the last year, every Takeover literally feels like an arms race to outdo the last.
There's something to be said about a division intended to be a developmental league that's instead taken the wrestling world by storm and become the hottest thing WWE has done since the end of the Attitude Era.
NXT is an established refuge for disaffected fans tired of the PG era's questionable booking decisions. It's rarified air where move sets are far less watered down and simple backstage interviews take the place of drawn out 20-minute scripted promos.
While the weekly NXT program has at times struggled to stay watchable, the scarcity of Takeovers (usually just five shows per year at under three hours long) has allowed NXT' s producers to maintain such a high level of quality control that these nights of captivating entrances, high-caliber in-ring performances and shocking twists and turns have the feel of a Wrestle Mania every 2-3 months.
Ranked by this writer's subjective taste in quality and the general consensus across the Internet Wrestling Community, these are the ten greatest NXT Takeovers of all time.
#10 Takeover: Philadelphia (Jan. 27, 2018, Wells Fargo Center, a crowd of 14,000+)
NXT's foray into the city of Brotherly Love for Royal Rumble 2018 weekend went down as the night when the brand's main event scene came back to form. Following Takeover after Takeover where women, tag teams and special mid card debuts outshined the final match of the night, TO: Philly brought us something different.
The focus went back to the top stars as Aleister Black plowed through Adam Cole in an excellent Extreme Rules match whilst Andrade "Cien" Almas and Johnny Gargano put on an epic encounter that spanned more than a half hour and earned a well-deserved 5 star rating from the Wrestling Observer newsletter (a first for NXT and sixth for WWE as a whole).
Rating: 7/10