NXT TakeOver: Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
A request! The request was for my “least favorite of the three Adam Cole vs Johnny Gargano TakeOver main events from 2019.” I’ll be honest with you: I can’t separate which of these was which any more than I can remember what happened in which of the last five or so Fast & Furious movies, other than I know the most recent one sucked shit and had Jason Momoa as Nicolas Cage, and in the one before that, that hillbilly shot Tyrese and Ludacris into outer space.
But I know it’s generally agreed this was the worst, the last of the batch. Meltzer gave the April match “five and one-half stars” and Cagematch has a 9.17 on it. The second match in June got “five and one-quarter stars” and Cagematch put a 9.07 on it. This one Dave was down to “four stars” and Cagematch dropped to 8.47.
(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)
Now, in my day, Dave Meltzer giving a match four stars was pretty great. By 2019, for a match like this, after what he said about the first two, it kinda meant fuck all. It meant something skippable that he respected the effort of, basically.
I barely remember these matches, because I was pretty checked out of NXT by this point, in all honesty. I do not enjoy Johnny Gargano. I do not enjoy this version of Adam Cole. It was just not a feud for someone like me, who likes and dislikes the things I do in wrestling.
But I don’t remember hating the matches, either. Certain aspects of them, sure, but my mind can change on a match three or four times in 20 minutes, let alone the 17 hours these two insisted on wrestling each other while Triple Paul ripped rod in the back over these lil’ fellas doing their best HHH vs Shawn Epic, which was really his ultimate dream, to turn all these guys into avatars for what he and Shawn would have been doing in their position.
This is two out of three falls, but with a twist! The first fall is a normal singles match. The second fall is a street fight. And the third fall, Beth Phoenix informs me before the match, will “be a demonic, weapon-filled structure.” Sure, B-Money. Whatever you say.
oh jesus christ it’s mauro ranallo
See, Cole chose the straight match because he has beaten Gargano in straight matches. And Gargano chose the street fight because he’s not afraid of no ghost (Undisputed Era). And then Regal chose a demonic, weapon-filled structure.
Johnny Gargano’s theme gives me hives.
“Johnny Gargano has proven to be a MARVEL on the mat, and Johnny Wrestling full IRON MAN mode, and he’s hoping, though, for a STARK difference, Nigel, in the outcome of his ENDGAME,”
…………
man come on.
man.
I can’t type out what he said during Cole’s entrance or I’d quit this review.
During the intros, Gargano gets a mixed reaction at best. Cole the slender crowd favorite in Toronto at the open.
The early moments of this match feature this horrible, awful “sequence”:
This really is just truly, excruciatingly awful to me. It is everything about Gargano’s style I just can’t stomach. Stuff like this with him is the closest I get to a Cornette tirade. And Cole always seems just kind of happy to go along for the ride with whatever opponents do, and he does his best with it. But I really, really hate this. The whole exchange is just completely soulless, there is no meat on the bone, there isn’t even a bone.
Once the match starts after they’re done failing a dance audition — foot work a mess, too much hesitation — Gargano drives Cole’s knee into the apron.
“Johnny Gargano saying he was a chubby, shy, socially awkward kid who didn’t have a lot of friends, and not making friends at all with Adam Cole,” Mauro says.
“Johnny Gargano is an inspiration to a lot of chubby, antisocial kids, and we saw a couple of those in that training class that he gave,” Nigel adds. Jesus Christ lol
This first fall is genuinely not very good. Cole hits a wheelbarrow suplay into the apron that might pick things up, but they were struggling to find a groove. But then it gets taken to the mat. Not necessarily a bad thing, but then Mauro evokes the Flair-Steamboat trilogy and says we are “in the midst of another classic,” because with NXT and WWE as a whole, really, the making of a classic starts in simply telling you, before and then during the match, that it is one.
More “exchanges.” Very Gargano. Crowd still iffy on him. Slingshot spear is caught, but Gargano hits the fisherman driver anyway.
“In life, you can count on death, taxes, and Johnny Gargano never giving up on his dream.”
Gargano staying a step ahead of Cole here, staying on the knee he drove into the apron earlier, and now locking on a figure four. Then back to more “exchanging.” “These two know each other so well!” Beth says, and I wish they didn’t feel like they had to wrestle this way because of that.
Cole with a nice German suplay for two. “A cavalcade of kicks here now!” Yes. Panama Sunrise attempt is countered with a Sunet Driver for two.
Now a try for an avalanche Panama Sunrise. That doesn’t work, but he gets a Codebreaker and a fireman’s carry driver for two. “If there’s one thing that Adam Cole is not, Beth, it’s predictable.” WELL
We are at “this is awesome” chants. They don’t take hold the way they do when something is. Double clothesline, both down. Please clap.
Thunderstruck DDT gets two for Gargano. More slappy kicking. Cole’s timing on counters being pushed as a big thing here. Ushigoroshi gets two. Cole taking over, stomping away in the corner. Then he rolls outside and fetches a chair from the timekeeper. He tosses it into the ring, where the referee grabs it, which allows Cole to kick Gargano in the nuts for a two count.
Cole has the chair back and he sits on it to talk at Gargano. Now he’s going to use it again, but the referee says no, so he doesn’t and he gets in the referee’s face. That means he turns around into a Gargano superkick.
So mere seconds ago this guy was smart enough to use the chair to get the referee distracted to cheat, and now he’s so fucking stupid he winds up kicked in the face because he’s distracted by the referee. “It’s like movies and TV shows, actually!” OK, let’s take it on that level then. This is character behavior whiplashing on par with what they gave Estelle Getty in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot. It is purely for the convenience of the moment and makes no sense when you think about it for two seconds.
Now Gargano has the chair, and he uses it, smacking Cole over the back, and that’s an obvious DQ, so Cole is up 1-0. “What!” Mauro shouts. Johnny shrugs and just lays into Cole with the chair over and over and over and over. Now this is fine. It’s a bold move to give up a fall, but you can see the thinking and motivation. Fuck it, the next fall is a street fight, he can just keep beating him with the chair.
But then he stops, giving Cole a chance to come to his senses. So Gargano hurls it at Cole on the outside, which connects, and follows up with a tope suicida. Cole escapes into The NXT Universe, and Gargano follows. Ranallo names cities in Ontario.
Walkin’ in a headlock, gotta get where we’re going, let’s not pretend to fight all that way. Simple brawling stuff out here, Johnny in control and takes a selfie with a fan’s phone. “A selfie that will last a lifetime!” Sure, why not?
Cole with a couple rights, but walks into a superkick. Literally just walks into it at a fair distance. Just walks on over and Gargano superkicks him. Mauro thinks falls count anywhere. Moments later, he is corrected on his headset and relays that information.
Back to ringside, where Gargano lightly dives onto call in The Spear Spot of the WWE barricade, and Mauro shits his pants about it being softly knocked over. They, like, barely tipped it over.
Commentary desk now in play. Mauro at least calls it a “broadcast table.” I’ll accept that. Cole gets backdropped through the Spanish desk. “HOLY BLEEP INDEED!” god right back in the doghouse, and then he also calls it the Spanish “announcing table.”
Gargano rolls Cole back in and goes to follow but then he’s, like, “Nah, not yet,” and here comes a regular table from under the ring. OH MY GOD ENOUGH ABOUT THE TRIBULATIONS JOHNNY GARGANO ENDURED FROM THE DOUBTERS
Second table. Chair. Chair. But all that waiting and Cole jumps on him with a Shining Wizard when Gargano comes back in. Ushogoroshi on a chair! Two count. Cole with a short kick to the knee, but he gets caught up top and lawn darted into a chair in the corner. Gargano Escape locked on, Cole taps, we’re tied at one fall.
Eventually, the cage lowers and there’s a bunch of crap attached to the sides. Barbed wire around the top, fire extinguisher, kendo sticks, sledgehammers, chairs, and so on. Cole and Gargano make Bug-Eyed Faces at it. “ECDub” chant. Incredible.
No escape. It’s pin or submission. But anything goes.
We start with a staredown,a nd Cole jets over for a stick, but Gargano goes right after him so they can punch each other. So tough to be a southpaw in a Strike Exchange era, throws the whole thing off. Kendo stick trade leads to a double superkick.
Crowd loving it now. Both struggling to their feet. This “this is awesome” chant feels a lot more sincere, more of a reaction than a rallying cry.
Gargano going for a ladder up on the corner of the top of the cage, but Cole gets there to cut him off. Beth loses her train of thought. Nigel jumps in for the save. Poison rana from Gargano. Cole sat in a chair, another superkick gets two.
“Fight forever” chant. God, they are. Relax. Gargano sets up a table in the corner, but turns around into a couple of chair shots from Cole. Cole going up top, finds another chair. Why? There are like five in the ring. There are several hanging on the cage that you don’t have to climb to retrieve. Wrestlers are really dumb, man.
Cole uses a kendo stick with a backstabber for two. “You wonder what this is going to do to each of these mens psyche. This is going to change these Superstars forever!” It didn’t, really.
Cole sets up two chairs in seated position. PLEASE STOP SAYING STRUCTURE IT’S A FUCKING CAGE. Gargano fire extinguishes Cole in the face, then hits a swinging DDT onto those chairs for two. Very specifically, his forehead was driven right onto the top edge of the back of one of the chairs. Referee checks on Cole, who is OK, but boy that could have gone badly.
Gargano dramatically looks up and fetches a sledgehammer, one of wrestling’s all-time stupidest weapons, as nobody uses it like you would use a sledgehammer. But it doesn’t get retrieved, and Gargano hits a sunset flip bomb for two.
As an aside, I think it’s weird that they would constantly harp on Gargano being told he was too small and so on as if there was nobody else in NXT in this period who had been told the same shit, including his partner/rival Ciampa and Cole here, or everyone in Cole’s group. Really seems to me like maybe they just weren’t still constantly moaning about it, because here they were, getting their chances, and delivering.
Gargano gets the sledgehammer now and Mauro puts on Pre-Tragedy Voice. But of course the hammer goes nowhere, basically. Cole up to the top and he wants the ladder, too, so he launches it at Gargano, who moves, but that sets up the Panama Sunrise with Gargano having to distract himself with the ladder, and it gets two.
Ladder set up and Cole climbs up, wanting another Panama Sunrise. He gets it, it gets two again. I think I’m supposed to believe that him jumping from a slightly higher height to land on his feet and then do the move makes it extra devastating. That dog don’t hunt, though. It’s already a stupid move. Jamming your ankles from even higher doesn’t make it less so.
Now there’s a “yowie wowie” chant. Come on, man.
Cole is an avid scuba diver so he has conditioning for days. They are out of things to say and shutting up is not an option.
Cole wants to knock all over Gargano’s teeth out but misses and attacks a chair with his thigh instead. STF with the kendo stick from Gargano, but Cole bites his way out of that fast. They fight over their dad’s favorite toy, and Cole winds up hit in the ribs with the hammer. Better use than normal, give them that.
For some reason Mauro puts on an almost jokey voice to say “sinister structure.” In summary on his call, I am remembering a big reason I dipped out of NXT in this period, and it wasn’t Johnny Gargano.
Gargano sets up some tables and puts Cole on one, then climbs a ladder. Cole rolls off the table. Gargano has to just get down. Moments later, they find their way to the top and Gargano hits a super Canadian Destroyer for two.
“What is left to say, guys, honestly?!” Good point, Mauro. Stop talking.
But here’s a bag of shit that Gargano empties. Chains and brass knux and some pliers and shit. Gargano goes up top and cuts off a bit of barbed wire to bring back. I do chuckle and Mauro’s hushed “oh, jeez.” Cole tries to escape. “Remember he can’t escape!” I mean he can. It’ll hurt.
They wind up on a bit of metal or wood or whatever, fastened to the roof of the cage and giving them something to stand on in the corner of the cage. They carefully punch, then far less carefully dive off through those tables, and Cole drapes the arm for the three count.
Pros:
- For some people, this style of 46-minute match is greatly preferable to the older style, where you’d get a lot of mat work and whatnot. I get that so I will make it a “pro.” And I will say, sort of on the same tip, that I do appreciate how little “lying around waiting to do the next thing in a minute or two” stuff there is.
- I sincerely respect their effort and dedication and commitment and all that. I really do. This is a grueling match from a physical standpoint.
- Most things are executed very competently.
- The finish is set up in goofy fashion but it is still two guys hurling themselves off a cage through a couple tables, I mean that does rule.
Cons:
- Mauro Ranallo’s call is excruciating. A man who made you long for the restrained, tasteful stylings of early-to-mid 90s Vince McMahon, in the peak of Vince trying really hard to make you think things were exciting when they just weren’t.
- The match makes me feel absolutely nothing. I don’t have to care going in. Take Lulu Pencil vs Chris Brookes; not some big Brookes fan, not a big fan of that whole style and vibe of wrestling, but it sucked me in and by the middle of the match, I was hooked, because they told me a story that worked tremendously. It wasn’t high concept or anything, either. Or take the Dark Order vs Stu Grayson & The Righteous match at Death Before Dishonor this past July. You think I care about Dark Order? Come on. But the spectacle sucked me in. This match tried story, it tried spectacle, and none of it made me feel anything. I didn’t really hate anything other than that very early bit, and even that is typical and expected, so it was no surprise, and I moved on quickly. And I didn’t really love anything. And I didn’t dislike or like much, either. Just nothing. No matter what belt it is or what stage of the feud it is or what the commentary tries desperately to sell me, and no matter how good the crowd reaction — something that usually works for me — I just couldn’t find a path in here, because there was not a single moment where I really was caught with any sensation, good or bad. Wrestling is not science. It’s not math. You feel something or don’t, and if you don’t, what was it?
Tape Machines Are Rolling 