NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn III Review

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Podcast

Arena. Coming to the ring at this time... Oh,

you didn't know? You know I better call somebody!

First, representing this week in key, and from

parts unknown, he is, Mike, the Birdman. Welcome

to Mayhem Mikes. This is episode 30. I am of

course TF2 and Mike. Joining me is Ryan the Unnamed

Flo Merkley. Hello, sir. Hello. And tonight,

we're going to be talking about NXT Takeover

Brooklyn 3. Yes, we know this is old, but this

was the first one I had seen. And sadly, I haven't

watched any since. So whatever the next NXT one

will watch is... Just a matter of time, but...

half of these matches that I'll mention here

in a minute. I don't know where any of these

people are now. Like, I don't even know. So we

had Almis versus Gargano. We had Authors of Pain

versus Sanity. We had Atami versus Black. We

had Ember Moon versus Asuka. Obviously we know

where Asuka is. And hey look, I didn't screw

her name up this time. Rude versus McIntyre,

which again, we knew where Rude is now. And McIntyre

unfortunately is on the shelf. Also, you should

know where Almost is, because he was in the Rumble

with the NXT title belt. That's true. But yeah,

McIntyre got injured. I'm saying in general,

Johnny, I have no idea what Johnny's doing now.

He lost to CNN Almost at the last pay -per -view

in one of... yeah in one of the greatest matches

you can find like it was really good near perfect

actually probably was perfect anyway yeah so

the almost gargano match like because i in order

to refresh for this i did re -watch nxt takeover

brooklyn 3 i did not watch all of it i watched

like the first two or three or four minutes of

each match and then i just watched like i would

fast forward to the end of the match kind of

a thing just to refresh my memory and when i

originally took my notes for this oh so long

ago whatever the hell it was damn this match

i've never seen moves like these the two of these

guys oh my god wow yeah gargano's nickname is

johnny wrestling and he is He's incredible. And

so the storyline goes he was part of a tag team

with Tomas Ciampa Who called themselves DIY and

they were both are both just phenomenal talents

amazing wrestlers they Storyline wise they could

never win the title. They finally won it and

then immediately lost it and They just couldn't

win it back and finally Chiampa turned on Gargano

Chiompa in the process by the way in real life

injured his leg his knee during their final match

as a tag team and so he's been on the shelf so

Gargano has been out there and in this match

Zelina Vega who almost has had a weird he was

weird sort of path to the championship eventually

he doesn't have it here by the way and He's a

really good wrestler really popular in Mexico,

but something didn't click and then he got Zelina

Vega as a manager kind of changed and tweaked

his persona and now He's exactly where he should

be at the top because he's a fantastic wrestler

too And yeah, the two of them just put on a great

show. I love to the finish which if you remember

was Vega distracts Gargano by throwing the DIY

shirt at him And almost, you know, cheats to

get the pin. But it was a perfect kind of way

to end it. It was, you know, the evil manager

helps the bad guy win, distracting the good guy.

But at the same time, they furthered the storyline

or helped people remember the storyline between

Johnny and his partner. function at the junction

double clothesline and you can hear the impact.

Yeah. And I wish, and we always talk off air

usually about how good these NXT pay -per -views

are. Also, they're only about two hours, which

I think helps. Uh, and then we get some of these,

you know, font, we talked about it last time,

five or six hour WWE ones. Part of it to storytelling

though. When's the last time WWE had a match?

where they kept multiple kind of storylines going

including the stuff that's in the match but also

with things that are outside of it like this

it doesn't happen a lot not at all like yeah

honestly the last time i remember something like

the storytelling that's in this like you said

the evil manager helps the kind of a thing obviously

i don't know if you've clarified this is an evil

manager for the last time i remember something

like this He's the Undertaker in Paul Bear. That's

the last one I can think of. And by the way,

that's a total lost art in WWE. How many guys

have managers now that actually interfere in

the matches and that kind of thing? So Paul Heyman

doesn't count. Oh, well. But I mean, but I'm

just saying in general, there's not many managers

in WWE. Like it's a lost art. Yeah. I feel like

it's a great way to get cheap heat. and get people

to hate you, have your manager cheat. The sad

thing is, half of the wrestlers I've been interested

to do research on recently, they're managers

or vice versa. Whether it's a female wrestler

or a male wrestler, they're usually either in

a relationship, married to each other or whatever.

That's kinda like the trend now. Wow. Yeah, but

yeah, this was it was a good opener and the other

thing I should note too is all these matches

are more than ten minutes long Yep, which which

again if you allow these if you allow these pro

wrestlers to tell a story They will tell a story

But when you give them two three five minute

matches, it gets really hard That was specific

time because it was a tournament thing. This

isn't, this is a regular, I don't want to say

regular pay -per -view, but this is an NXT regular

pay -per -view of matches can last however the

hell long. But I think the point of Mae Young

and the time limit stuff was to show off the

best part of each of those female athletes. Whereas

this is back to kind of form of last till somebody

wins kind of a thing. Yeah Yeah, but I love this

match I wish Johnny would have won but Yeah,

and that's Johnny's thing is that he's the Daniel

Bryan kind of guy. He's a great wrestler There's

something about him. You always want to cheer

for him, but he comes up short a lot of the time

and It's just it's just good storytelling though

that everybody always wants to see him climb

that that hill and he just Doesn't always manage

to sometimes he will like it's so the next hit

a pay -per -view will have a rematch between

C and almost and Johnny Gargano again And I can't

wait for that because the first match was just

so amazing But it's also I believe it's some

sort. I need to look it up I can't remember but

I believe there's some sort of stipulation that

if he loses Johnny Gargano like can't get another

Title shot period and that kind of thing. So,

I don't know might be the time he finally wins

it and that's a yeah Yeah, I'm really happy for

him personally because I mean he is wife is now

involved Candice LeRae with the NXT promotion

as well He seems really happy. He's deaf. He's

got more exposure than he would have had before

so by the way things are good for him so yay

all right next up was the tag team match the

authors of pain versus sanity this match is just

ridiculous i don't even know where to begin with

that was my one and only note when i watched

it so the so the author yeah the authors of pain

started out only a little over a year ago i believe

and they weren't great and they've improved so

much They're WWE ready my god. Do they have a

look I've seen them in person and holy crap They

could throw either of us around I'm sure Like

wow, they're large men And they lost this match

Sanity won sanity is another group of people

So it's group of three men and then Nikki cross

as Sort of a stable and I think they're WWE ready

at this point as well. They're good wrestlers

It's a good sort of gimmick that they're all

kind of you know crazy and they stick together

and they win in packs that kind of thing But

yeah, and this match ended with that crazy like

table spots where everybody's got I shouldn't

say everybody but yeah the finale was a Yeah

So in the end it was Killian Dane did like a

crossbody through the table on Akam who was holding

Nikki cross who had tried to interfere and like

boy and then yeah, they win with a weird like

suplex neck breaker combination to win the titles

and just I don't know. It was super interesting.

It was super weird and strange but also refreshing

because I've said this for the three years we've

been doing this podcast. At the time when we

first started doing this the tag team division

on main roster It's just abysmal. Yeah, like

2015 2016 wwe's tag team division was just abysmal.

It's gotten a lot better But even now we only

have one big tag team and so far they haven't

been allowed to face anybody of any consequence

and I just I look at the authors of pain and

how huge and dominant they can be and man like

i'd really like to see that I miss the days of

Listen, I love the smaller guys, but it's only

special if you've got other guys to balance it

out If you have everybody doing the flips and

you know Hurricanrana is off the top rope and

diving through the ropes and everything else

It's less special. But if you've got more guys

who are just like ground and pound ass kickers

That's one of the things that worked way back

in the Attitude era, that yeah, you had your

Eddie Guerrero's and you had your Rey Mysterio's,

but you also had Stone Cold, who was, you know,

ground and pound guy. It's kind of like, and

I know this is going to be a bad analogy, since

one of them really is not a wrestler, and since

he was let go for supposed criminal behavior,

but it's... Let's face it, the tag team... The

tag team dynamic that you're talking about, about

high flyers and ground and pound guys or whatever,

it's like Enzo and Cas. Enzo was the mouthpiece.

Enzo was the one that got everybody riled up.

Cas was the one that came in and blew everybody

over with his abilities. Yeah, that's true. And

it made them kind of special too. It made their

matches different from everybody else's. And

so yeah, I'd like to see these guys and authors

there authors of pain. I meant sanity in this

case sanity Those are not small fellas either

Killian Dane is big and scary and yeah, Eric

Young is just a phenomenal talent So and I really

like Nikki Cross as well, too She's kind of been

hamstrung by the fact. Well, I mean she's also

newer but also because she's in the Because she's

part of this stable. She hasn't really been in

the title picture a whole lot She's been in there

a few times I mean in terms of the women's title,

but for the most part they've kind of kept her

with the with the group so Anyway, yeah, this

is a really fun tag match and After it to we

had the debut of Bobby Fish and Kyle O 'Reilly

who? Did their finisher on Eric Young? They beat

up both teams and they're called redragon in

this area in NXT Their tag team from the indies

Then we had a Tommy versus black Wow this match

Speaking of big scary guys Alistair black can

you know? He's huge and he can do a flip and

land on any part of his body he wants to And

Hideo Tomy's on 205 Live now, by the way. He's

very good as well. But, oof, Black has... The

two moves I wrote down was the guillotine knee

drop and spinal tap. Okay then, guillotine knee

drop. When I watched that the first time I saw

this, I didn't even need to re -see it for this

episode because I remember it. That reminded

me so much of right when they... You know and

set the curve stop like yeah Wow Yeah, black

has some vicious looking moves including he did

the Death Valley driver Onto two chairs to pour

Adam Cole at the last pay -per -view Which I

mean, oh and I should note it wasn't the bottom

part of the chairs He did it on it was the top

like the back Set up which looked nightmarish

but yeah he's got oh he's filled with some really

good moves and he's got a great look which ones

that he was using in NXT were not allowed to

be used in the main roster. That's kind of the

thing I worry about with Aleister at this point.

I assume he's still in NXT. Yeah, no, he is.

Okay, so he hasn't been brought up yet. He deserves

to be brought up. Just from, like, I haven't

even seen him. I've only seen this match and

damn. Like, wow. Like, I could see Aleister Black

versus I'd like to see him fight AJ. Yeah like

who if there be two guys who you know AJ is He's

smaller for a wrestler, but in real life He's

a good -sized guy and we've you know, we've seen

how he can move and black can move for a big

guy But yeah, this is a good match he defeats

a Tommy in the end versus Asuka. I like Ember

Moon. I liked her whole presentation for the

first time seeing her. I liked Asuka as well.

But yeah, for this being my first time seeing

Asuka, holy crap, you're right. She is like the

basic pinnacle of all of the women's division

athletics at this point. And she was injured.

She had a broken collarbone. That's right, she

was injured. She caught the broken collarbone.

Yeah in the match and just continued on She's

a scary lady But yeah, this would be her last

NXT match and it was good Ember Moon Yeah, Ember

Moon is very good too. Let me give Her props,

but it was exciting. There were a lot of near

falls. It felt like Asuka could lose at any moment

Which is impressive for somebody who had the

belt for 400 some on days at this point Yeah,

that's the Drew McIntyre as a kid he was I think

he was around 19 or 20 or so Yes You know, that's

like, I'm like, wait a minute. I know that guy.

Oh, right. He's been around for a while. Um,

this match was crazy. This is the first time

I saw Bobby Rude and just, I want to follow that

guy. Like Rude, even though Rude lost this match,

I don't care. Yeah, he looked really good. He

did well in NXT. I would argue he did better

in NXT than he has so far in WWE. He's doing

he's building up not necessarily his character,

but he's building up like he's got the US title

now Yeah, he's continuing on the tradition of

the open challenge I think it helps too though.

He was a bad guy in NXT. Yeah, and I think he's

better naturally as the cocky He'll that you

want to see beat and I think that helped in this

match too because I mean McIntyre's McIntyre

despite you know it's been ten years he mentioned

since he was in WWE he still looks pretty young

he looks fantastic might I add and He's got the

you know quick and really hard -hitting offense

And just I don't know he The two of them yeah,

this worked really well the two of them just

jelled And this was yeah, and this was the first

time we would lost in NXT by the way They made

him look good too because I mean they had McIntyre

hit his finisher twice on him to win The US title

keeps getting moved around we're gonna get to

that in the Owens 365 because that's one of the

things that gets covered but the Yeah, I mean

the fact it keeps getting bounced around I think

has Really helped The belt and it hasn't made

it seem like a big deal and then they have Ziegler

just flat -out relinquish it Which Understand

that the whole storyline is oh I want to go after

the world title But they probably should have

made it clear more clear off the bat because

by doing it It just looks like yeah, I don't

care about this belt If you're going to do a

new character, if you're going to come up with

a new character for yourself, get it over with

and get it done already and just stop doing it.

Just get the whole thing leaving the belt. I

just think an argument can be made. I think AJ

helped the belt a little bit, but I would say

the last time the US title looked really good

is when Cena debuted the open title. and yeah

sorry open challenge and when he started kind

of going after the world title at the same time

it didn't it didn't feel like a mid -level belt

because like he could still challenge for the

world title like i don't know anyway uh back

to nxt so you guys want us to watch from this

point forward or do you want us to stop and go

to current The bright side is the bright side

is there's only one pay -per -view in between

which was absolutely fantastic Well, yeah, the

next one Well, sorry, there was two they did

Yeah, they did war games And then holy shit never

mind. I'm totally wrong. There's war games and

there's Philadelphia then there was Man, I love

these things so much. I just forget that I even

watched them I got to admit I haven't I haven't

been watching the NXT show because there's only

so many hours in a week to watch wrestling And

one of those shows is three hours Nudge nudge.

Yeah, nudge nudge wink man way Yeah, they offer

the condensed version Yeah, no, they did war

games in Philadelphia. Those are the next two

and then the next one is New Orleans which is

in the same month as Yeah, same way. It's just

before WrestleMania. Yeah Kind of like that too.

So, you know what? Maybe we'll get into this

right now too then as of recording this They're

merging the brands and we'll be back to one takeover

a month or one takeover one pay -per -view month

and it'll just have both raw and smackdown which

Is kind of nice from a viewer and recording a

podcast standpoint Yeah, but but man if I were

one of the wrestlers, I'd be annoyed what if

you're what if you're a mid -level guy on smackdown

or raw or girl and you know suddenly there's

no room for you on these big pay -per -view cards

so that's kind of a downer also does it mean

that the pay -per -views are going to be longer

which let's be honest we've complained about

in the past are they just going to extend it

is the pre -show going to be two hours next and

then like this is this is all stuff i don't want

like i hate to say it but there's too much wrestling

per week i don't watch 205 live so i don't have

the time i don't watch nxt anymore which sucks

because i really liked it but because i can barely

have the time as it is for the rest i just i

don't want the pay -per -views to the wwe pay

-per -views like like i said before these takeovers

work really well because they're two hours They

only do them once every few months. And they

just, they feel special and they only have four

or five matches in that time. And there you go.

Like it's, it's just that easy. And then we go

to the WWE ones and I've, you know, hate to crap

on it again, but we've complained about it a

few times. Stuff like summer slam should not

be six hours. I get it, SummerSlam is the second

biggest next to SummerSlam, but yeah. I shouldn't

be able to watch the Lord of the Rings movies

in the amount of time that one WWE pay -per -view

takes. I can't sit down for those three movies

in a row and just stay there. I'm not gonna sit

down and stay there for a wrestling pay -per

-view. NXT TakeOver Brooklyn 3, I absolutely

loved it. They didn't really talk about this,

talk about it now. This being the first one I

watched, I wasn't sure what to expect as far

as packaging, which there isn't much packaging,

but I was not expecting a live band in the Brooklyn

song. No, they don't always do, they do something

usually, like they'll have a... They'll have

somebody's theme performed or something like

that, but yeah, they don't often do family issues

or something and then it was like, oh, well,

JBL was too much of a jackass. Morrow didn't

like that. Morrow doesn't like that. Yeah, we'll

never know the truth, but yeah. Right, obviously.

But what I'm saying is, like, I thought, oh,

so if Morrow's not there anymore, that shouldn't,

I shouldn't have thought this, but I did at the

time back then, like, oh, that means he's not

with the company anymore. He went to do something

else somewhere else, but no, he's still with

the company he's announcing on NXT. Now, is Morrow

part of the main NXT TV show announced to you?

Yes. Okay. Alright. And it's great. Morrow and

I believe the Brit guy is Nigel. Yep. Okay. Those

are the two. Whoever that third guy is, get rid

of him. Ah, it's the same as with the other shows,

yeah. I don't know why indeed third guy, three

guys in the booth. It is, yes. I don't know what

this trend is towards more announcers. classic

parts 1 & 2. I love Mauro doing the narration

for that. Absolutely amazing. Nigel is okay.

I like him. He's an alright announcer. I don't

even know the third guy's name. I have no clue.

I just know it's a Byron Saxton type thing and

I can't know. I didn't mind that Corey came back.

in this paper because, oh, special guest commentator,

Corey Graves, returning to NXT, former NXT champion

Corey Graves. I know we've talked about this

before, where we were going to do, and we are

still going to be doing, a superstar spotlight

on The Undertaker at some point this year. But

when we were originally researching that, you

had pointed out the collections to me on WWE

Network. He's got quite the story too as somebody

who They to be blunt. It seems like probably

meant to sign him, but they signed his brother

And just Yeah, he went from a wrestler to You

know getting getting well getting the dreaded

your career is over. You know you can't you can't

wrestle another match Yeah, so yeah so NXT table

go over Yeah, I mean I was gonna give it that

as well and I mean It's a weird four and a half

because it's really good I mean all of the NXT's

it feels like you're on some sort of like sliding

scale with each other where It's just hard to

top each of them we always just throw them in

with the wwe ones now too of course that's assuming

the wwe ones aren't like what i said before that

they're they now become six hour events each

time yeah we're gonna have to talk about that

next time with the uh 365 kevin owens episode

that we do next week we're gonna be we'll find

you online at nightbeat on a little site called

twitter Yes, little site called Twitter. God,

I've been on Twitter ten years as of this year,

I believe. Good Lord. Yeah, so that's gonna do

it for this episode of Mayhem Mikes. We will

catch you next time when we talk about the first

365 Kevin Owens special.