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LIVE NOTES & THOUGHTS FROM LAST NIGHT'S WWE NXT TAKEOVER: FATAL FOUR WAY

By Andrew Twiss on 2014-09-12 08:45:54
First, great job from the team recapping the show on the PWInsider.com I figured I would send along some live notes.

I got to Full Sail around 6, figuring I was getting there at right around a good time. It turns out there were already a bunch of people there. They were all pretty crowded around the door and shortly afterwards they started filming the pre game show. In the meantime, CJ Parker came out and filmed several vignettes with the crowd. He was cool in between, taking pictures with the fans, but once the cameras were rolling, he was riling up the fans and getting booed.

The merchandise truck had some new additions, which was a nice treat. It looks like they finally got rid of all of the old Paige and Adam Rose T shirts. They had the new shirts for Charlotte, The Lucha Dragons, and the Vaudevillains in stock. They also added a lot of new photos for talent that didn't have anything previously. Oh, and there's now a Tyler Breeze phone case. I got my Vaudevillains shirt and moved along my way.

My one problem with the set up for this event was the crowd organization. I know they wanted to have everybody by the doors for the pre-show, but once it was done, there was nobody telling the crowd what to do. Also, the parking lot filled up quickly and I had to park in another campus lot pretty far away. For the next event like this, they might want to organize things a bit better.

Once inside, they got the crowd seated pretty handily and we were treated to our Dark Match where Becky Lynch fought Paige, in a surprise return. People were pumped to see Paige back. It was a solid and short match. Paige won with her DDT finisher. Afterwards she hugged Becky and raised her hand.

Jojo also sang the National Anthem with two military men in dress uniform present. She did a really good job. Kudos to her.

They played the last 10 minutes of the pre-show for the crowd on the screens and then we were off.

The tag match was actually pretty fun. The Lucha Dragons are getting better as a team. Sin Cara has never been more relevant from an in ring stand point. I wasnt shocked to see the Ascension lose. Once I saw that Sin Cara and Kalisto got new merch, a team name, and new theme music, I figured they were going over. Still, a solid fun match where everybody looked good. I know there's a lot of hate on the Ascension, but they work pretty well as a tag team and I'm curious to see how well they develop if allowed to have longer and more challenging matches.

Interesting that Baron Corbin got no live entrance. The crowd is definitely anti-CJ Parker and was happy to see him squashed. Corbin looked really good and opened a few eyes there. I know Triple H mentioned on Twitter once that he thought Baron Corbin had a ton of potential. He is definitely someone to keep an eye on.

The hair match was alright for what it was. It went on too long. Enzo is over with the crowd and has great personality, but him and Sylvester can't really carry a great match and the crowd kind of died in the match. There was one issue with the whole aftermath. The tron in the arena wants showing the live feed of the show. So, from several vantage points, you couldn't actually see what was happening on the stage.

The crowd was HUGE into KENTA's arrival. His theme music is pretty badass too. He lost the crowd a bit when he was speaking in Japanese, but they enjoyed when he came back to English. There was a very interesting moment when he announced the name change. The second after he announced what his new name was, the crowd was dead silent. They really didn't know how to react to it. They accepted it and were into his fighting off the Ascension. Overall, despite some bumps, it was a good way to introduce him to the crowd.

The crowd was not very (ahem) hyped for the Bull Dempsey and Mojo match. It got better reactions as it went because, while it was short, it was pretty intense. Dempsey looked good. He still has some work to do before he's main roster ready, but this was a nice show of improvement. I don't know where Mojo goes from here. The crowd wanted him squashed (minus the two people wearing airburshed Mojo "Stay Hyped" shirts). Rawley may need to go off TV for a while, work on his skills, and come back in a repackaged role. It's getting plainly obvious, he has anti-momentum at this point and something needs to change before he falls further down the pecking order.

The Women's title match was FANTASTIC. I know Bayley and Charlotte have been working a lot of the recent NXT house shows, including one where they were the main event, and that preparation showed. Bayley is over huge with the crowd, although I don't know if I'm sold on changing her theme, but at least it wasn't some terrible new music. It still fit her. There weren't any dead spots or awkward pauses in the match. The crowd went nuts when Bayley hit the tope rope Hurricanrana and it looked good in person too. Charlotte lost the crowd a bit with the moonsault when she didn't hit it properly. But that's a minor quibble. It's amazing to see, in a WWE product, the Women being treated as important and proud competitors. They aren't just caricatures, but an important and competitive division in the brand.

I'm okay with Sasha getting involved afterwards. They haven't really explored a feud with Sasha and Charlotte after the break up of the BFF's and, along with Bayley, these three are the most complete females on NXT. Extending the feud for a while makes sense. It still has a lot of juice in it and it also gives the other women on the roster time to keep improving.

There's not much to add to the main event. There are so many superlatives already used for this match all over. It was an incredible match. The crowd was going nuts for it. People were standing and cheering and booing and incredibly invested in the match. It was incredibly well paced and put together. Afterwards, fans started chanting "Match of the Year". It certainly deserves a place in the running.

On the note of chants, I have one complaint about the NXT crowd. Sometimes they get a little to smarky for their own good. They started chanting CM Punk for no reason in the main event. Luckily, the rest of the crowd booed them into silence. There were also some nonsensical "Cena Sucks" chants, usually in the middle of other chants. The crowd will be chanting "Let's Go Bayley" and others in the crowd will respon with "Cena Sucks". Stop it. Stop being stupid with the chants. Cena has no relevance to any of the competitors. It's actually disrespectful to the workers busting their ass to put on a show for you. You are not smart, you are not clever. Quit being tools.

I stayed for the after-show, and while there was some decent stuff, I didn't pay a ton of attention to it.

Overall. It was a great night, a fun show and people were really into it. It shows that if a crowd is engaged in the performance and not trying to get themselves over, the show works better and you can tell the workers are feeding off a lively crowd. I have my tickets for the Friday taping which will be the aftermath of this event. It should be a blast.

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