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LIVE THOUGHTS FROM WWE NXT TAKEOVER - RIVAL

First off, it was an excellent event to attend live. You could tell the crowd was spent by the end of the main event. As Mike Johnson mentioned in the Takeover - Rival report last night, the girl who jumped on Tyler Breeze is a developmental woman named Gionna Daddio. She hasn't appeared on TV or a house show to my knowledge before this.

The opener was fun. I'm surprised it took them this long for Tyler to have a selfie stick. It's a tailor made device for that character.

The crowd is turning a little on Baron, but not much yet. They were very disappointed in the match. We all expected more plunder. It feels like the match didn't justify the stipulation. I'm shocked Baron didn't whack Bull with the chair once or twice.

The tag match was disappointing. I've seen Blake and Murphy live. They have a lot of talent and have had real fun matches before. I really blame the failure of this match on Sin Cara and Kalisto. Every time they blew a spot, it derailed the momentum of the match. At what point does WWE just cut their losses with Sin Cara? And how many times does he have to botch that tilt a whirl Rana before he drops it from his arsenal?

It took a while to get the #1 contender match going, but it paid off in the end. Not much to say, just an excellent match.

I give the four women a ton of credit. It is not easy to follow a Finn and Neville match. They over delivered. Once they got in their groove and started to heat the match up, it was really fun. The crowd was very divided. There are affinities for each of those women. They went nuts when they thought Bayley was going to win. They still cheered Sasha winning. She had long since earned that crowd's respect.

I liked the main event. It definitely had some good drama. The ending was just weird. It took the air out of the crowd a bit. I don't think it's a bad ending, it just didn't quite work as well live.

Only other note was that they had some new shirts on sale. There was a new Sami shirt, plus shirts for Sasha Banks and Baron Corbin and the usual Takeover shirt. I know WWE also released a new Finn Balor shirt and. Bayley shirt, but those were not on display. Not sure why.

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