It’s that time of the month once again! Put on your Meltzer caps as I give you my star ratings for NXT TakeOver: Phoenix and Royal Rumble 2019.
NXT TakeOver: Phoenix
NXT Tag Team Championships: War Raiders def. Undisputed Era – 4 Stars. Great way to kick off the show. Hanson is brilliant and should not be able to move like he does. O’Riley and Strong are mega stars.
Matt Riddle def. Kassius Ohno – 3.5 Stars. Very stiff match for WWE standards. Aside from Ohno looking like a chump (i’m sure he doesn’t mind), this was a great match. The toe biting and the beat down finish were both creative spots.
NXT North American Championship: Johnny Gargano def. Ricochet – 4.75 Stars. Amazing. These two worked so well together and put on one of the best wrestling match of the year so far. Amazing character work from Gargano and Ricochet is insane. MOTN
NXT Women’s Championship: Shayna Baszler def. Bianca Belair – 4 Stars. Despite what Sam Roberts says, Belair deserved to be in this match and she proved why tonight. Great offense and great selling throughout the match. Also, I love a prolonged submission finish.
NXT Championship: Tommaso Ciampa def. Aleister Black. 4.25 Stars. Great sequences as well as nasty and creative spots as well. Fantastic way to end wrestling for the night and I love the spicy angle at the end. Heel DIY is going to be awesome.
NXT TakeOver: Phoenix was an A show. There’s no question about it. If you’re not watching NXT now, I advise you stop reading this and go watch this show!
Royal Rumble 2019 (Pre-Show)
There were three matches on this years Royal Rumble pre-show (oh boy).
Bobby Roode & Chad Gable def. Akam & Scott Dawson – 2 Stars. This showed how much of a mess the Raw tag division really is at the moment.
United States Championship: Shinsuke Nakamura def. Rusev – 2.5 Stars. A year ago, Nakamura won the Royal Rumble match. At least he get his belt back.
Cruiserweight Championship: Buddy Murphy def. Kalisto, Hideo Itami & Akira Tozawa. 4 Stars. The crowd didn’t seem that into it but it was a hell of a match. Plenty of great spots and its worth going back to watch if you skipped the pre-show. One of the better matches on the card.
Royal Rumble 2019
SmackDown Women’s Championship: Asuka def. Becky Lynch. 4 Stars. Great way to open the show. Arguably the best match on the card as well. The Asuka lock transition to the chancery was beautiful.
SmackDown Tag Team Championships: Miz & Shane McMahon def. The Bar. 3.25 Stars. This match flowed well into the show. The outcome was predictable but didn’t stop these four from having a fun match. Also, Cesaro is s t r o n g.
Raw Women’s Championship: Ronda Rousey def. Sasha Banks. 3.75 Stars. A solid match with good sequences throughout. Ronda has come a long way in the year she’s been with WWE and it’s awesome to see Sasha in this position on this type of stage.
Women’s Royal Rumble: Becky Lynch – 3.75 Stars. This Rumble didn’t get too crazy until the end where Fit Finlay of all people called the shot to send The Man into the Royal Rumble who eventually won.
WWE Championship: Daniel Bryan def. AJ Styles – 3.5 Stars. This reminded me of these two back in Ring of Honor. Nonetheless, a good match until the finish where Rowan ccame down to help Bryan win. This story has a lot of potential but we’re going to have to wait to see what WWE has in store.
Universal Championship: Brock Lesnar def. Finn Balor – 3 Stars. There is no reason to have Finn not come out as the demon. Despite the obvious outcome, Finn got a lot of offense in on Brock but the match was over pretty quick.
Men’s Royal Rumble: Seth Rollins – 4 Stars. This was a good Rumble match. Pete Dunne was a highlight but Nia Jax stole the show. She took a 619 and an RKO back to back and the crowd ate it up. Seth was one of the favorites going in and I think he’s going to defeat Brock at Wrestlemania.
Overall, this was a great weekend for WWE. NXT TakeOver: Phoenix was a fantastic show and the Royal Rumble, while long, was a solid show was well.
