PREDICTIONS: NXT Takeover: New Orleans

He’ll alwasy be Prince Puma to me.

The Takeover before Mania is tonight, and while I won’t get to watch it until tomorrow, I’m very excited for the show overall, and two of the matches in particular. Not that I’m confident with predictions at all.


NXT Tag Team Championship Match: Undisputed Era vs. Strong/Dunne vs. Authors Of Pain 

OK. This is a tough call. I think they have plans for Adam Cole that don’t involve tag teams. Which means Undisputed Era drops the belts while Bobby Fish rehabs his blown out knee. Do they put it on AoP, the workhorses who’ve held the bellts before, or Strong and Dunne, which makes the whole UK title thing kind of messy? Strong’s been doing yeoman’s work getting close to gold for months now, so I’m going to say he and Dunne get the belts and AoP gets the callup to Raw on Monday to challenge Tag Team Champions Braun Strowman.

Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa

OK. There are two ways this could go. Ciampa beats Gargano because Gargano is getting called up, likely to 205 LIve. 205 Live doesn’t need Gargano right now and Gargano definitely doesn’t need 205 Live. Give it at least another six months to rebuild the show before you bring him in hot. So let’s say Gargano gets his big revenge win in NXT, where it belongs, and gets his job back and maybe gets into the North Marican title scene for a bit.

NXT Women’s Championship Match: Ember Moon vs. Shayna Baszler

I still don’t think Baszler is ready to hold the belt, and I don’t think Moon has had a convincing title run yet, since it’s been almost exclusively her feuding with Baszler. I also don’t think they’re going to change all four belts in one night. But I also think they’ve gotta call up at least one woman to the main roster post-Mania, and she’s literally the only candidate. It’s a tough call. I’m going to say Baszler wins. Sorry, Aleister. They call up Moon and Baszler does a mean version of Asuka for a while.

NXT North American Championship Ladder Match: EC3 vs Killian Dain vs Lars Sullivan vs Adam Cole vs The Velveteen Dream vs Ricochet

It’s gotta be Dream. It’s just gotta be. It makes the most sense. EC3 and Ricochet have “new wrestler smell” and don’t need the belt. Adam Cole’s probably going to be in the big title scene. Lars Sullivan isn’t ready, Killian Dain, as much as I like his in-ring skill, isn’t hot enough. Dream’s literally the best possible person they could put this belt on to get the new belt over and make it mean something.

NXT Championship Match: Andrade Almas vs Aleister Black

I’ll be honest, I want Black to win this. I even went into my predictions thinking I’d be predicting Black. But I don’t think they’re gonna switch all the titles over in one night, and this one makes the most sense to keep on the current champ. You have a lot of faces who could be positioned for title challenges, and Drew McIntyre will probably be back soon and he has issues with Almas, and as meh as I am about Almas with the belt, keeping it would be good for him. Almas retains.