NXT TakeOver: In Your House (2021) -- Results & Afterthoughts

NXT TakeOver: In Your House (2021) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view and WWE Network event produced by WWE for their NXT brand division. It took place on June 13, 2021, and was broadcast from the Capitol Wrestling Center, hosted at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. It was the 35th NXT TakeOver event, the 29th In Your House event, and the second under the TakeOver: In Your House chronology, a subseries of TakeOvers. It was the first In Your House to air on traditional pay-per-view since St. Valentine's Day Massacre: In Your House in February 1999.

Six matches were contested at the event, including one dark match. In the main event, Karrion Kross defeated Kyle O'Reilly, Adam Cole, Johnny Gargano, and Pete Dunne in a fatal five-way match to retain the NXT Championship. In the penultimate match, Raquel González defeated Ember Moon to retain the NXT Women's Championship. Other prominent matches included LA Knight defeating Cameron Grimes in a ladder match for the vacant Million Dollar Championship and Bronson Reed (North American) and MSK (Nash Carter and Wes Lee) (Tag Team) defeating Legado del Fantasma (Santos Escobar, Joaquin Wilde, and Raúl Mendoza) in a Winner Takes All Six-man Tag Team match to retain both the NXT North American Championship and NXT Tag Team Championship in the opening bout.

Match Results:

Dark Match - Tag Team Match

Sarray and Zoey Stark defeated The Robert Stone Brand (Aliyah and Jessi Kamea) (with Robert Stone) by pinfall

This will more likely be on Tuesday's TakeOver fallout episode of NXT.

As of NXT (6/15/21), I stand corrected... Franky Monet mentions the match in passing to Aliyah and Jessi Kamea as it seems to be that she's trying to sway them to her side. That would be interesting as it wouldn't be the first clients to depart from Robert Stone's employ either.

Winner Takes All Six-man Tag Team match for both the NXT North American Championship and NXT Tag Team Championship

Bronson Reed (North American) and MSK (Nash Carter and Wes Lee) (Tag Team) defeated Legado Del Fantasma (Santos Escobar, Joaquin Wilde and Raúl Mendoza) by pinfall

Nothing against everyone in this match, but I'm completely over Legado Del Fantasma at this point and this stale state of the NXT Tag Team division. It's not MSK's fault either. I'm just sick and tired of seeing a lot of the same faces on this show week to week that don't do anything to make me care about this show. To this match's credit though, there were some fun spots to be had, especially with Bronson Reed squishing guys like pancakes though.

Who did Mendoza piss off to have him getting the bricks beat off of him and eating pins in almost all of Legado Del Fantasma's matches?

As of NXT (6/15/21), it seems that they are staying the course with Escobar challenging Reed for a future one-on-one North American Championship match. Ugh, why can't we move on from Escobar and his goon squad?

Singles Match

Xia Li (with Boa and Mei Ying) defeated Mercedes Martinez by pinfall

Xia Li started this off VERY strong in a surprisingly dominating fashion until she kicked the steel ring post and Mercedes took control from there and never let up. It seemed like she had it all but won until Xia Li hit that sweet as hell looking spin kick of hers and got the pin off of it. It was a surprising, yet impromptu end to this match, but I'm glad that they are putting over Xia Li's strikes. I've been a fan of her kicks since she debuted in the Mae Young Classic. They always look like she could legitimately hurt someone with those things. I was really happy to see Xia Li pick up her first TakeOver win, especially after all of the time that has been invested into this gimmick change for her as part of Tian Sha.

As a match thought? I thought this was pretty cut and dry, especially for a TakeOver bout, when you could see something of this quality on the weekly NXT episodes. As a result, it left a lot to be desired here. Xia Li needed a big win since this gimmick change, so mission accomplished in that regard.

Back onto the topic of Tian Sha though, that's what came into play in the post-match segment of this match. Mercedes was clobbering both Boa (who ate a nasty chair shot to the head) and Xia with a steel chair, only for Mei Ying to stand up out of her chair like she was the final boss in the same vein of Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat (the video game) after you beat Goro. Mei Ying threw Mercedes off the stage and that was the end of that. Mil Muertes and Catrina made the whole Shao Khan/Shang Tsung imposing figure trope look like a million bucks in Lucha Underground, but NXT gets an A for effort here. I hope this means that Mei Ying will finally start wrestling matches instead of just sitting around watching the action.

The NXT (6/15/21) episode didn't follow up this story outside of recapping the events of TakeOver and getting a few words with Mercedes Martinez, who offers to dish out more punishment to Xia Li and Boa again while offering to put down Mei Ying before she gets up out of her chair again.

I have to wonder if Mei Ying's name in NXT is a play on words as she uses Meng's Tongan Death Grip as a finisher. Those of you who used to chime in onto my live tweet reactions during my revisits of WCW Monday Nitro from 1997 over on Twitter should know how much I marked out for that move, especially when it's done right and the right person sells the fuck out of it - i.e. Stevie Ray and Booker T.

Ladder match for the vacant Million Dollar Championship

LA Knight defeated Cameron Grimes

I don't have anything against both of these guys, but if you've seen one of these NXT ladder matches then you have seen them all. Guys are doing insane spots falling off the ladders and you're left wondering how these people are still getting up after all of this mess by the time it's all said and done. I can't say that I was surprised at LA Knight winning this as this entire storyline felt like it was skewed into his favor from the moment that Ted Dibiase showed up on NXT programming a few weeks ago. It's a darn shame too because the crowd was definitely behind Grimes by the time it was over. Grimes took two scary looking bumps, with one landing right onto his neck from a neckbreaker by Knight dropped right onto the ladder. I really hope he's alright after all of that.

Overall, I didn't think this was a bad match. It's just another train wreck of a ladder match. There's not too much you can do in these matches nowadays that you haven't seen in countless other ladder matches by now. That's not saying that Grimes and Knight didn't try to keep this one entertaining from bell to bell.

On the June 15, 2021 episode of NXT, LA Knight held a celebration of sorts to recognize his formal crowning as the new Million Dollar Champion with Ted Dibiase personally handing him the title. I thought this came off hella weird as they were retreading the same territory from two nights ago when Ted handed him the title after Knight won the ladder match. It seemed to be setting Ted up to be Knight's manager, but with the knowledge of knowing how good of a talker Knight is, it was puzzling to see that Ted Dibiase Sr., who could barely stand up as is, was going to be going on the role as Knight's mouthpiece when he doesn't even need it. Then they did the swerve here in the video above and it just worked masterfully for the heel heat. Now Grimes can complete his babyface transition as he chases Knight for the title to get it back for Dibiase.

Singles match for the NXT Women's Championship

Raquel González (c) (with Dakota Kai) defeated Ember Moon by pinfall

There wasn't a moment throughout this entire match where I was convinced that Ember Moon was going to beat Raquel for that title. Even after she hit the Eclipse, I was looking for Kai to make the save or cause a distraction. Shotzi definitely made a speedy recovery for whatever she was sidelined with to make the assist to Ember at ringside.

I have to admit that I'm so tired of seeing Ember and Shotzi on this show. Call them both up to the main roster as I think they have worn out their welcome in terms of overexposure on this show. Ember Moon hasn't done anything for me at all during this second run on NXT. It's nothing against her in-ring ability at all. It's just that she isn't clicking with me the same way she did with that fire of her initial run. Shotzi's got a lot of fire and energy but that girl scares me too much in her matches. One of the days she's going to do the wrong dive and end up hurting herself and whoever she's working with from her reckless abandon. You would think that they would be trying to hammer that out of her down at the Performance Center. She just needs to calm down a little and work safer if she wants to have a long in-ring career.

The NXT (6/15/21) episode showed no signs of this Shotzi and Ember feud with Dakota and Raquel coming to an end as they were having a pull apart backstage. If NXT wants to feed Shotzi to Raquel too as another victim to bite the dust, then I'm all for it. It's just that in time they are going to have to build up another worthwhile contender for that title. I doubt Raquel is going to stay in NXT as long as Rhea Ripley did before getting called up to the main roster. Eventually, they are going to want to pull the split between Raquel and Dakota, but I'm sure we're a ways off from that turn.

Fatal 5-Way match for the NXT Championship

Karrion Kross (c) (with Scarlett) defeated Kyle O'Reilly, Adam Cole, Johnny Gargano, and Pete Dunne by technical submission

My thoughts on this match are going to be short and sweet. With five guys in this match at once, I knew it was going to be chaotic, but there were a lot of fun and creative moments to be had here. I was able to get lost in the fight for a lot of this match, despite being annoyed that guys were obviously rolling out of the ring and waiting on their next big spot. That's something that annoys the hell out of me on AEW's programming from week to week, so I'm definitely not going to give NXT a free pass on it. As much as I'm happy that Karrion Kross is getting the run with the title that he should have gotten the first go around before he got hurt, I have to admit that I am already over him as champion this role. It's not that he's a bad champion; it's the fact that this match was a lot of fun when he wasn't involved. I don't want to sell him short here either as he had a few devastating moments of offense here, especially making sure that Johnny Failure came to play tonight.

The match came to its conclusion where it looked like that Kyle O'Reilly had victory within his grasp for what feels like the millionth time as he had Adam Cole seconds away from submitting, only to pass out in Kross' sleeper hold instead. At that point, I was left feeling like they are trolling my boy Kyle. He's had the title win slip through his fingers more than Gargano in his babyface title opportunities. They keep this up and people are going to stop caring. I'm a big fan of KOR regardless but even I'm getting sick of him coming up short at this NXT title opportunities time and time again.

I have to wonder what is left for Kross to do after this? He's beaten just about every quality challenger to his title here in this single match. If he's not losing the title in a multi-man match like this where he doesn't have to be the one who gets pinned to lose the title, then who is going to challenge and beat him for it?

Afterthoughts:

In Your House (2021) ended with a bizarre cliffhanger with William Regal teasing that it's time for "change" in NXT and he's unfit to keep reeling in the utter chaos on the brand as of late. This got a lot of people talking and speculating on social media, myself included, and a lot of people came to same conclusion - Samoa Joe.

Samoa Joe was part of the multiple sets of random firings that WWE has been unleashing on their roster at random over the last few months under the guise of "budget cuts" (when past fiscal year has been cited as their most profitable), but the rumor mill has been firing at all cylinders with talk that he could be returning to the company. Like I've said several times on social media the last few days, Joe's a better man than me. If I were in his shoes, I would have told Triple H, Stephanie, AND Vince to kiss the fattest part of my ass before I signed another one of those contracts. I'm sure the thought of both Daniel Bryan AND Samoa Joe being free agents scared the fuck out Triple H, especially with how Tony Khan is willing to open up the wallet and spend billions of his dad's money on making his e-federation...err wrestling company a reality with AEW. That's enough incitive for anyone to get Joe back under one of those WWE contracts with the ball and chain included.

The June 15, 2021 episode of NXT put those rumors to rest as it was a proven fact that Samoa Joe had indeed returned to the company after the news being broken first by the folks at Pro Wrestling Insider over the weekend. Joe interrupted Regal's teary-eyed goodbye after Karrion Kross (accompanied by Scarlett) urged him to step down. Joe refused to take Regal's place, but instead accepted the job as his personal "enforcer", who could not get physical with NXT talents unless he was physically provoked - i.e. Stone Cold's "commissioner" gimmick from the early 2000s. It didn't take long into this show for someone to provoke him and Cole shoved him out of the way to get his hands on KOR in a backstage brawl, only to get choked out for his trouble. NXT made a LOT of great teases of matches with the returning Joe - first with Kross, then Cole backstage, and later with Pete Dunne before this episode came to a close. I have to wonder how long can they keep in this role before people demand to see him in the ring again. Is Joe really that banged up from the wear and tear on his body that he can't contribute to this brand in a final in-ring role, similar to Finn Balor?

Unlike most people I wasn't the Debbie Downer of this NXT TakeOver show. Sure, the lack of any excitement from the few fans that they did squeeze into the CWC hurt the show a bit, but I have been saying for months now that NXT has gotten stale and stagnant as a brand for quite some time now. You can't blame all of that on COVID either. The move to the USA Network and adding an additional hour has made the weekly shows a chore to watch, much like the bulk of WWE programming. The bulk of this show was fine, but I can't say that I was neither over the moon nor downright disgusted with this show. I've seen FAR worse wrestling PPVs than this over the past year and this wasn't one of them. My biggest knock against it was that if you missed this show, you really didn't miss much at all. The biggest takeaways from this show was the fallout two days later on NXT's weekly programming. While it's a small matter right now (concerning Samoa Joe's return), it could potentially blossom into a bigger storyline depending how NXT chooses to progress this further.