I’m particularly interested in revisiting this one because NXT was undergoing a rather substantial change in personnel. Giulia and Stephanie Vaquer were relatively new arrivals, Oba Femi was steadily becoming one of the most imposing wrestlers in the company, and several other performers were attempting to establish themselves somewhere within WWE’s enormous developmental machinery. There was a fair amount of talent on the card, some of whom would find their way to the main roster in 2026 and some of whom were released in 2025 when WWE quickly turned into WWEndeavor.

Oba Femi versus Tony D’Angelo

Tables, Ladders, and Scares — NXT North American Championship

Winner: Tony D’Angelo retains

This match pissed me off in 2024. I’m still annoyed by the finish, although I’m starting to suspect that I allowed my irritation to get in the way of appreciating what was actually a pretty enjoyable heavyweight brawl.

Tony D’Angelo had recently accomplished something that most of NXT’s roster couldn’t: he defeated Oba Femi for the North American Championship. This was a rather substantial achievement because Oba had been presented as an almost insurmountable physical problem, and Tony had spent much of their rivalry trying to convince himself that he could actually beat the Ruler. I liked that story considerably. There’s nothing more wholesome for children than seeing a sadistic and controlling mob boss turn face by realizing that the only way to beat an even more tyrannical and monstrous overlord was to turn his minions into friends and harness the power of friendship to beat said monster and become North American Champion. All while still maintaining his illicit ties to organized crime. The kind of zany good shit I love about wrestling.

Oba responded by systematically attacking the D’Angelo Family. He wanted Tony alone at Halloween Havoc, presumably because the mob boss becomes considerably easier to murder once you’ve disposed of everyone who might intervene on his behalf. It was a perfectly sensible plan, and I enjoyed the increasingly unpleasant methods Oba employed to carry it out. Shame that they couldn’t have cinema’d it more by having Oba do some sort of Five Families Godfather I vignette. This arc was two years away from Danhausen and Miz, let’s not be snooty.

The match begins with Tony interrupting the introductions and immediately attacking his challenger. That’s great, Tony knows how dangerous Oba is, the most prudent thing is to just start the match hot before Oba can settle in.

This feud with Tony D is a good example of how you can build your matches to make Oba look affected without diminishing his cartoonish superhuman appeal.

Here, Oba never really looks less than monstrous. It’s more that Tony D has to be the one to swing the axe first against him—metaphorically, of course, it’s a weapons match. Hence the aggressive early-match pace. If you run a slower match against Oba, you risk exposing his inability to work a match between sequences. He’s not necessarily a great seller, so longer, slower bouts make his greenish, mechanical nature more apparent. Plus, the match becomes monotonous because it’s him looking hurt, then getting angry, then looking hurt again. He’s a fucking squash monster. It’s either you book him in a fast match where he controls the bulk of it, or you book a slightly longer but more violent match where the babyface or heel has to resort to more desperate offense just to keep Oba down.

Once Oba gets control, he begins throwing Tony around with the kind of casual cruelty that makes him such an appealing monster. He chokeslams the champion onto a chair, repeatedly drives him into a ladder, and eventually sends him crashing through a table with a running uppercut. I particularly like the way Oba uses his strength to make relatively ordinary maneuvers look horrible. He’s built like a McFarlane action figure, so even the little things, like a flying shoulder tackle or a slam, have twice the visual impact. Pair him with a competent seller like Tony D and you have an entertaining wrestling match. It’s also beyond my ability to describe the sight of Oba jumping up to avoid a charging Tony D. He seems so large that it makes you forget he can be pretty agile.

Now, I mentioned earlier that I’m iffy about Oba working longer and slower matches, and here’s why: Oba’s control segments are just okay, but as he begins to enter his main-event phase, he’s going to need more than just ooh-la-la offensive segments to make him watchable for lengthier stretches. Unless, again, you book him like a Goldberg. I think he could benefit from using some sort of power-based hold or lock to keep his opponent down. No reason why a man his size and athletic ability can’t have a nice little head vice grip like Blackjack Mulligan or even some body scissors in his repertoire. It’s a developmental brand, after all. They should have developed him to have a more robust control game that goes beyond the “oh shit, the big guy is stomping and punching the smaller guy on the ground” bit.

Tony eventually responds with some reasonably convincing offense of his own. He gets a few bombs in against Oba, and later frees himself after Oba zip-ties him to the ropes. That last sequence leads to one of the more spectacular moments of the evening, with Tony spearing Oba from the apron through a ladder bridged outside the ring. I appreciate that Tony has to work for these openings. Oba is generally the stronger man, and Tony’s attempts to fight back depend on catching Oba at moments when he’s committed himself to something else. The ladder spot is particularly effective because Oba has become distracted by the D’Angelo Family, giving Tony enough time to escape his restraints and attack.

Also, that whole part where Oba makes the whole Family look like the Apple Dumpling Gang and then threatens to hurt a woman is the sort of beautiful and promising heel work that gets ruined by WWE’s philosophy that if a wrestler is over and gets pops, we must run him as a face. Like, really, there is so much missed depth in running Oba as an inhuman monster heel obsessed only with gold. The fuck do we care if eight-year-olds dance to his entrance? People rocked out to Triple H’s entrance, and he flat out had a racist angle with Booker T.

Oba survives all that interference anyway and hits a lariat followed by his Pop-Up Powerbomb for a near fall. This should be a foreshadowing of what to expect from an Oba match in 2027, by the way. Tony has speared him through a ladder, and yet Oba is back on his feet launching offense. Cheers to whichever 2027 underdog fan favorite has to face a gold-belted Oba Femi.

Unfortunately, the next interference is still where I have my reservations. The D’Angelo Family eventually overwhelms Oba with a crowbar attack and a chair-assisted Shatter Machine, allowing Tony to finish him with a Spinebuster through a table. I originally argued that this completely undermined Tony’s character development because he’d already demonstrated that he could beat Oba without relying on his associates. I’m less certain about that conclusion today. Tony is, after all, a mob boss. Boss entails minions, and even as a face, it would go against his entire personality if he didn’t rely on them, even if in a more benevolent way. The Family’s return also demonstrates that Oba’s attempts to isolate him haven’t been entirely successful. As faces, one can argue that the Family interfering and sacrificing themselves for Tony willingly, instead of out of fear, gives them more character development since they now have various motivations, whether altruistic or not, for doing so.

But I still think something deeper is lost in the finish. Tony’s first victory suggested that he’d overcome the psychological barrier that had prevented him from competing confidently against Oba. Here, he requires substantial assistance to defeat that same opponent. You can argue that this protects Oba, and it certainly does, but I wonder whether the protection comes at the expense of the champion’s earlier accomplishment and internal realization of greatness. Like, the dude just rediscovered his balls. Way to castrate him.

Plus, it’s a weapons match! You’re telling me there isn’t something there that Tony can use to put Oba down with? Or maybe use some weapon to hit Oba’s legs and weaken his base, or choke him with a chain so that he faints instead of tapping out? Like, keep the spot with Rizzo, which leads to Oba getting speared, because it logically explains how Tony gets free of his restraints, but screw the rest of the crew getting their revenge.

The actual wrestling is considerably better than my original review suggested, though. The men make a convincing effort to hurt one another, with Oba taking enough bumps to make me believe that he’s less than superhuman at times, and there are decent moments of genuine resistance to keep the match from becoming a collection of cooperative plunder spots.

I still dislike the ending. I get it, it’s tied to the story, hence the Family needs to play a part in it as well. But come on, tell me it wouldn’t have been a better match if Tony won clean but battered, and the bandaged D’Angelo Family hobbled out and joined him in the ring for a hug. Come on!

★★★.50 — 3.50 — Marquee Main Event

Giulia and Stephanie Vaquer versus Roxanne Perez and Cora Jade

Winners: Giulia and Stephanie Vaquer

There’s a considerable amount of talent in this match, and I think I spent too much of my original review discussing Cora Jade’s conditioning. She had only recently returned from a lengthy injury absence, and I noticed several occasions when she looked gassed or groggy and spent extended periods outside the ring. I assumed the other women were accommodating her physical limitations.

That may well have been the case, and it’s only more apparent upon my second viewing, which is why I’m not as high on this match as most reviewers seemed to be back in 2024.

The match itself is a useful introduction to Stephanie Vaquer, whose wrestling I found particularly appealing. Her opening exchanges with Cora and Roxanne give us some interesting grappling, and I enjoy how she transitions between holds without appearing to soften up on her yanking and wrenching. I rather like wrestlers in this day and age who can work holds as part of their offensive identity, going beyond the usual obligatory need to demonstrate technical ability to the audience. Like, Vaquer can comfortably do a lot of business on the mat with counters and reversals. So thank you, Booker T, for using your decades of wrestling experience and wisdom to get Vaquer over using sexual innuendos and gooner speak. Bravo. The WWE fanbase now thinks of her as the wrestler with the ass-attack.

Giulia has a different sort of appeal. She’s more aggressive; she lunges and lances with her strikes, as opposed to Vaquer, who tries to envelop and encircle. So Giulia provides the more dynamic and explosive side of the team’s offense. She hits Roxanne with kicks, a top-rope dropkick, and very close-looking forearms.

Roxanne deserves considerable credit for holding the match together. It’s quite the bold thing to have your gimmick revolve around your brilliance, but she holds her own here against both Vaquer and Giulia, and she does so by adapting to their styles and selling her bumps competently by getting as close to contact as possible. There’s a bit where Vaquer hits her with a Dragon Screw, and Roxanne really flips and flops, making it look like she crashed on her head. It’s a nice sell that gives more weight to Vaquer, whose offense has been more measured and subtle compared to Giulia’s trigger-happy striking.

It’s also obvious that Roxanne carries Cora considerably in this match because there’s one sequence where she and Giulia are down and need to make the hot tags for their teams, but Cora never gets back to her corner after taking a fall to ringside. For a split second, you can see the awkwardness when Vaquer enters for Giulia but Cora isn’t there to feed into Vaquer’s hot-tag offense. So Roxanne, who was previously crawling for a nonexistent tag because she’d taken a beating, suddenly has to get back up earlier and take most of Vaquer’s offense because Cora comes back in late. Ideally, what should have happened is Cora getting tagged in to meet Vaquer halfway and feed into her offense, transitioning to Vaquer controlling the tempo again.

Cora is probably the least impressive of the four, but I wouldn’t say she contributes nothing. It’s just that her timing and movement are such wet garbage that they kill the tightness and momentum of the match whenever she sticks her hands in to work. First off, when you watch the match, you can feel it in your gut that whenever she comes in untagged to break a pin or a hold, it could have been faster and more deliberate. It’s obvious that she’s second-guessing her own internal timing, and in doing so, she makes it look less like she’s a teammate trying to prevent her partner from being pinned and more like she’s a performer trying to get the measure of her entry right.

Oh! Here’s another Cora Jade spot in this match that kills it for me. I hate how she had Giulia in that terrible chokehold/chinlock, or whatever it was she was trying to achieve. When you look at it, you can clearly see that her elbow is directly under Giulia’s chin, not pushing up against it or pushing back on her throat, just sitting under Giulia’s chin. It’s lazy and looks very loose and decorative. Then, when the camera angle circles around to their side, you can fucking see that she’s just clasping her hands together around Giulia’s head in a very loose triangle, but she’s not really trying to pull her weight back against Giulia’s neck or tighten the noose and make it hard for Giulia to breathe.

Later on, Roxanne catches Vaquer on the ropes with a Hurricanrana, creating an opportunity for Cora to follow with a Swanton Bomb. Cora takes her sweet time getting on top of the ropes, and you can visibly see that she’s trying to negotiate her balance. I look at that and just feel bad for her. Like, she was clearly struggling with ring rust and what appeared to be poor conditioning after being rushed back into the main-event scene.

Now, I’m okay with botches. Don’t get me wrong. I believe that botches help make the fight seem more real, but these aren’t botches. She’s not really flubbing or missing anything. She’s doing everything her character is supposed to do, but it’s done so sloppily that you can see through the character and straight at the worker. Great wrestlers botch. It happens in the heat of the moment, and great wrestlers adjust to botches with good selling or by just shrugging them off. I don’t know if you can adjust or sell poor timing and sloppy execution. Like, going back to the example of her chinlock against Giulia, Giulia can sell that thing only so much, but you can’t sell physical restraint and struggle that aren’t there to begin with.

All these miscues on Cora’s end negatively impact the heels’ ability to generate heat and frustrate the faces. When her work is shoddy, the sequences involving her feel flat, which is bad news because she’s generally supposed to disrupt the faces’ momentum. She’s the cheat, the pin breaker, the opportunist, while Roxanne is the skilled equal of the faces. Cora is meant to bring that underhanded and slimy element to the match. Her sloppy execution prevents that from coming through, contributing to the match’s one-sided feel.

The closing exchange is very straightforward. Giulia and Vaquer begin combining their offense, with Giulia eventually hitting a Butterfly Superplex on Roxanne before Vaquer follows with the Sky Twister Press for the victory. It’s good tag wrestling. It could have been better if the heels had more decisive control over parts of the match. I never felt that the heels were able to build enough heat to justify a good comeback by Vaquer and Giulia. In fact, Cora and Roxanne looked like they were playing catch-up for the most part.

Zaria appears afterward, and it’s a dramatic and fitting way to announce that there is a new player in the main-event scene.

★★★ — 3.00 — Complete Pro Wrestling

Andre Chase versus Ridge Holland

Ambulance Match

Winner: Ridge Holland

It’s a gimmick match. One wrestler has to incapacitate the other sufficiently to put him inside the ambulance and shut the doors. The concept is perfectly serviceable, and there have been enjoyable examples over the years. The feud also provides a reasonable emotional justification for this stipulation. Ridge Holland had already turned against Chase University and subjected Andre Chase to a series of miserable beatings. It’s one of those feuds where the heel is trying to tear down everything the face has built, and the face must do everything in his power to keep the heel from succeeding. The Ambulance match is a good choice because it doesn’t restrict or confine the movement of the wrestlers to a fixed area, like a steel cage stipulation, and it challenges the fighters to find inventive ways to get their opponents inside the ambulance.

The matchup here is very straightforward: Ridge is the bigger wrestler who relies on power, while Chase has to rely on his wits to make smart decisions and create openings. For the most part, Chase achieves this by using weapons and the environment to his advantage, like jumping from elevated areas to pounce on Ridge. Ridge, for the most part, goes straight to suplexing Chase around whenever they lock up, or walloping him with those big arms.

My only real issue with this match, which I kind of want to nitpick, is the beginning stretch. It’s a particularly rancorous personal feud, so I didn’t like that both men tried to end the match early by going to the ambulance. The story beats establish that they hate each other, so I would have preferred more of that animosity to shine through in the opening parts, with them really trying to destroy each other before reason kicks back in and winning the match takes priority over scorching the earth. I suspect that, for exposition purposes, they dueled in front of the ambulance early on just to help TV viewers understand how the stipulation looks in practice and to get a good look at the ambulance.

The stretches when they battle their way back to the ring, up until they duel with the kendo sticks, are more faithful to the spirit of this match in terms of the pace of the violence. At this point, they’re not focused on the ambulance part anymore, and the deeper emotions of betrayal and malice have taken hold. So now both men are just out to settle their grievances with each other, with the cathartic effect of having the audience cheer on Andre as he tries to pummel the larger Holland.

Ridge Holland looks like one of those muscle-bound Euro goons in a Jason Statham movie, while Andre Chase is what would happen if Tom Green decided to be a celebrity wrestler. I just had to blurt that out here.

The stretcher material is less convincing. It’s another ooh-la-la spot that’s just empty wrestling calories. They don’t do much with it aside from using it as a battering ram or actually trying to wheel their opponent to the ambulance on it. That’s kind of lame, given what a colorful relationship wrestling has with medical stretchers. It also deflates the violence of the match when you see Ridge Holland, with all his force and brutality, diligently and gently cart Andre to the finish spot.

Chase summons enough fight to launch a counterattack against Ridge. He eventually climbs onto the ambulance and launches himself onto Holland. A very predictable spot, but nevertheless still entertaining, and it gets the job done. He manages to get Ridge inside the vehicle but cannot shut the doors. Holland escapes after clawing at Chase’s eyes. Ridge uses the ambulance itself against Chase and finishes the job with the Redeemer DDT on the stage.

It’s a good, decently violent match that builds Ridge up as an unlikable and vicious heel. What I like about this match is that it makes a clear distinction between the raw power of Ridge and Chase’s intellect, and how their offense and counters try to capture that contrast of a blunt instrument going up against a more fragile but resourceful kind of wrestler.

It’s a fun match with action, but I feel that the action never quite does justice to the animosity between the two men. There were stretches where I felt Andre wanted this more because you could feel him trying to will that emotional payoff to life. He could sense the crowd behind him and was dialing it up as the outmatched but determined babyface. I wish I’d gotten more torture and control from Ridge. With everything he’s done to Andre, his offense doesn’t quite match the antagonistic fervor of his character. That said, it was still fun.

★★★ — 3.00 — Complete Pro Wrestling

Kelani Jordan versus Fatal Influence

Gauntlet Match — NXT Women’s North American Championship

Winner: Fallon Henley

The match stipulation places a heavy burden on Kelani: she has to survive three consecutive opponents, while each member of the group only has to beat her once in order to win. It’s a good match format for building emotional investment in the babyface because each new opponent raises the stakes and further cements Kelani as an embattled underdog. It also makes late-match comebacks feel more impactful and exciting.

Jazmyn Nyx enters first, and the two women have a relatively brief exchange. Nyx manages a little offense, but this first match is technically Kelani’s babyface shine segment, where she establishes momentum and gets the audience hooked in. Kelani eventually puts Nyx away with an Angle Slam followed by a 450 Splash.

It’s a quick victory, and Jacy Jayne is next. I just want to segue a bit and say what a difference a few years make for a wrestler. Jacy Jayne is just fodder here, yet by the time she makes it to the main roster, she is the undeniable fulcrum and worker of Fatal Influence. She’s really the epitome of a vet who just honed her craft and did her time.

Even in 2024, you can see that Jacy moves with more confidence than her peers. She’s comfortable in her character, and as a result, she can go about working the match without missing out on the little details, such as getting heat with the crowd or slowing the match down without looking like she’s slowing it down. She catches Kelani attempting a moonsault and traps her in the Tree of Woe, allowing for a nice bit of opportunism here. I like the idea that Kelani’s athletic offense requires her to commit to positions from which she cannot immediately recover, and that the more she relies on these maneuvers, the more she exhausts herself and makes it easier for the final member to deal with her.

Kelani eventually catches Jacy with a pinning combination and eliminates her as well. Jayne sucker-punches her afterward. It’s a good way to protect Jacy, and that whole sequence distinguishes her from Nyx, who ate the pin clean. It also gives Fallon Henley a useful advantage entering the gauntlet and raises the stakes for Kelani.

The finishing sequence reintroduces Nyx and Jacy Jayne to complicate things for Kelani. Jazmyn Nyx distracts the referee and buys enough time for Fallon to kick out, while Jacy likewise buys time and prevents Kelani from hitting her Splash immediately. When Kelani eventually attempts another 450 Splash, Fallon gets her knees up and capitalizes on the opening with a running knee to get the win and become champion.

Fallon survives the champion’s offense and takes advantage of the punishment created by the preceding falls. The assistance from her teammates is also appropriate for a traditional heel faction doing typical heel things. It protects Kelani even in defeat because one can argue that her loss was a result of everything slowly stacking up against her.

What interests me more is how little time the match has to explore that premise. The entire gauntlet runs for about fourteen minutes, meaning Kelani defeats two opponents and loses to the third in roughly the time ordinarily allotted to a single championship match. The result is entertaining enough, but I would have liked to see more convincing signs of fatigue from Kelani as each new opponent enters. As it stands, the interference and Jacy’s post-elimination attack do more to explain her eventual defeat than the accumulated exhaustion from wrestling three consecutive opponents.

On paper, this match is conceptually great. Exhaust the babyface champion to build sympathy, then double that sympathy by having interference, and finally turn the tables on the audience by not having the woefully bullied underdog retain. It’s sound booking that requires a slightly longer match to explore the emotions Kelani feels as she struggles against overwhelming odds.

Zaria arrives, interrupts Fatal Influence’s celebration, and beats them all up. It’s a cheap consolation prize for the audience because Fatal Influence gets their comeuppance.

All in all, a decent match with respectable internal logic.

★★★ — 3.00 — Complete Pro Wrestling

Trick Williams versus Ethan Page

Devil’s Playground Match — NXT Championship

Winner: Trick Williams retains

Ethan Page is a supremely obnoxious heel, and I think his greatest strength is that he can make relatively ordinary wrestling offense feel mean-spirited through his behavior. He has a habit of looking genuinely delighted whenever something unfortunate happens to his opponent, and there’s a certain shitbag smugness to how he carries himself that makes the audience rather eager to see him receive a beating.

Trick Williams provides that satisfaction early. Page attacks him before the match properly gets going, but Trick responds with chair shots to Page’s back. We get a wonderful bit where Trick stuffs a pumpkin over Page’s head and starts punching it. It’s wacky, but it’s the kind of humbling comedy that’s effective because it embarrasses the heel and keeps the mood of the match light. Remember that the two other no-DQ men’s matches had serious grudge-feud overtones. It would feel repetitive if they wrestled with the same grimness.

They eventually begin fighting through the crowd and back toward ringside, taking a few bumps in front of the audience to really sell the viewers on how hard-hitting and authentic their violence is. The match soon becomes increasingly dependent on plunder. Page drops Trick onto a chair with a Sidewalk Slam. That’s a good bump in my book, and Page then starts controlling the match with repeated attacks to keep Trick bogged down. There’s some good heel work here because Page takes his time whenever he has Trick sufficiently weakened, and he seems perfectly content to prolong the beating. He can afford to be rather leisurely about it because the champion is the one struggling to get back into the fight.

There’s a bizarre sequence that involves Trick hitting the Trick Shot and attempting a pin, only for the referee to stop counting when Page puts his foot on the ropes. This is supposed to be a Falls Count Anywhere match, so the rope break shouldn’t matter. The commentators acknowledge the mistake as well. It’s a puzzling sequence for me. I don’t know if it’s supposed to add to the story in the ring or if it’s just a case of everyone being in the moment and forgetting stuff. Very odd and jarring.

Page introduces a bag of nuts and bolts, and while they’re not the usual thumbtacks or broken glass, they convey images of painful consequences for whoever falls on them well enough. Unfortunately for Page, Trick reverses him into the pile with a Neckbreaker. Later on, Page puts Trick through the announce table with an Ego’s Edge from the steel steps.

Trick begins bleeding from the mouth, prompting officials to examine him while Page attempts to continue the assault. It’s a hammy plot device that we see both AEW and WWE use and abuse, the whole medical team coming out to check on the wrestler while fake concern abounds. It burns some time off the clock and gets the crowd firmly behind Trick, who is now supposedly “fighting through debilitating pain.” If you ask me, it’s a poor choice of that trope in a match where both wrestlers come in expecting to get seriously hurt.

I can understand what they’re trying to accomplish, though. They are trying to show that even in a hardcore match, we should still care about Trick’s well-being and that these men have a mortal limit. It’s also WWE’s way of curbing audience expectations that we’re going to see a grander scale of violence after this. True enough, the finish isn’t far behind.

The subsequent exchanges with the steel steps are probably my favorite part of the finish because there’s enough back-and-forth drama with Trick in peril of being crushed. Page’s veteran experience comes into play here because of the way he grips those steel steps and lifts them. He does it with enough poise and ease that they really look like a weapon in his hands. His intention to hurt Trick with those steps becomes more apparent because of how deftly he wields them.

Page slams Trick onto the steps and later attempts to crush him with another section, only for the champion to escape. Trick eventually manages to use the steps himself, although Page interrupts him with a low blow. Trick returns the favor with his own low blow. Page sells that with some unintentional hilarity; his “I’m hurt” face looks like a Nickelodeon villain’s facial expression. Granted, there is something juvenile about Page’s appearance despite being in his thirties.

Trick follows through by hitting Page with the steps and finishes him off with the Trick Shot. I like the finish because Trick has finally managed to turn Page’s own weapon against him. Page spends the closing stretch threatening to crush the champion with the steps, only for Trick to have the last laugh with them.

After retaining the title, Trick is attacked by Ridge Holland, with Page joining in on the beating. He requires some saving from Bubba Ray Dudley, who has been present throughout the evening and had already exchanged heated words with Holland in earlier segments.

What can I say about this match? It’s a very sufficient match. The action is tight because they go through it deliberately. When I watch the sequences, they don’t feel dragged out or rushed. Everything they wanted to tell or convey in each segment, they were able to do so. Page gets his opportunities to control the match, and those stretches last long enough for Trick’s comebacks to come in hard. The way Page paces himself is great because you can feel his intent all the time.

That’s one aspect missing from the women’s tag match. The heels never really got to control that match, whereas here you can feel Page’s presence whenever the momentum shifts to him. My gripe with the Oba match is that the finish felt robbed of its potential because they had to shoehorn the rest of the Family into it. The finish here had the discipline to see Trick win definitively and without outside assistance. Page also doesn’t get any sort of reinforcement here.

I also think the violence is more convincing than what we saw in Chase–Holland. There’s an escalation from the early chair work and pumpkin-head joke to the increasingly nasty portions with the announce table and steel steps. I can’t think of one sequence here where I felt they were mailing in the violence and action.

This match also has more personality than the gauntlet match with Kelani and Fatal Influence. I get what they were trying to do there as far as drumming up sympathy for Kelani, but Page’s experience, coupled with Trick’s natural charisma, makes this the strongest babyface comeback of the night. You get the feeling that Page is deliberately making Trick’s life difficult every time the champion attempts to recover, and the audience has plenty of reasons to want Trick to finally put him away. It’s the most satisfying bit of comeuppance on the card, and I think that counts for quite a lot when you’re closing a wrestling show. Outside of the referee brouhaha and that hokey medical-team spot, this was a great match.

★★★½ — 3.50 — Marquee Main Event

Event Verdict: A Fun Watch

This is a fun card with a premise that’s better on paper than in execution. The execution is okay, but half the wrestlers involved are still trying to find their footing in terms of skill.

I noticed that WWE’s big corporate nature really puts a ceiling on its house style when it comes to stipulation matches. They can’t show blood as much and they can’t do graphic acts of violence, such as crisp shots to the head or any spot that involves the illusion of dropping an opponent on their head. That’s probably why most of the violent spots involve the back or torso: body slams onto aprons or ladders, and chair shots to the back. Shame. I’m not preaching for more anxiety-inducing violence, but when you have three weapons-based matches, back-bumping spots get pretty tiring, and each one diminishes the entertainment value of the next.

WWE is so scared of having another CTE scandal that they’ve really enforced a less-stiff approach to stipulation matches on their current generation of wrestlers. The Ambulance match is the one that suffers the most from these handcuffs. There are, like, five violent spots I can think of that they could have done with the ambulance itself. No one wants to tease broken glass anymore, in whatever form, so we miss out on someone getting their head bashed against the car window.

And fine, call me a loony, but blood gushing helps sell the drama. The Oba and Tony D match needed some blood, and so did the Page and Trick fight.

The women’s matches were fun. But you can clearly tell that some workers are greener than others, and the ones with experience did their best to hide the clunkier workers. At least NXT taught everyone to sell and bump properly. I don’t think I have any complaints in those areas.

The beauty of WWE is that they can take an average PPV and make it look like a million dollars with their production value. The recaps and video packages are polished enough that, whether you’re a paying fan or a viewer, you can’t say you don’t get your money’s worth as far as presentation is concerned.

This is a fun watch, and I’d recommend it to anyone who wanted to see what WWE felt like prior to going full TKO and their Netflix-ESPN bullshit era. Yes, WWE in 2024 wasn’t perfect, but you could still feel the earnestness of the product in trying to capture the magic of pro wrestling. Sometimes the attempt is its own reward.