Welcome to another edition of FANTASY BOOKING where we discuss what we would do if we were given the power to control what happens when it comes to WWE Creative and the planning of events.
WWE has put up the idea of figuring out the Ultimate NXT TakeOver event with Matt Camp, Ryan Pappolla, Sam Roberts and Busted Open Radio's Gabrielle LaSpisa. At the start of that live stream, I wrote down some of my ideas and listened to their pitches as well to formulate my own personal card, which has some similarities and some major differences.
The idea is to book a card with what you would do if you had the influence over WWE Creative to be able to control how the next few months play out and what to build toward for the lineup of this pay-per-view. I invite you to do the same and tell us what you would do if you were in charge of creative control picking the matches scheduled for the biggest event of the year!
The Rules:
1) They had to have competed in NXT. They can't be people who are only on the main roster or never in the company.
2) Six matches total. You can't just make this a two-night 10-match event.
3) Ignore the fact that they weren't in the company at the same time. You can cross-pollinate.
FANTASY BOOKING ULTIMATE NXT TAKEOVER CARD MATCH MAKER
Ladder Match for the NXT North American Championship: Adam Cole (c) vs. Finn Balor vs. Ricochet vs. Sami Zayn vs. Tommaso Ciampa vs. Shinsuke Nakamura *
* Just to cover my bases a bit, the final spot would go to either Shinsuke Nakamura, Pete Dunne, Aleister Black, Velveteen Dream or Roderick Strong (but I factored him in later).
You can make the argument Pete Dunne shouldn't be there because he's more of an NXT UK guy at times, but that's a weak argument in my book.
Aleister Black wouldn't take priority over Nakamura in my mind because Black wasn't the main event even when he was champion—then again, this isn't the main event.
Velveteen Dream is someone I can imagine most people saying no to because of what's going on behind the scenes. If I'm ignoring that, I'd love to put him in there. However, it's hard to ignore that.
Ultimately, I think I'd lean more toward Nakamura.
I wanted to have a big man in this to anchor it, but I moved them all elsewhere on the card.
Who wins? I'd probably give it to Balor or Ciampa, and we'd have a title change, as Cole would go in as champion.
NXT Women's Tag Team Championship Match: The Sky Pirates (Io Shirai and Kairi Sane) vs. Bayley and Sasha Banks (c)
Bayley and Sasha Banks are forever tied to each other based on their feud and their amazing matches that helped put the women's division on the map. Rather than just put them against each other in another match for the main women's title, I think they can work together as a team here to give us a match we should have seen for the tri-branded women's tag titles, but for whatever reason, WWE never bothered to go through with.
Bayley and Banks walk in as champions and retain.
Street Fight: Keith Lee vs. Samoa Joe
Just book it. Let the two go crazy on each other.
Keith Lee ultimately wins. Nuff said.
Triple Threat Match for the NXT Tag Team Championship: The Undisputed ERA (Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly with Roderick Strong) vs. American Alpha (Chad Gable and Jason Jordan) vs. The Revival (Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson)
Man, I really wanted to get War Raiders, The Authors of Pain and even potentially #DIY in here, but again, I can't just cram everything in.
TakeOver tag team matches tend to be amazing. There are countless examples of awesome matches with all sorts of varieties of teams. Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan is another duo I would have loved to include, for instance.
American Alpha are the babyfaces. The Undisputed ERA are the champions going in and the heels. The Revival are playing tweener.
With some help from Roderick Strong getting involved, The Undisputed ERA retain the titles.
Fatal 4-Way Match for the NXT Women's Championship: Asuka (c) vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Rhea Ripley vs. Shayna Baszler
Let's put arguably the four most dominant women of their respective eras (with a little bit of leeway there with Ripley, but she gets a pass because she was also the first NXT UK women's champion) against each other.
Baszler is definitively heel. I think Ripley plays babyface. Flair is more than likely heel. Asuka is certainly babyface.
At the end of the day, nobody is ready for Asuka and we keep her undefeated streak alive.
NXT Championship Match: Kevin Owens (c) vs. Johnny Gargano
WRAP UP THOUGHTS:
I wanted to get the Cruiserweight Championship on the card. I was trying to figure out a way to get a lot of other names in there, too, but I didn't want to crowd it too much. This was surprisingly both very easy and very difficult, as I had a lot of the same ideas that they pitched on the show, but it became hard to try to figure out the few names I couldn't get on my card.HOW WOULD YOU BOOK YOUR ULTIMATE NXT TAKEOVER CARD?
LEAVE YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!
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