AJ’s NXT Takeover In Your House 2021 Results & Review

As mentioned on DWI the other day, NXT In Your House kind of seems like it’s Too Many In The House. Maybe I’m being skeptical, maybe I’m trying to down play what I am thinking but we still have a show and I’m your go to.

A Ladder Match for the Millions that made it, a Five Man Championship bout, Winner Takes All for the North American Championship and Tag Team Championships and the women will show themselves tonight with a championship match up and even potientally lining up for the next contender for the Women’s Championship. So come on in, take your shoes off at the door and let’s get into it.

Results:

• Legado Del Fantasma vs MSK & Bronson Reed(c) in Winner Takes All – Bronson Reed wins via Tsunami – *** ½ – TITLE DEFENSE!!
• Mercedes Martinez vs Xia Li – Xia Li wins via Trouble In Paradise – ** ½
• Ladder Match: Cameron Grimes vs LA Knight for the Million Dollar Championship – *** ¾ – NEW CHAMPION!!!
• Ember Moon vs Raquel Gonzalez (w/ Dakota Kai)(c) for the NXT Women’s Championship – Raquel Gonzalez wins via One Handed Powerbomb – *** – TITLE DEFENSE!!
• Adam Cole vs Kyle O’Reilly vs Johnny Gargano vs Pete Dunne vs Karrion Kross (w/ Scarlet)(c) for the NXT Championship – Karrion Kross wins via Kross Jacket – **** ½ – TITLE DEFENSE!!

Review:

Legado Del Fantasma vs MSK & Bronson Reed-

Mendoza and Wes start the match up and all gears are going and very fast paced before some tags to each other’s tag partner and the speed keeps going until Santos and Bronson come in and things slow down. Santos playing coward, tags Raul Mendoza again and his offense has no effect on Bronson Reed. Some trickery comes out for Escobar and tries to pull a fast one on Reed, fails and tags Wilde to take the offense yet again. MSK getting some tags in to do some tandem offense and Reed comes to use his size to beat down Wilde.

Now that Nash Carter is the legal man in the match, Santos tries to sneak in and the flight comes in now as the tag champs take down Legado Del Phantasma including a big boy dive from Bronson and things look to be good for the champs. Santos slithers back in as the legal man and creates some distractions for the champion team and now the challengers are clicking on all cylinders. After a quick beat down of MSK, they somehow get the big boy in and he takes apart Wilde and Mendoza. As Reed tries to provoke Santos, he gets caught and snuck to lose momentum.

MSK saves the match after sneak attack and after taking apart each member out one by one for Legado Del Phantasma, the champs are the ones that stand tall in unison.

Mercedes Martinez vs Xia Li-

Both women grab each other’s head and takes it to the outside for a nasty fall until Martinez comes in and takes the power to Xia Li but Xia comes in to switch momentum and get more offense in and more ruthless too, using the ring posts and ropes to take apart Mercedes.

Xia showing more of her power side, even with a damaged wheel but focuses on it a little too much and loses the advantage she once had, even taking a Cliffhanger to get a near fall. With more of the help for the outside, Xia Li comes back and hits her version of the Trouble in Paradise.

(Aftermath: Xia directs Boa to get her a chair and tries to use it on Mercedes but it backfires and Martinez takes the chair to beat down Xia and Boa. Mei Ying stands up from her Shao Khan chair to choke and toss Mercedes away as they all leave Mercedes Martinez outside of the ring. All hail Outworld I guess. Earthrealm is screwed.)

Cameron Grimes vs LA Knight –

Both men going for the same position but LA Knight gets a small advantage until the hubris comes back and Grimes takes control for the time being. LA Knight gets taken outside and is the first to take a ladder into the ring and makes it a game changer to take Grimes down and sets the first ladder up to grab the briefcase with the championship inside but Grimes’ speed comes into play and spin around with who gets the ladder. After another ladder control spot, LA Knight gets the worst end of it and gets caught with the ladder to the gut.

LA Knight gets the advantage on the outside of the ring and keeps the smashing Grimes against barricades and finally grabs another ladder, this one though to prop up against the barricade and apron of the ring. As the hell goes on inside the ring, including a neckbreaker from LA Knight to the ladder onto Cameron Grimes, Knight gets another ladder and set it up as the jockey for the same position again. LA Knight’s hubris gets back to bite him as he tell Cameron Grimes “Let’s go to the moon” and eats a ladder tied up into the corner and the others around.

Cameron says he wants the Golden Ladder to climb up and grab the Million Dollar Championship but too much time is taken and LA Knight takes the ladder out from under Grimes. LA Knight making chase and attacks Cameron Grimes with more ladders and took a lesson in the Kevin Owens Erector Set Class and puts a ladder outside and wedges another through to set a future spot. More and more of the carnage happens and Cameron Grimes climbs up the support beams to take LA Knight down and gets the Golden Ladder again to climb. LA Knight tries to stop the party one more time and stop him but Grimes climbs once more TO THE MOON!!!!

…but LA knight comes back one more time, tosses Grimes off the ladder and into his construction work and L…A… Knight is worth a Mill…ion… Bucks.

Ember Moon vs Raquel Gonzalez-

Ember goes fast and hits fast to get first blood on Raquel but, the champion comes back (with a little help from Dakota’s distractions) and takes total control and Ember unable to find a way to get an advantage. It took Raquel getting cocky in her own right to lose any form of momentum and after two superkicks, numerous strikes and a Yoshitonic to get things in her control again. As Raquel gets more punihsment done, the only way she gets any advantage is Dakota making her presence felt in the match for the momentum change.

Ember Moon hits a modified Eclipse without the ropes to create seperation and uses her own offense to get the advantage and got the Eclipse off officially… but Dakota gets Raquel’s foot on the ropes to break the pinfall and Shotzi runs out because she’s seen enough and now it’s one on one again. Ember now getting more and more impact in her moves, still to no avail and goes for another Eclipse, gets caught though and gets Snake Eyes and loses to the One Handed Powerbomb.

Adam Cole vs Kyle O’Reilly vs Johnny Gargano vs Pete Dunne vs Karrion Kross-

Right away, Cole gets hit by O’Reilly and Dunne fights off Gargano as in the ring now is Pete Dunne and Kross. After a suplex from Kross the more powerhouse matchup is put to an end, Dunne leaves and O’Reilly comes in to face the champion with striking now. After striking and a submission attempt from O’Reilly, Kross suplexes him and Gargano comes in to face off the champion and trying flight to take him down. Another suplex and the last challenger comes in with speed but everyone else attacks Cole for striking them with a chair on NXT Television and all hell comes to play in the ring

O’Reilly now getting the wind with his strikes and holds to face everyone off and after a stack of submissions, Kross comes in and powerbombs Dunne on the submission train. Now everyone realizes that maybe we need to take Karrion Kross out and Gargano and Dunne do so, putting Karrion Kross through the In Your House prop. Kyle and Adam get to fighting now and with Gargano stepping in, it is looking like a Pro Wrestling Guerilla reunion and with the two former ROH Champions in a Tree of Woe, Gargano charges for a move in the Tree but fails when Pete Dunne runs in and rolls up Gargano and hell breaks loose between all the challengers as they go with rapid kicks and strikes and they all fall down.

We are back to Kyle and Adam facing off now but Kross returns to remove everyone involved, tossing Adam Cole, Kyle O’Reilly and Pete Dunne out of the barricade and does a Tornado F5 to take down Gargano. It’s a near fall though and now Johnny gets his burst of energy and dives all around the ring to take everyone out and Adam Cole returns with some superkicks and even attempts the Panama Sunrise but is caught by a Reverse Tombstone Piledriver and gets a close nearfall.

All the challengers return to the ring and take it to one another and even getting some accidental two on ones on people. Dunne and Gargano meeting in the middle on O’Reilly. Gargano doing a Poison-rana in combination with a Superkick from Cole to Dunne and finally, a Enziguri into a back suplex from Gargano and O’Reilly to Cole and Kross returns to take apart each challenger, one by one. Everyone works together to try to take out Karrion Kross and even gets a small Undisputed Era reunion to Powerbomb Kross on the announce table so all the challengers face off.

Gargano and Adam Cole hit each other with superkicks, Dunne and O’Reilly put submission holds on them and drop it to fight each other. After a submission transition, Adam Cole and Gargano come in to spoil the party and use speed and superkicks to go to them and hell breaks loose once again. O’Reilly stops a double Garga-No Escape and takes full control as Adam Cole takes ultimate opportunity for this and hits a Panama Sunrise to Gargano after pushing Kyle off. Dunne breaks the pin attempt of Adam Cole and X-Plexes him on the outside and Karrion Kross rises up and Dunne fights off Kross, landing the Bitter End and it’s a nearfall. Changing it up to and putting a Triangle on Kross, everyone returns and now it’s Pete Dunne’s second wind.

Kross comes back though and removes Adam Cole from the match once more and puts the Kross Jacket on. Dunne breaks it, “breaking” Kross’ fingers and Johnny comes in to One Final Beats Dunne to eliminates him from the match and O’Reilly returns to clean house until Adam Cole gets his second wind as well, superkicking everyone involved and gets caught in a Leg Lock but too close to Karrion Kross and Karrion Kross applies the Kross Jacket onto Kyle O’Reilly to make him fade.

(Aftermath: Makenzie comes in and asks William Regal what he thinks of In Your House and he says… “I’ve never seen so much bedlam in NXT. I think it’s time for a change.” He walks off, dejected.)

Overall Score & Thoughts: 8.5/10

Oh…My… God. I was impressed by all involved. Each match was good, each match stood out on it’s own. I usually hate clustered matches but they made everything make sense with this five way for a major reason.

First off, the worst thing to me about this was whatever is going on with Xia Li and entering Mortal Kombat or whatever that was, I am not a fan. Other than that, matches were really good. No titles changed but each match had their story written and done. Cameron Grimes was too clouded on being a Million Dollars that he failed to capture the championship, Raquel showed she could finish without Dakota Kai but, Dakota is doing great as the Shawn Michaels to make sure Raquel stays champion to maybe crossing her one day. The six man tag match was energizing, it was a great opener and things felt right and smooth with the match…

…but that five way was VERY GOOD and the reason why Karrion Kross won that is because everyone else used all of their energy as a last ditch effort EXCEPT KROSS. Kross was constantly taken out and waited patiently for his next shot. He did everything correctly and that’s why he won. Tick Tock and I don’t mean the flashy social media app that I don’t even use. All in all, great show. Lowered my expectations but it worked out in the end. Next big show will be Great American Bash on NXT Television so maybe they will have some teasers with things happening leading up to that or after that.