NXT Halloween Havoc 2025: Tatum Gets the Moment; Ethan Page Gets the Fight

The opener is built on a wonderfully uncomplicated premise: put two absurdly athletic young wrestlers across from two AAA characters who understand that Halloween Havoc is not the evening for restraint. Evans and Slater provide the speed and synchronization. Iguana provides La Yesca and the crowd connection. Parka provides a skeleton visual so perfectly matched to the event that somebody in production probably considered sending him an invoice for set decoration.

Not everything lands. There are moments when the four styles do not quite agree on the same rhythm, particularly when Parka is asked to match the younger team's acceleration. But the match keeps finding ways to recover. Slater's huge dive over the post is the visual peak, Evans' frog splash gets the crowd fully invested, and the closing Swanton 450 gives the babyface super-team a clean finish without making the AAA side look irrelevant.

Hall and Cook both grade it around B/3.5-star territory, while Cagematch currently sits in the mid-6s and the Observer rating is only 2.75 stars. WrestleFile goes B+ / 8.4 because the opener succeeds at the thing the lower ratings undersell: it makes Halloween Havoc feel immediately alive. The technical imperfections are real. So is the fun.

Page and Wagner begin with the furniture expected from a themed no-disqualification match and gradually find the thing that makes the furniture matter: contempt. Chairs, trash cans and the darkened presentation are entertaining decoration until Page starts ripping Wagner's mask. From that moment forward, Wagner stops feeling like a challenger performing a stipulation and starts feeling like a luchador whose identity has been deliberately insulted.

The comeback is excellent because the escalation makes sense. Wagner becomes more violent, throws the Codebreaker from the ropes, uses the Coast to Coast and keeps forcing Page to invent nastier answers. Page survives an Ego's Edge near fall, gets launched onto an open chair, and eventually weaponizes Wagner's damaged mask by twisting it, blinding him and creating the opening for the finish through the table.

Cagematch currently has this above 8.0 from more than 220 votes and displays a 4.25-star Observer rating. Cook goes 3.5 while multiple modern reviewers identify it as the best pure match of the show. WrestleFile lands at A / 9.4 because the gimmick, character work and violence all point in the same direction. It stays below 9.6-plus because the early weapons sequence occasionally feels like mandatory stipulation inventory before the personal story takes over.

Blake Monroe versus Zaria starts with an inherently awkward premise: Zaria is defending a championship that belongs to the injured Sol Ruca. That arrangement gives the match stakes but also forces every sequence to share space with the larger question of what happens to ZaRuca if Zaria loses. Monroe smartly attacks the arm and works like the wrestler who understands she has more to gain from patience, while Zaria relies on strength and the possibility that one explosive counter can erase the damage.

The match gets stranger when Zaria's shoulder appears compromised and Ruca helps by sending her into the post to reset it. Later Monroe deliberately trips over Ruca's crutch, sending Sol down and distracting Zaria long enough for the Glamour Shot sequence to end the title reign. The story advances exactly where it needs to. The wrestling never becomes as compelling as the consequences.

Hall gives it C-plus, Canton is generally positive without treating it as a standout, Cagematch currently sits just above 6.0 and the Observer rating is 3.5 stars. WrestleFile goes B- / 7.2 because Monroe's win is useful and the arm work gives the match structure, but the proxy-champion logic and distraction finish keep it from feeling like a definitive championship performance.

Tatum Paxley enters with the statistic wrestling loves when it knows the audience is ready for catharsis: 0-11 in NXT title matches. The number makes every near fall feel like a referendum on whether this is finally the night the pattern breaks. Jacy Jayne controls long stretches, Fatal Influence creates the expected imbalance, and Paxley spends much of the match selling both the damaged shoulder and the possibility that history is about to repeat itself.

The crowd refuses that ending before the wrestlers do. Paxley's 450 gets a tremendous near fall, the ringside groups are ejected, then eventually return because wrestling factions treat official instructions as a light suggestion. Izzi Dame's involvement teases betrayal without completing it, Jayne accidentally removes Dame from the equation, and Cemetery Drive ends the reign. The finish is busy, but the emotional result is clean: the person the audience wants finally wins.

Bleacher Report gives the match A-plus and calls it the centerpiece. Canton gives it 3.5 stars, Hall B-minus, Cagematch currently 7.70 and the Observer rating is 3.75. WrestleFile lands at A / 9.2. The payoff and crowd work are outstanding; the interference and occasional execution roughness keep it below full A. The moment is still the one Halloween Havoc 2025 will be remembered for.

Broken Rules is less a match stipulation than permission for the Hardys to check whether gravity still remembers them. Matt and Jeff arrive in the Broken personas, DarkState has the numbers, and the match quickly becomes tables, ladders, chairs, trash cans and bodies entering spaces normally reserved for equipment. The veteran team knows exactly how to structure this kind of spectacle: give the crowd the recognizable Hardy beats, create increasingly irresponsible vertical distance, then let the younger team survive long enough to inherit some credibility.

The key sequence is Jeff climbing the ladder for the Swanton through tables and finding nobody there. From that point, DarkState feels less like background interference and more like the team actually taking control. Matt is trapped in the Tree of Woe, Jeff is isolated, and the Doomsday Device through the table gives the challengers a decisive enough championship win.

The response is wildly split. The Observer rating is 4.25 stars and Canton goes four, while Cagematch sits in the high-5s and several fans regard the match as overlong or generic Hardy chaos. WrestleFile lands at A- / 8.5. The spectacle works and the veterans put DarkState over meaningfully. It lands at the bottom of A-minus because nineteen minutes is too generous and the match occasionally confuses more debris with more escalation.

Ricky Saints and Trick Williams have a structural problem before the bell: the card has already delivered three title changes, the loudest crowd moment and the most violent match. Their championship feud was assembled quickly, so the main event needs the wrestling itself to manufacture importance. It succeeds at producing a good match and never quite succeeds at producing a great reason this had to close Halloween Havoc.

Trick controls much of the match, Saints bleeds, the Boston Crab and Book End sequences create credible pressure, and the announce-table spot finally gives the closing stretch some scale. Saints surviving the Trick Shot is the biggest near fall, after which the rebound offense, spear and springboard tornado DDT give the champion a clean retention.

Canton gives it 3.5 stars and calls it very good but not great. Hall goes B-minus, the Observer rating is 3.25 and Cagematch currently sits in the low-5s. WrestleFile goes B / 7.8 because the physical work is comfortably above average and the champion looks resilient. The match's problem is not execution. It is that the event has already taught the audience to care more deeply about other stories.