NXT TakeOver: WarGames (2018): Three Excellent Matches Push a Loaded Los Angeles Card into the Elite Tier

This is a six-second match and should be understood as an angle with an official result. Riddle challenges Ohno after their pre-show confrontation, the bell rings, and Riddle immediately lands a running knee for the pin. There is no control segment, comeback, near fall, or technical development to evaluate. What makes the segment work is presentation: the crowd is excited to see Riddle on TakeOver, Ohno's confidence makes the instant knockout feel like a punch line, and the result establishes Riddle as dangerous without consuming meaningful card time. As wrestling it is obviously incomplete, which limits the score. As a debut device, however, it is efficient and memorable enough to avoid the bottom of the scale.

Baszler and Sane wrestle at a frantic pace because the three-fall format has only eleven minutes to work with. Baszler steals the first fall after Duke and Shafir interfere, then Sane immediately changes the energy with dives and an Insane Elbow to even the match. The final stretch becomes intentionally chaotic as Dakota Kai and Io Shirai neutralize the outside advantage, giving Sane a brief opening before Baszler counters another elbow into a flash pin. The compressed structure prevents the match from developing the depth of their best encounters, and the repeated interference makes the champion's victory feel more manufactured than dominant. Still, the action is sharp, the rivalry is clear, and the finish meaningfully expands the women's story.

Black and Gargano build the match around one simple fact: Black believes Gargano stole months of his career, and Gargano has decided that becoming darker is justified if it gets him what he wants. Their offense reflects that tension. Gargano attacks in bursts and keeps trying to drag Black into frantic exchanges, while Black answers with increasingly violent kicks and calm counters. The near falls arrive naturally because both men have already established dangerous finishing weapons, and Gargano's Garga-No Escape creates the best sustained threat to Black. The closing sequence is excellent. Black refuses an easy emotional resolution, hits one Black Mass, pulls Gargano back up, and lands a second to finish him decisively. Revenge, character, and execution all align.

Dream enters with the crowd ready to believe in an upset, and Ciampa spends twenty-two minutes trying to make that belief look foolish. The champion controls the middle with shortcuts, targeting, and constant reminders that Dream is the less experienced wrestler, but Dream's athletic counters repeatedly turn routine sequences into dangerous near falls. His Dream Valley Driver on the exposed floor and Purple Rainmaker create the strongest title-change teases of the night. Ciampa survives by becoming increasingly desperate, including attempts to use the championship itself before the referee intervenes. The finish is brutal and clever: Dream misses a final elbow on the apron, and Ciampa drives him onto the metal divider between the rings. Dream loses, but the performance makes him look entirely credible at championship level.

The main event is enormous, occasionally excessive, and still excellent. Cole and Ricochet establish the pace before the staggered entries let The Undisputed ERA repeatedly exploit the numbers advantage. Fish locking Dunne inside his cage gives the final entrance a useful layer of suspense, and Dunne eventually arrives with weapons to shift the match from structured control into full WarGames chaos. The best moments are spectacular without losing the team dynamic: Hanson and Rowe throw bodies across both rings, O'Reilly and Strong cut off rallies with combinations, and Ricochet's double moonsault from the cage becomes the defining visual. Forty-seven minutes is too long and several setup sequences drag, but the finish is strong, with Dunne and Ricochet combining to pin Cole after the Bitter End and 450 Splash.