Oddly enough, despite the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament being one of the most inclusive things NXT puts on during the year, allowing tons of wrestlers to get some airtime they normally wouldn’t, the card for TakeOver: Toronto seems to be missing a lot of superstars. This applies not just to the folks who aren’t as deep in developmental like Riddick Moss and Tian Bing, but also regulars who are normally featured on the standard NXT episodes as well.
Which wrestlers are currently not scheduled for NXT TakeOver: Toronto and how could they have possibly been utilized? Let’s take a look.
SAnitY
The new stable of Eric Young, Alexander Wolfe, Sawyer Fulton and Nikki Cross has been off to an odd start since their debut. Originally, it seemed as though they were going to be pushed to the moon. That still might be in the cards, but the idea of them going undefeated as an untouchable monster faction looks to be a route WWE isn’t necessarily taking, particularly as The Authors of Pain have that to their names. The latter have advanced in the tournament while SAnitY has not.
Last year, both the semifinals and the finals of the tournament were on the event while this year, it will just be the finals, opening up room for potentially two or three more matches to be added to the card. While some people listed below might be better off chosen, it seems rather odd that SAnitY (that is so frustrating to type, by the way) would have no presence whatsoever at the show since they’re brand new and could use the exposure.
Who would they face, though? A random team from the tournament who already lost? That’s not exactly exciting. Maybe Eric Young could just wrestle a singles match while the rest accompany him? Maybe they interfere with the tournament’s finals to cost The Authors of Pain, starting a heel vs. heel feud and giving TM-61 the ability to win without making Akam and Rezar look like they truly took the loss? Here’s hoping they don’t just relegate them to a video package, promo, or even less than that.
The Austin Aries / Hideo Itami Situation
By the time the last TakeOver had finished, it seemed like an inevitability that Hideo Itami would end up facing Austin Aries on this show, but over the course of the past few weeks, that idea has taken a lot of twists and turns and is now dead.
Aries brought in Roderick Strong to be his teammate for the tournament while Itami was scheduled to tag with Kota Ibushi. I’m 100% convinced that if they could have avoided the injuries, WWE would have booked Aries vs. Itami where Strong and Ibushi were in their friends’ respective corners.
Instead, Itami went down with an injury, TJ Perkins filled in with Ibushi just for the sake of not screwing up the tournament, and then Aries was injured as well. Now, both men aren’t going to be wrestling for a while, but we can’t even get Strong against Ibushi since the latter isn’t a true member of the roster and is only interested in doing guest appearances. Nothing has been carried on with the feud to continue it, so that means all of the men hovering this situation have been left out to dry.
Andrade “Cien” Almas
It’s always disappointing to see WWE not follow through with a heel or face turn. When Andrade “Cien” Almas teased a turn on Cedric Alexander only to backtrack and then snap, that was perhaps the most interesting thing he’s done in his tenure in the company so far. After that, what’s happened? He’s been pushed aside in favor of the tag team tournament and swept under the rug.
Now that he’s already had his subsequent fight with Alexander, the next few episodes of NXT should have set up another person for him to go up against or to have saved their encounter for TakeOver to begin with. Without him wrestling on this card, it makes him seem like he isn’t worth the time to invest in, so why should fans care about his heel turn?
No Way Jose
It’s no surprise to see Rich Swann not competing on the card, but he’ll be fine as he has the cruiserweight division on Raw and the upcoming 205 Live where he’ll be showcased. His tag tournament partner, though, is a different story, as No Way Jose has had nothing set up for him to do here.
Considering the situation with Andrade Almas, why couldn’t No Way Jose cross paths with him to set up a match between those two on this card? It isn’t as though they’re both too busy with other feuds, nor are they on the list of less important wrestlers. These are two of the biggest midcarders the brand has and have been brought into TakeOver events in the past, so why not this time?
Elias Samson
Having spent the past couple of months out with an injury, The Drifter has recently made his return, defeating Nathan Cruz. Obviously, a rematch between those two is not going to be booked, but again, I bring up the idea of No Way Jose being an available opponent. Almas takes priority over Samson, who will need some time to build back up any good grace he had with the audience from before his injury, but if Almas were busy with Alexander in that theoretical scenario posed above, then No Way Jose and Elias Samson would have been a decent pairing. It’s not a travesty that Samson won’t be wrestling here, though it’s interesting WWE didn’t wait to bring him back on television until after Toronto was in the bag.
All But One in the Women’s Division
Typically, there is only one—maybe two—women’s division matches on an NXT card and since Asuka is defending her championship against Mickie James, everyone else was put on the backburner. It’s hard to argue that someone like Danielle Kamela should have been given the spot over a legend like James, so you’re not going to be hearing that from me, but if we’re going to talk about the men who were important enough to be considered for extra matches, we can’t ignore the women who fall into the same category.
Liv Morgan has been feuding with Billie Kay and Peyton Royce for the past few weeks, typically including Aliyah as her backup, but there’s also Ember Moon who should be getting a boost eventually down the line, possibly for Orlando as the one who dethrones Asuka. If timing allowed for it, I think a tag team match between Morgan and either Aliyah or Moon against Kay and Royce would make perfect sense to showcase the rest of the women not involved in the title picture for this event.
Wesley Blake / Buddy Murphy
A year ago, these two were on top of the tag team division and if they had stayed together, they no doubt would have been involved in the tournament. Since their split, they’ve had a lackluster feud that has struggled to catch any true interest and completely failed to become relevant. In the grand scheme of things, it would be more advantageous to see almost anybody else in the NXT realm face off than to see Murphy and Blake have another match, but it’s odd to see how they’ve become totally irrelevant since losing Alexa Bliss.
Those are the people that stand out to me, but there are plenty of others not booked on the card like Oney Lorcan, Angelo Dawkins, Noah Potjes and more. Who else do you think should have possibly been included and how would you have scheduled them for the show? Keep the discussion going in the comments below!
