Jordan Huie of the Overtimer here and we are closing in on a pretty damn crazy weekend of wrestling. The long talked about NXT main roster invasion has finally happened over the past few weeks, and we’ve been led to a surreal couple of shows. First we have NXT TakeOver: WarGames 2019. It’s a big show, in spite of only having four matches due to the length expected from the double WarGames encounters. I’ll be doing a match-by-match preview for the whole card, so let’s get to it!
WarGames Match: Shayna Baszler, Io Shirai, Bianca Belair & Kay Lee Ray vs. Rhea Ripley, Candice LaRae, Tegan Nox & Mia Yim
This is an interesting assortment of women to say the very least, and like all WarGames matches to come out of NXT, I’m expecting a hell of a battle. We have quite the mix of athletes and brawlers in this one. Rhea Ripley and Bianca Belair are two of the strongest women under the WWE banner. Io Shirai is perhaps the best, most complete women’s wrestler in all of WWE, though Kay Lee Ray and Candice LaRae are also on that short list. Io is very likely to do something crazy here, and has surely atleast given thought to doing her crazy moonsault off the top of the cage. It’d be unorthodox to have a heel do this to say the least, but she’s already extraordinarily popular right now regardless, and the most fitting person to go for it.
The heels will have the numbers advantage throughout this match here, as God intended, with them always getting to enter first. This of course is off the back of Io Shirai beating Mia Yim in a brutal ladder match to earn the advantage. Mia is pretty damn tough, showing up that Friday in spite of her bloody injury. Fortunately it doesn’t appear she’s lost any time for it whatsoever and is expected to play a big part in this, being Team Ripley’s top brawler.
There are a few potential outside facets at play here.
For the sake of the matches’ quality, Shayna Baszler’s regular allies – henchwomen, really – Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir are not in the match. But one would still expect them to make an appearance in some capacity, as they’re very rarely not involved in Shayna’s matches. In potential counter to them would be Dakota Kai, who sadly found herself barely missing out on making Rhea Ripley’s team. She would be a likely bet to fend off Duke and Shafir’s interference, as she’s still loyal to the group… atleast in theory. She was pretty disappointed about not being named for Team Ripley…
I suspect Team Baszler will be winning here, just to once again demonstrate the dominance of Shayna, and particularly with a possible Dakota Kai heel turn in the cards.
NXT TakeOver: WarGames 2019 will be airing this Saturday on the WWE Network at 7 PM Eastern Time, 6 Central. There will also be a half hour pre-show leading into the event. The show emanates from the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois. I’m Jordan Huie of the Overtimer, and I will be giving a live play-by-play of the show as it happens.
