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How NXT Takeover Became The Real Main Event Of SummerSlam Weekend

by Justino Valdez
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Last weekend, the greatest party of the summer, SummerSlam, was the best Pay-Per-View of the year for WWE thus far (yes, that includes WrestleMania, which was amazing in its own right.)

The four-hour event was held inside the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn, New York and showcased the most entertaining athletes on the globe today.

Certainly, the controversial ending between Brock Lesnar and The Undertaker will keep the Internet wrestling community intrigued and always wondering what's next.

And the heel-turn “outta nowhere” from Jon Stewart, which helped Seth Rollins defeat John Cena for both the WWE World Heavyweight Championship and the United States Championship -- for which I say, “Bless you, Jon” -- will keep the fan base guessing for quite some time.

Yet, with all the well-deserved attention going towards SummerSlam, what cannot be overshadowed is the event that happened 24 hours earlier inside the same arena: NXT Takeover.

The NXT brand has grown exponentially since its creation in 2012 and has conceived some of the most decorated WWE athletes today.

These include Total Diva Paige, Russian Brute Rusev, Lunatic Fringe Dean Ambrose, Big E Langston and current WWE Champion Seth Rollins. They have all come from NXT development.

Triple H's brilliance with the “next generation of superstars” continues onward as a better alternative to the main roster: Raw and Smackdown.

It seems everything clicks in sync within the NXT structure. The evolution of the characters, the reaction of the audience fans, the wrestling abilities of each talent, the exciting storylines, the reliability of the cast and exceptional events more than fulfill wrestling fans' love for the sport.

Saturday evening was no exception. NXT Takeover delivered, from start to finish, the best event of the weekend.

Better than SummerSlam?

Depending on who you ask, yes. Even if you dare disagree, you must admit NXT Takeover excelled and even challenged those on the SummerSlam card.

NXT standing on its own shows how powerful the brand truly is. And it may even be the more desirable of the two.

Triple H's passion for wrestling and drive for success surrounds NXT.

With his opening monologue, he not only enthused the 15,000-member audience with the words, “We are NXT!” but he also announced a UK international tour, handing the world a taste of what NXT has to offer.

You could sense the fire illuminating in his eyes, as well as the crowd's overwhelming enthusiasm.

That very excitement gained momentum match after match. It never paused or died down, therefore illustrating why the NXT audience is better than the casual Raw and Smackdown audience.

Never once was I bored or attending to a bathroom break because of a dull match.

We can discuss Jushin “Thunder” Liger's victory over “Gorgeous” Tyler Breeze. We can still be hyped over Samoa Joe aligning himself with WWE and defeating Baron Corbin with his finishing Coquina Clutch.

We can drool over Finn Balor's win over Kevin Owens in a ladder match that was as brutal as it was physical. But, the moment of that night was, without doubt, the match between Bayley and Sasha Banks.

Just like Women's MMA, women's wrestling is becoming the staple of wrestling overall.

The Divas Revolution has stirred something special within the Divas division, but one can argue it all began at NXT.

Bayley and Sasha Banks have defined what it means to be professional wrestlers. Every move was perfect and the ending sequence was as unbelievable as it was unforgettable.

This shouldn't have been the actual main event, coming after Balor versus Owens' ladder match, but it was.

Even if you are not a wrestling fan, everyone can enjoy this spectacle between two extraordinary women athletes.

NXT Takeover Brooklyn didn't have any downs, only ups. Everything was flawless and perfect. The only negative? It was too short in length. I had the need for more -- more wrestling, more chants from the crowd, more minutes for Sasha and Bayley. More, more, more.

Other than that, NXT Takeover Brooklyn was the highlight of the weekend and closely competed with SummerSlam in every way possible.

If you haven't jumped on the bandwagon yet, do so quickly. The NXT universe is expanding and certainly taking over.

Hopefully, this will the first of many WWE dual events.