Where there’s a wall, there’s a war – and that much was certain following the demolition derby that took place inside STAPLES Center. Whereas The Undisputed ERA claimed victory in last year’s devastating WarGames Match, the nefarious faction tasted defeat this year — as NXT North American Champion Ricochet, WWE U.K. Champion Pete Dunne & War Raiders stepped out of the intimidating double cage as masters of warfare.
A rematch of the NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn IV started the first five minutes of the match, as NXT North American Champion Ricochet went toe-to-toe with Adam Cole. Picking up where their previous confrontations left off, the two unloaded a series of hard hits, including Cole catching a leaping Ricochet out of the air with a vertebra-pounding backstabber.
Once the first period expired, Kyle O’Reilly, who won the WarGames advantage for Undisputed ERA earlier this week on NXT, rushed out of the shark cage near the entrance way and into the ring to lend a helping hand to Cole. Together, the Undisputed ERA brothers landed a devastating Ushigoroshi on The One and Only. After the second period ended, War Raiders’ Hanson was the next to enter the action, pushing Dunne aside and bulldozing his way into WarGames, laying waste to both Cole and O’Reilly. At one point, Hanson went down on all fours to allow Ricochet to springboard off his back and land a Shooting Star Press on O’Reilly.
Later, Roderick Strong and Rowe entered the ring, sending the brewing chaos in the dual ring to boiling levels. Drama unfolded when Bobby Fish, competing in his first match since undergoing knee surgery for a torn ACL, used the padlock from his cage to lock Dunne in his own cage before tossing the key into the crowd. To keep Dunne from grabbing his fingers through the cage, Fish attacked The BruiserWeight’s knee, which was injured last Wednesday night. From there, Fish and the rest of Undisputed ERA unloaded on Dunne’s teammates with ERA-branded steel chairs, exploiting their four-on-three advantage.
The match turned into a battlefield, and the vestiges of war were apparent as bodies flew across both rings. But by the time referees finally broke Dunne out of his cage with a pair of bolt cutters, it was all-out bedlam.
A spear from Fish folded Rowe through a mounted table, and a springboard body splash by Hanson crushed O’Reilly through another table. In one of the most chaotic moments of the jaw-dropping melee, both teams locked into each other like Voltron to drop each other from the cage wall onto the canvas with a unified suplex. As the only competitor not involved in that ring-rattling maneuver, The One and Only worked his aerial magic, too, dropping from the skies with an incredible double-rotation moonsault from the top of the cage.
Aching in pain but energized by the fight, all eight Superstars rose to their feet and unleashed fisticuffs in the middle of the two rings as the NXT Universe erupted in excitement. The action only escalated from there, with The Raiders crushing Fish with the Fallout, and NXT Tag Team Champions Strong & O’Reilly cut down Rowe with a high-low combination.
As the carnage spread across the two rings, with Superstars sprawled around damaged and beaten, Dunne mustered up enough strength to drop Cole with a Bitter End, which was followed up by an out-of-nowhere 450 Splash by Ricochet. Both Dunne and Ricochet swung their nearly lifeless arms across Cole to score the victory, winning the war against The Undisputed ERA, and the two titleholders celebrated by ascending the WarGames structure and triumphantly lifting their championship into the air as TakeOver: WarGames II concluded.
