Sunday, February 3, 2019

Halftime Heat 2019 Review

Sunday, February 3rd, 2019
Full Sail University 
Winter Garden, Florida

Aleister Black, Ricochet & Velveteen Dream vs. Adam Cole, Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa
Gargano and Ricochet, fresh off their epic battle at Takeover, start things off. These two were made for each other. Cole and Black in there now and Black is bringing it tonight. 6 man tag matches can be so much fun and this is off to a great start, with all 6 men getting some time in there. Therope  faces do some showing off of their athletic ability and for some reason the camera angle is a little awkward. This naturally leads to the heels taking over. It's been said a million times, but Ciampa is such a great heel. Why more people don't strive for that anymore is beyond me. Cole goes up top, but Dream catches him with a superkick to the gut. Ricochet gets the hot tag and causes Ciampa to DDT Gargano in a fun spot. If Ricochet isn't in a featured match at next year's WrestleMania, WWE has really screwed up. Black looks extra motivated tonight, flying all over the place. I can't even type fast enough even to call a handful of the moves here. After a flurry of offense by both teams, Gargano and Dream are struggling to get up. Dream gets the tag to Ricochet, but Gargano hits a big time clothesline and tags in Cole. Ricochet is able to fight off their double team and hits a standing shooting star press, but then tries a moonsault and Cole hits a superkick like their match at Takeover. This is just absolutely a blast. All 6 men are in the ring and we have an all out brawl now. Gargano hits a reverse hurricanrana but then gets hit by a knee from Black who immediately gets hit by Ciampa. Cole on the second rope to a Canadian Destroyer to Ricochet. That's still not enough to get the victory. Ricochet is alone in the ring with all 3 of the opposition and they hit a 3 man superkick! 1-2-Black saves the match for his team. In comes Dream, who is barely able to stand. Now we have superkicks all around. Gargano almost hit Ciampa, but stopped and then got nailed by Black. Dream Driver Driver to Cole and Ricochet and Dream hit their moves off the top rope and get the victory. What an incredible match. Let's hope this was successful, because the original Halftime Heat was such a fun alternative back in the day and this surpassed that match without question. It will be interesting to see what happens with all 6 of these performers in the near future.

Match Rating: ****1/2

This was an absolutely excellent showcase for the NXT brand and hopefully a lot of people were interested enough to check it out and be blown away. The 6 man tag is something that doesn't always get featured in the way it should be, but this was definitely a case for it to be something they do more often on a Takeover or pay per view. I won't do an overall rating since it was just one match, but definitely make sure to check this out.

No comments:

Post a Comment