Huge #1 contenders match announced for Takeover (spoilers)

[Messiah]

Shinsuke Nakamura vs Austin Aries

I imagine that will excite a lot of people.

[Hanley!]

Sploosh.

My only problem with this is that Aries has been overshadowed by Nakamura already, and if Nakamura wins this match (which seems the obvious outcome) then that's going to make Aries look like even less of a star. So that wouldn't be good.

However, what they could do is either have Aries win by cheating and turn heel, or have Aries lose and turn heel immediately afterwards and beat down Nakamura. Either scenario would be fucking great. NXT needs heels and Aries would be a good choice for it right now. Plus, it feels like NXT has been desperately short on actual angles lately, so this would definitely create some buzz.

Taking my booker hat off though, this is just going to be a really good match. I don't think anything else on this Takeover show is going to excite me nearly as much.

[KaiserGlider]

Definitely in the excited camp.

It seems like a lot of people have been underwhelmed by Aries so far. I think part of the reason is 1) they brought him in the exact same time as Nakamura, who got a fucking supernova reaction, and 2) they haven't done much with Aries so far besides random matches.

I agree with Hanley that Aries should turn heel, it would be a good way to turn all this around and Aries can pull it off. I think Nakamura should go to the main roster pretty soon; I don't see him playing a role in NXT that can be different from Balor's.

[Hanley!]

I think a big part of why Aries hasn't made as much of an impact is that he debuted on a random pre-taped episode of NXT, which didn't actually air until a month later. So his debut didn't have nearly the same impact - people were excited when they heard he was arriving, but that had died down by the time they had the opportunity to actually see him on NXT.

And then Nakamura debuted immediately afterwards, and at a Takeover show so everyone was watching live. And in a dream match. Obviously people were going to be more excited about that. And Aries's time as the newest NXT signing lasted barely a couple of weeks, and never even reached a Takeover show.

The timing of it almost seemed specifically designed to position Nakamura as the bigger star. Which I don't necessarily mind, because while I love Aries and think he could go really far, Nakamura is the bigger star.

Also, if the intention all along was to use Nakamura overshadowing Aries as a reason to turn Aries heel and start a feud between the two, then that's fantastic long term booking. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that this might actually have been the plan, at least until I see Takeover.