NXT TakeOver Philadelphia Results: Johnny Gargano and Top Highlights, Low Points

Judging by its track record of success, having an NXT event as the first pay-per-view of the year is an omen of good luck for WWE, as TakeOver: Philadelphia had all the right ingredients to make it another great show.

The Undisputed Era has been one of the hottest stables in the brand's history, so its two matches against Aleister Black and The Authors of Pain were sure to get fans riled up, as would Johnny Gargano's fight for the NXT Championship and the clash between Ember Moon and Shayna Baszler for the women's title.

On paper, this event had everything going for it, but that doesn't always mean everything will live up to its hype.

Every WWE show has its ups and downs no matter what the hype and build, so now that TakeOver: Philadelphia has concluded, it's time for us to look back on the positives and negatives.

What were the highlights and the low points of the event, and how did things turn out in an overall scope?

Presented in order of appearance, here are those standout segments of the show, for better or worse.

Highlight: NXT Year-End Awards

Credit: WWE.com

Since WWE has neglected the Slammy Awards for two years in a row, it's nice to see the NXT Year-End Awards weren't pushed aside just the same.

Everyone will have their differing opinions on who should have won the awards, but the biggest positive that can't be ignored is how it was up to the fans to determine the winners.

This is a great tool to gauge fan interest in the different Superstars of the future and a way to include the audience in the program, allowing it to feel part of the process.

It was also nice to see some attention given to the United Kingdom division, with the award for Match of the Year going to Tyler Bate and Pete Dunne, as the division has been largely lost in the shuffle since its debut at the start of 2017.

If the results of these awards are any indication, look out for a big year to come for Aleister Black and Asuka.

The downside, though, was how three of the awards—TakeOver of the Year, Tag Team of the Year and Future Star of the Year—were relegated to online-only instead of being on the pre-show itself, with no indication of why they were nixed from the lineup, even though it can be assumed it was an issue with time.

Despite this, the pre-show was made significantly better by including this and not just being a recap of the current feuds and matches to come.

Highlight: The Authors of Pain Stay Strong Even in Defeat

Credit: WWE.com

As The Undisputed Era only recently won the NXT Tag Team Championship from Sanity, it would have felt strange for it to drop the titles to the team Eric Young and Alexander Wolfe defeated in the first place.

The problem, though, is that The Authors of Pain are such a destructive force that WWE needed to figure out a way for them to come up short without also losing their edge.

Thankfully, this match had the right story being told to be able to pull that off, with Akam and Rezar dominating from the early onset and continuing that lead for nearly the entire segment, outside of a few slip-ups.

Akam tweaking his knee gave Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish an opportunity to turn things around enough to catch their collective breath and survive, while one more mistake opened up the chance for O'Reilly to snag a random pinfall from a roll-up.

This proved that The Authors of Pain were the better team in nearly every way, but The Undisputed Era took advantage of the slightest weak spot to retain the titles.

Now, Akam and Rezar can move on to Raw or SmackDown without losing momentum and The Undisputed Era can prepare for its next challengers.

Highlight: The Velveteen Dream vs. Kassius Ohno

Credit: WWE.com

For a match that had quite literally almost zero build whatsoever, this ended up being significantly more entertaining than it felt like it even had the right to be.

Somehow, a story was told that was completely different from everything else throughout the night, and all it took was one quick moment of gloating on the pre-show from The Velveteen Dream, saying he would knock out Kassius Ohno in under 30 seconds.

This had the crowd counting as soon as the bell sounded, which meant the beginning of this bout had a frenetic pace that was shocking, considering how this wasn't a bitter feud beforehand.

Despite their differences in styles and size, this was a hard-fought contest with both men trading some vicious shots, capped off with an elbow drop from the ring post.

The Velveteen Dream is proving himself to be just as amazing a performer as his potential promised during his stint on Tough Enough, and it's great to see him get a win back to offset his loss from TakeOver: WarGames.

Keep your eyes on him, as he's likely to continue stealing the show now that the ball has started rolling.

Low Point: NXT Women's Championship Match

Credit: WWE.com

This match had some of the biggest potential out of the entire card, but somehow, it turned out to be quick and bland.

Essentially, this was a three-move match, with Shayna Baszler hurting Ember Moon's elbow, Moon hitting the Eclipse and the rest of it just being Moon trying not to submit.

This went on and on, with the champion struggling to hold on, only to get a quick roll-up for a pinfall victory to retain the title.

If that sounds familiar, it's because we just saw the tag team champions retain with the same type of finish after being destroyed in their match!

Baszler and Moon could have had a barnburner of a match, and this felt more like purposely stalling the inevitable title change rather than actually accomplishing anything.

There existed such a high possibility for this to be the best match of the night, but instead, it just felt underwhelming.

Highlight: Aleister Black vs. Adam Cole in an Extreme Rules Match

Credit: WWE.com

Making up for the lackluster fight that preceded it, the Extreme Rules match delivered on its promise to have Aleister Black and Adam Cole beat each other with everything they had.

In particular, a very nasty spot featured Black slamming Cole's back on the top of two chairs, which couldn't possibly have felt good.

Given the no-disqualification stipulation, this allowed interference from the other two members of The Undisputed Era, who naturally would try to help Cole. This was proper storytelling, as was the retaliation from Sanity, which has yet to receive its rematch for the NXT Tag Team Championship.

In doing so, there was even a spot with the giant Killian Dain pulling off a suicide dive!

This was a rough brawl and a ton of fun from start to finish, giving more validity to why Black and Cole both have such a big following.

Highlight: Andrade "Cien" Almas vs. Johnny Gargano for the NXT Championship

Credit: WWE.com

This was a nail-biter with a lot of energy and passion behind it, giving the match an atmosphere of being something special even though it had been done before.

While it might seem like it all revolved around Johnny Gargano, it takes two to tango, and fans of the match shouldn't be dismissive of Andrade "Cien" Almas and his contributions to making it work so well.

One of the major benefits of this action was how tight everything was, with counters that snapped so quick they were hard to see coming and reversals that were met with rousing shots back and forth.

Any time the crowd chants "this is awesome" and "fight forever" is a good sign that things went well and the audience was as hyped for this match as anything else on the card, if not more than the rest.

Bonus points for Almas hitting that moonsault that was avoided and turned into a second moonsault, which was great to see, as well as Candice LeRae stepping in as an equalizer to offset the presence and interference of Zelina Vega.

This is an early contender for Match of the Year for sure with every false-finish feeling like it was the end, but thankfully, they kept fighting on and continued to put on a clinic.

It's disappointing to see Gargano come up short, but that is an expectation that can't take away from what was nothing short of an absolutely amazing match that will be hard to top this year.

Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.