Adam Cole vs. Velveteen Dream Will Fall Flat at WWE NXT TakeOver: In Your House

When WWE struck gold at WrestleMania 36 with the Boneyard and Firefly Fun House matches, the risk was that the promotion would start leaning too heavily into the cinematic style.

Now, NXT could end up needlessly hurting what was otherwise shaping up to be an entertaining clash.

Velveteen Dream is challenging Adam Cole for the NXT Championship on Sunday at NXT TakeOver: In Your House. It's a rematch of their May 6 encounter, which Cole won with the help of Undisputed Era.

Last Wednesday, NXT general manager William Regal teased a different kind of approach when he told Cole he was going to find a unique location for the match.

According to Wrestling Inc's Raj Giri, Cole and Dream will face off outside of the NXT arena at Full Sail University "with cars surrounding the area and the headlights being used for lighting."

Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa brawled in what was billed as the final installment of their legendary rivalry during the April 8 edition of NXT. With no fans in attendance, the production team used the opportunity to play off the cinematic style from WrestleMania.

In certain scenarios, going off the beaten path makes a lot of sense.

The Undertaker and Bray Wyatt have characters who thrive in non-wrestling settings. For a long, nuanced dynamic such as Gargano vs. Ciampa, you can treat it like a spectacle separate from everything else on the card.

All Elite Wrestling's Stadium Stampede match at Double or Nothing was great as well because it allowed all 10 men involved to have a moment that was unique to their on-screen character.

Giving that status to Cole vs. Dream doesn't make much sense, though.

The match is already for the NXT Championship and has a notable stipulation. If he loses, Velveteen Dream will no longer be able to wrestle for the title as long as Cole is champion.

Those two factors alone are enough to make the confrontation feel meaningful; there's no need to tack on another layer.

More than anything, this comes off as another example of WWE attempting to build something important without doing the work.

It's no different than when the promotion shoehorns generally lukewarm storylines into Hell in a Cell or Tables, Ladders, and Chairs matches to coincide with the pay-per-views of the same name. Nobody was demanding to see King Corbin vs. Roman Reigns given the full TLC treatment last December. 

Velveteen Dream's history with Undisputed Era spans most of 2020 and even goes back to the end of 2019. His bad blood with Cole specifically is somewhat limited, though. Prior to their title bout last month, they hadn't wrestled a singles match on NXT programming.

To bring back the comparison to Ciampa and Gargano, they had three head-to-head battles at TakeOver before using the Empty Arena stipulation. They probably could've delivered another classic in April, but changing things up was an understandable tactic to provide a fresh take.

Fans haven't really seen what Cole and Dream can do when given a true TakeOver treatment. Instead, they're apparently fighting in a parking lot, where the emphasis will likely be on set pieces rather than actual wrestling.

Should this be Dream's biggest NXT moment to date, seeing him celebrate in a parking lot lit by car headlights will make for an odd visual, too.

Looking beyond TakeOver: In Your House, one has to wonder whether this is a sign WWE will be unable to resist using cinematic matches and risk cheapening the entire concept.