Unsurprisingly, the opening match of NXT TakeOver: New York was fantastic, as expected. The War Raiders retains the NXT Tag Team Championships, but Ricochet and Aleister Black gave them a really good fight, with the high-flying spots, killer strikes, and painful-looking submissions you expect from these guys.
Of course, we already know that Ricochet and Black are also fighting at WrestleMania 35, where they face the Usos, the Bar, and Rusev and Shinsuke Nakamura for the Smackdown Tag Team Championships. So everyone in the arena, and everyone else, knew pretty much for sure that this would be their last NXT match. They’ve been appearing on the main roster for a while now, and after Mania they’re likely to get assigned to one brand or the other (assuming brands continue to be a thing after the pre-WrestleMania free-f0r-all they’ve been having later.
So after the War Raiders won, they bowed to their opponents to show respect. Then Hanson and Rowe left, and Ricochet and Aleister stay in the ring, hugging and raising their arms as the crowd cheered and chanted “You deserve it!” So if you had any doubt before that they were leaving NXT for good, this fond farewell from the NXT Universe should make it pretty clear.
