NXT TakeOver In Your House Results: News And Notes As Adam Cole Wins Amid AEW Rumors

Adam Cole defeated Velveteen Dream in a last-chance Backlot Brawl to retain the WWE NXT Championship over Velveteen Dream at WWE NXT TakeOver: In Your House. Cole has been the subject of quickly developing rumors of the top star bolting for AEW when his contract is up.

Cole-to-AEW gained considerable steam after his girlfriend Britt Baker admitted she hoped he would someday end up with the promotion, tampering be damned:

“They’re all one huge, giant family,” Baker said of Adam Cole’s special bond with The Elite (Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, Cody and Hangman Adam Page)

“I hope there is a day, in the near future, where Adam Cole can be in a ring with The Young Bucks and Kenny and Cody. It’ll all come full circle, and we can all be one giant, happy family.”

Cole was recently spotted attending a Memorial Day party hosted by AEW. Cole’s unique contract situation means he could presumably make more money in AEW than he is in NXT, but at the same time he could make more money in WWE than anywhere. The fact that his girlfriend wrestles for the rival promotion as he reportedly approaches the final year into his contract makes this entire situation delightfully Shakespearian.

“[Adam Cole] is in NXT, so the chances are he’s on an NXT Deal, and I’m fairly confident that AEW would offer him more money than he’s going to make on an [NXT] deal,” said Bryan Alvarez of Wrestling Observer Live.

Cole’s future will be something to monitor as the national pro wrestling scene continues to slowly inch closer to reopening.

This past week’s broadcast of WWE NXT garnered 715,000 compared to 730,000 viewers for AEW Dynamite.

NXT TakeOver: In Your House Key Competition 

• Mainstream news coverage of George Floyd Protests
• Mainstream news coverage of COVID-19

From the Forbes WWE Vault:

NXT Total YouTube Viewership for Go-Home Show: 2,943,460 views

• Most-Viewed:  Triple H Extends an NXT Contract to Drake Maverick: (991,538 views)
• Least-Viewed: Isaiah “Swerve” Scott vs. Tony Nese (50,264)
• Median Viewership: 133,598

NXT TakeOver: In Your House Results—Sunday, June 7 2020

Shotzi Blackheart, Tegan Nox and Mia Yim def. Dakota Kai, Candace LeRae and Raquel Gonzalez vs.

This show started with a vintage bumper and featured Todd Pettengill within the first five minutes. For me, the show was already a hit by this point.

The set for this pay-per-view looked like the old-school In Your House set but after an extreme home makeover.

Raquel Gonzalez is only six feet tall but I’ll be damned if she doesn’t look like Kevin Nash standing in the ring with these women.

This was such a fun opener.

Finn Balor def. Damian Priest

Damian Priest’s entrance featured the words “Live Forever” emblazoned in flame. He’s not very big on subtlety.

Finn Balor seems so much closer than the hapless babyface version of Finn Balor that was sent back down to NXT.

The crowd at Full Sail University sounded like it was operating at pre-pandemic conditions.

Finn Balor is so good, but this match confirmed that so is Damian Priest.

Keith Lee def. Johnny Gargano—NXT North American Championship

Johnny Gargano said the NXT he loves is once gone, but to be fair the same can be said about any fan of NXT who has been on lockdown for the past three months.

They gave Johnny Gargano the key to NXT TakeOver: In Your House, which suggests that the closets in that house must be filled with skinny jeans.

Gargano’s entrance from this match featured a Dok Hendrix Easter Egg. And I’m sure that particular Easter Egg was dyed in the same colors as the confederate flag.

Keith Lee selling his hand this early in a match against a small heel told me there’s no way he was winning this match. Thankfully, I was wrong.

Fans chanted “Gargano sucks!” in the same fashion fans chant “John Cena sucks” and it was perfect.

Adam Cole def. Velveteen Dream—Backlot Brawl for the WWE NXT Championship

WWE may have stumbled on to a slick way to reopen with fans in cars surrounding the ring.

The Napoleonic lifted pickup truck Adam Cole drove was so perfect for his height.

The luxury vehicle Velveteen Dream was driving was so perfect for his playboy gimmick.

Though Velveteen Dream was paying homage to The Walking Dead, given the fact that this was a Backlot Brawl, I consider Velveteen Dream’s leather jacket and boots a callback to Roddy Piper in 1996.

This match started out with a series of rollups by Velveteen Dream. Could you imagine if this Backlot Brawl ended like that?

I fell in love with this match the second there was an Uber
UBER
cameo.

I was hoping The Undisputed Era would be driving the same car as the one in the Detxer Lumis drawing.

I don’t care what anybody with a pre-conditioned bias to the indie wrestler prototype says, I think Dexter Lumis is awesome.

Adam Cole was victorious, otherwise the tweets about him going to AEW were fixing to double.