A few months back, Grayson Waller confronted CM Punk backstage following an NXT house show the then WWE Champion decided to wrestle on. It was a worked shoot style bit that WWE made sure we knew about, and it turned out they were playing the long game.
That’s because Waller won the NXT championship, successfully defended it at Halloween Havoc, and needed an opponent for what Vic Joseph called “the biggest NXT show of all time.” Punk informed him he would be the guy, so they headlined this week’s show up
against AEW’s Blood & Guts.
There would seem to be no chance Punk was actually going to win the championship, considering he’s too valuable to the main roster to take the time to work Tuesdays. Plus, they already taped a match (spoilers here, if you want them) against Kevin Owens for Friday Night SmackDown this week, and he can’t show up there without the title, right?
Sure enough, he lost.
And wouldn’t you know it, that dastardly Owens was to blame for it:
This was pretty much the only way they could book this to give Waller the win to retain the NXT championship while not hurting Punk too much in a loss and still building to the match with Owens that hasn’t actually made the air yet.
Right?
Get complete NXT results and coverage of this week’s entire episode by clicking here.
