It was announced earlier in the week that we would finally learn who would be challenging NXT Champion Finn Balor at the upcoming NXT New Year's Evil special on last night's show. Pete Dunne and Kyle O'Reilly would lock horns once again for the honour, and, well, they delivered exactly what you were expecting.
Before the war even begun, however, Killian Dain and Drake Maverick got the jump on NXT Tag Team Champions Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan at ringside, with the Undisputed Era and Breezango joining the chaos too, all while O'Reilly and Dunne refused to take their eyes off of one another.
After both teams brawled out of the arena, the two stars in the ring quickly got down to business, trying to one-up each other with devastating kicks, strikes and submission offence. Not even the promise of an uninterrupted spectacle being broken by multiple soul-destroying picture-in-picture breaks could tarnish this sickening showdown.
Despite both men knowing each other ridiculously well, regularly having an answer to the other's arsenal at every turn - with O'Reilly's Bitter End counter into a guillotine a personal standout - it was the UE man who came away with the NYE title shot after drilling the "Bruiserweight" in the back of the head with a disturbing top rope knee.
The phrase "fight forever" gets thrown around a lot, and was indeed thrown around during the match itself. But, your writer would quite happily watch these two absolute warrior brutalise each other for two full black and gold hours.
