7 Ups & 3 Downs From Last Night's NXT (23 Jan)

1. Limitless

By rights, I should be closing this article talking about Imperium and Undisputed Era going at it as the show went off the air, but I'm not going to. I've said my piece on World's Collide (it's good) and I've said my piece about brawls being their only idea for advancing rivalries (it's bad) so let's focus on what's important here.

Kieth Lee's extraordinary few months, that saw him emerge from a crowded NXT midcard, steal the show at Survivor Series, cement his status at WarGames, and get over huge with the NXT crowd through a combination of bone-crunching physicality and physics-defying agility, finally has its exclamation point. He is the new North American Champion.

There will undoubtedly be talk of this being the 'wrong' championship for him, and indeed calls for him to be inserted into Adam Cole's immediate future will only grow louder, but NXT already have their heart's set on a title path that goes through Ciampa, Balor and Gargano. While the demand for Lee's inclusion is there, the narrative for it isn't.

Instead, with the gold wrestled out of the suffocating grasp of the Undisputed Era, it can feature more prominently in NXT's future plans. Championship matches that aren't merely about one stable keeping a prophecy alive, but instead a spectacle for the enormous talent the show currently has who are kicking their heels waiting for a suitable platform. Bask in the glory.