Tonight’s episode of WWE NXT played host to a major championship change, as one of the two titles that were on the line changed hands.
23 year old Rhea Ripley is the new NXT Women’s Champion after defeating Shayna Baszler in the main event of tonight’s show.
Ripley’s win put an end to Shayna’s 416 day reign, and makes her the first woman to ever hold the NXT and NXT UK Women’s Titles.
Here’s how it all went down (via our NXT live coverage):
Ripley looked on top in this one, so obviously Marina Shafir and Jessamyn Duke came out to try and turn the tables. Ripley took them both out, but the distraction did allow Baszler to gain the upper hand by stomping Ripley’s arm down on the ring steps.
We then went to commercials, during which Shafir and Duke attacked Ripley and were ejected from ringside, which seems like a bit of a silly thing to do during the commercials rather than when the show is on but oh well.
Ripley kicked Baszler into the referee, landed the Riptide, but the because the ref was down the pin couldn’t be counted. I feel like NXT does this far too much. Might just be me but it feels like almost every major main event title match the ref gets knocked down.
With the ref down and out, Baszler grabbed a steel chair and lobbed it into the ring, and then nailed a DDT right on it, but Ripley kicked out at two anyway!
Shayna then locked in the Kirifuda Clutch, Ripley survived it longer than anyone I can remember, and as it looked like she had faded she managed to keep her arm up when the ref checked it, and managed to somehow escape.
The two fought to the top rope, and Rhea Ripley managed to land a huge Riptide off the top to become the new NXT Women’s Champion! It was worth the wait for Baszler’s reign to end like this, in my opinion.
