NXT’s Halloween Havoc — which is getting bumped up to premium live event status and will reportedly mark the return of the TakeOver branding — will take place on Oct. 22 and the card for the show was slowly built up this week during the tapings for the next two weeks of episodes. The Sept. 20 taping had a No. 1 contender’s match for the NXT Championship with JD McDonagh defeating Tyler Bate. Ilja Dragunov then made his surprise return to the brand and on the following week’s episode, he made it clear he wants a shot at Bron Breakker after being forced to relinquish the NXT UK Championship before it was merged with the NXT title. Breakker, making a Steiner Math joke, agreed to face both in a triple threat match at the event.
Dragunov was the man who finally ended Walter’s 870-day reign as UK Champion at NXT TakeOver 36 back in August 2021. He had to relinquish the gold on the July 7 taping of NXT UK. Bate then won a tournament to win the title, only to turn around and lose to Breakker at Worlds Collide. That show marked the end of NXT UK as the brand will be rebooted as NXT Europe next year.
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Shawn Michaels, who oversees the NXT brand, explained in an interview when the NXT Europe reboot was announced, “So some of it, like everything with the WWE and NXT, that pipeline is always fluid. It’s going to be one of those situations where we’re going to have a lot of representation going into Worlds Collide. It’s what NXT has always been and that is to be a pipeline for the WWE in support of RAW and SmackDown. That process is going to continue. We’re going to use the UK talent that we can to go into Worlds Collide and keep that representation out there for as long as we can. And as we move things over here in the process, we’ll make all those decisions in 2023 about who’s a part of NXT Europe and who continues to stay here in NXT in hopes of getting a main roster call up.”
Do you think Breakker will retain his title against both McDonagh and Dragunov? Or will the return of NXT’s “Black and Gold Era” begin with a new champion? Tell us your thoughts down in the comments!
