Keith Lee will be putting his NXT Championship on the line at tonight’s NXT TakeOver XXX when he faces Karrion Kross, but at one point Lee actually held two titles at the same time. When he won the NXT Championship from Adam Cole he was also in possession of the North American Championship, but soon after he relinquished the North American title, which is what started the series of triple threat matches that are all culminating in a Title Ladder Match at TakeOver XXX. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to talk to Lee about why he decided to relinquish the title and not keep it for a while.
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“Well, I was presented with an array of options and if I had chosen to defend both belts, I would be limited in what I could do with both belts,” Lee said. “Does that make sense? You have guys that have a single championship and a Tag Team Championship, and that is far different from having two singles Championships.”
“Now, while I believe I am more than capable of defending two Championships, it isn’t as though they’re going to let me defend both Championships on shows, if that makes sense,” Lee said. “It’s not going to be two matches a show, and my choices are just limited. So, if I can’t defend it as often as I would like to, because after defending against Dijakovic, to me, it does a disservice if I defend them both at the same time all the time.”
Lee felt it did a disservice to both belts if he couldn’t defend them at a frequent rate.
“If I’m limited in separate defenses, then I’m also doing a disservice to the prestige that I have given to the North American Championship,” Lee said. “Rather than reducing that in any way, why not take this other option that says, ‘Hey, I will give this back to the company because for all intents and purposes, I love NXT, and I love what it stands for.’ I studied it. I watched it well before I ever even thought of coming to WWE.”
“Why not provide something that’s good for the lifeblood of NXT? For the growth for the NXT, for the betterment of NXT, for the business of NXT and give these opportunities to these other people and allow them to defend it as much as it possibly can be. To me, that made more sense than being relegated to the limited amount of defenses I would be allowed to have. I did that, not just for, it wasn’t even about me, that decision. That was about NXT and it’s about the fans. They deserve to see it defended as much as possible. That’s just, that was my thought process. To me, that’s logical.”
You can watch Lee take on Kross TakeOver XXX when it airs tonight on the WWE Network starting at 7 PM EST, and for complete coverage you can follow along on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!
