Was It a Mistake for Keith Lee to Relinquish the NXT North American Championship?

Keith Lee opened this week's NXT by announcing that, just two weeks after becoming a double champion, he would be relinquishing the NXT North American Championship. "The Limitless One" said he wanted to give as many wrestlers as possible an opportunity to compete for a title, and argued that by holding both he was limiting those opportunities. Some fans pushed back at the decision, arguing that plenty of double champions have defended titles simultaneously over the years and that it cheapened the North American title by having him just drop it. But others argued that the choice protected Lee from taking a loss in the near future and that having 15 wrestlers compete for spots in a five-way ladder match at NXT TakeOver XXX would make for some excellent television.

Once again we've assembled ComicBook's team of wrestling writers to give their two cents on the decision. Do you think WWE made the right call with Lee? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below!

Connor Casey: As fun as these triple threat matches and that TakeOver ladder match will be, I was immensely disappointed by this decision. The point of having somebody win two championships like this is to make them look as dominant as possible, and there's real intrigue in the follow-up storyline where the champ has to try and juggle defending both titles. Ring of Honor did it the right way with Jay Lethal back in 2015, but WWE's recent examples (Seth in 2015, Becky last year) fell flat as they quickly made sure the champion would drop one of their titles ASAP.

Imagine how strong Lee would've looked if he had managed to successfully defend each title in separate matches at the next TakeOver. Imagine if Lee successfully defended either title week after week, showing the physical toll it takes to hold both. Heck here's an idea — have him in a triple threat match where a first fall is for the NA title and the second is for the NXT Championship. At least then somebody could've gotten the rub of winning the championship without Lee needing to take a pinfall loss (if they're that worried about it).

This just felt like the easy way out.

Matt Aguilar: Not at all, and there's one main reason why. Rule of thumb. If you have two titles and one is not nearly as prestigious as the other, everyone forgets about it, and that has already happened with Lee. The nicknames for 2 Belts becomes more known than the actual belts you're holding, especially when one of them is the top belt on the brand. Becky worked for so long because her belts were of equal value, and for Bayley, it works because one is a singles belt and the other is a tag, so they are completely different.

The North American title already feels like an also-ran with Lee holding the NXT belt, so instead of doing what WWE typically does and drawing out a storyline that didn't need to be, him relinquishing gets the ball rolling instantly for a set of triple threat matches that will honestly be better than any feud specially made to get the belt off of Lee, as evidenced by the stellar match last night. Sometimes you really don't need to complicate things, and this gets so many more people in the mix without Lee losing one single bit of momentum. I'm all for it.

Ryan Droste: I always kinda felt that this was the move they were going to make, but it's still a little disappointing to see them go through with it. When you hype a match as being big because it is for two titles, and then have the victor just relinquish one of the titles, you've just undermined your story. Behind WWE's rationale is certainly the tournament that they are going to have, hoping they can pop some big viewership numbers and ratings figures in the process. Oh wait, they told us that they aren't counter-programming AEW, right? Right. Riiiiight.

Evan Valentine: Honestly yes. If you want him to lose the belt, just have it happen during a match rather than straight-up relinquishing it. Relinquishing belts can sometimes be done thanks to personal issues or injuries happening outside of the ring, but this seemed lazy on paper when all was said and done.