Imperium Crushes Undisputed Era at WWE Worlds Collide

Imperium sent a massive statement at Worlds Collide on Saturday night. Even though they were a man down due to an early injury by Alexander Wolfe, the faction of NXT UK Champion Walter, Marcel Barthel and Fabian Aichner managed to beat The Undisputed Era in an eight man tag match. A battle between the two factions was one of the first announcements made about the NXT vs. NXT UK event, but Adam Cole and the rest of the crew fired the first shot when they invaded NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool II and attacked Walter after he’d successfully defended his title.

Walter and co. returned the favor on NXT this week, first by costing Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish their match in the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team and then by brawling with the rest of the group. The match itself saw Walter pick up the victory by hitting a powerbomb onto Fish while everyone else was unconscious outside the ring.

This week could mark the beginning of the end for Undisputed Era. Their reign over ever major NXT championship ended on Wednesday when Keith Lee beat Roderick Strong for the NXT North American Championship. And now that Fish and O’Reilly are out of the tournament, they’ll have to defend their tag titles against either the Broserweights or the Grizzled Young Veterans (depending on who wins the Dusty Cup finals next week) at NXT TakeOver: Portland. And as for Cole, he’ll likely wind up defending his NXT Championship against Tommaso Ciampa at the Feb 16. pay-per-view, something he’s been trying to avoid for months.

Elsewhere on the card Rhea Ripley retained her NXT Women’s Championship against Toni Storm, DIY reuinted to beat Moustache Mountain, Finn Balor beat Ilja Dragunov (and teased a match with Tyler Bate) and Jordan Devlin captured the NXT Cruiserweight Championship in a four-way bout.