Well, well, well... look what we have here.
There are three more spots to fill, but the first two men to secure a spot in the TakeOver: XXX ladder match for the North American championship were entrants in NXT’s 2019 Breakout Tournament. With names like Johnny Gargano, Roderick Strong and Finn Bálor already well established, Triple H & team are actually using the quest for their secondary title to help make new ones.
At least so far.
Dexter Lumis joins Bronson Reed in the Sat., Aug. 22 bout. He defeated Bálor and Timothy Thatcher in a match Thatcher was in control of for much of its fifteen minute duration. The technical sadist was focused on exploiting leg damage done to both his opponents throught the July 29 main event, but he underestimated Lumis’ ability to keep coming back like his horror movie heroes.
Thinking Dexter out of it after taking a Coup de Grace from the former Universal champion, Thatcher grabbed ahold of Finn’s leg in order to secure a tap out victory. While he had the hold locked in, Lumis slipped in behind him and made him pass out in his own Silence submission.
The silence shuttered the violence as @DexterLumis put Timothy Thatcher to sleep on the road to Takeover XXX.#WWENXT pic.twitter.com/1V1yPp4b1I
— USA Network (@USA_Network) July 30, 2020
Damian Priest would seem to be the favorite in next week’s Triple Threat qualifier, as he’ll face Oney Lorcan and newcomer Ridge Holland (a former professional rugby player with a handful of NXT UK bouts under his belt who the company is high on). But favorites haven’t fared too well so far.
Place your bets, and check out anything you may have missed from tonight’s NXT in our live blog.