Adam Pearce screws over González & Kai to keep the Women’s Tag titles away from NXT

Winning the first ever Women’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic earned Dakota Kai & Raquel González a shot at the WWE Women’s Tag titles. NXT teams have challenged for the white and gold belts before, but they’d never won them. After a quick face turn, the duo looked to make more history on Mar. 3.

In their path were two NXT alumnas, Nia Jax and Kai’s former tormentor, Shayna Baszler. And it turns out, someone else...

At the opening bell, Dakota stepped right to the person who’d bullied her through her early days on the black-and-gold brand. Both Jax and the long-time NXT Women’s champ overpowered the Kiwi in the early going, but with help from her big Texan friend, Kai found her footing.

González’s has been strapped to the proverbial rocket of late, and she didn’t too much selling during the first half of the match. For all her moxie, Kai was the face-in-peril for most of this one. But when she fought through a leg injury to make the tag, we finally got this...

That eventually led to another big story moment, when Baszler trapped Kai in the Kirifuda Clutch. She fought her way to a tag, but when Raquel went to boot Nia off the apron, she hit the referee too! González & Jax brawled over the announce table...

...as Shayna reapplied her submission to a still woozy Dakota.

It was at this point that untitled Raw and SmackDown authority figure Adam Pearce raced in with another official. He called for the bell as Kai passed out during her second time in the Clutch, but she wasn’t the legal wrestler!

Pearce and his main roster talent high-tailed it out of the Capitol Wrestling Center with the titles, but NXT General Manager William Regal can’t let this stand.

We’ll see. In the meantime, keep up with everything happening on NXT tonight in our live blog here.