For a number of weeks, the North American title picture has been a mess. Wes Lee, the reigning champion, elected to hold open challenges to take on all comers and there were several; hell, there were many men lining up to take him down. He wanted them all, too, except Shawn Michaels wanted things to normalize.
So they cut a deal: Lee could work a Fatal 5-Way at today’s (Sat., April 1, 2023) NXT Stand & Deliver event at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California, and he could pick all of his opponents. We ended up with Dragon Lee, Axiom, JD McDonagh, and Ilja Dragunov.
The match was really well laid out, with a lot of shine to go around: Lee looked impressive in his big debut Premium Live Event; McDonagh and Dragunov were their usual mad selves, continuing their long feud; Axiom did a lot of Axiom things; and, of course, Wes Lee took on all comers.
A taste of the action:
.@Axiom_WWE was pulling out all the stops against @jd_mcdonagh and @UNBESIEGBAR_ZAR #StandAndDeliver pic.twitter.com/dTXZNwgTqp
— WWE (@WWE) April 1, 2023
The action in this match was really something else, with each guy selling their ass off to get the others over. Dragunov appeared poised to take Lee out right at the end to take the title for himself but Lee, in the right place at the right time, managed to intercept him with the Cardiac Kick — to be fair, it looked like it missed, but Ilja sold like hell for him anyway — and that was enough to get the pinfall.
Lee’s big run marches on.
But will the title chase become stable now?
Get complete NXT Stand & Deliver results and coverage of the entire card right here.
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