NXT Championship Match
Finn Balor vs. Kevin Owens (c)
No face paint tonight.
The bell rings and Owens takes a walk, playing some mind games. The champ takes control with shoulder blocks and rest holds and yells “where’s the demon now?”, so Balor dropkicks him in the face.
After an ad break, Balor rolls through a sunset flip with a dropkick. Kevin fights back with knife-edge chops and they fight on the apron, with Balor getting dropped over the top rope. The assault continues with right hands, kicks and an elbow drop. He throws on a rest hold and after a few minutes we cut to another commercial.
We come back with Owens stomping away at the challenger. Another chin lock until the crowd tries to build momentum, and Owens throws him to the floor and continues the beatdown. He sets up for the apron powerbomb but gets flipped on his back. Balor throws right hands but is caught with a crucifix sideslam, followed by a senton splash for two.
The next segment is yet again all Kevin Owens. Lots of rest holds. At one point Owens does an Irish whip into the corner so hard you hear something in the ring shift.
After a third break (we’re going on 20 minutes here), Balor begins to fight back. He breaks out of a headlock and hits a dropkick. The Slingblade connects followed by a double under-hook slam for two. The champ bails from the ring and wraps Balor’s knee around the ring post before going to work on it. They roll back into the ring and Owens locks in a half grab after beating down on the knee. Finn barely makes it to the bottom rope. He counters a powerbomb with a double foot stomp; both men down.
Challenger is up first but he gets his legs kicked out. They fight to the top turnbuckle and Balor hits an enzuigiri. He tries for a big superplex, but Owens hooks the leg and drops him with a top rope Fishermen’s buster! Holy **** chant. The champ hits a cannonball splash in the corner and continues to work over the now-obviously-injured knee. He wraps the knee around the bottom rope and does another cannonball. Owens comes up empty on a third attempt and Balor follows with a running dropkick. He heads up for the double foot stomp, connecting, but his knee is too messed up to make the cover. When he finally gets up, Owens hits him with a pop-up powerbomb for the 1-2-3.
Winner: Kevin Owens
