Botched WWE NXT finish results in unexpected title change

Thea Hail defeated Blake Monroe for the NXT Women’s North American Championship on Tuesday.

Anybody who was watching the match could tell that may not have been the actual plan.

While surprising outcomes are as synonymous with pro wrestling as spray tans and ladder matches, Hail’s victory over Monroe was especially shocking. For one, the result didn’t seem to match the storyline the two wrestlers have been involved in leading up to their match. And more tellingly, the final sequence was a messy one, with Hail bouncing off the middle rope and landing on Monroe before pinning her, with the referee counting to three just before the defending champion raised her arm following the third count.

In the aftermath of the pinfall, both of the participants and TV announcers reacted with genuine shock as Monroe’s theme song briefly played, indicating that it had already been cued up for a different planned outcome. Ultimately, the referee reluctantly proclaimed Hail the winner and new champion as the show pivoted to celebrating the surprise moment.

So what happened? Based on the finishing sequence, it appeared that Monroe was supposed to kick out but failed to do so before the ref counted to three. While pro wrestling referees are often instructed to call the match as a “shoot” (i.e., real), there are several examples of officials cutting their pinfalls short in order to avoid an unplanned outcome from occurring.

Following the match, multiple pro wrestling reporters took to social media to confirm what many had already suspected: that Hail wasn’t supposed to win the match. That included the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer, who said that he couldn’t recall the last time an outcome of this nature had occurred in the industry.

Only adding to the intrigue to all of this is the fact that it was a championship match, with the 22-year-old Hail now being crowned as the NXT Women’s North American champion at a point in her career that she wasn’t expected to be yet. Nevertheless, WWE’s developmental brand is already adapting on the fly, with Hail cutting a championship celebration promo and Monroe stating on social media that this is “not the first time i’ve been screwed.”

Of course, this is pro wrestling, and there’s always at least a small chance that this is an elaborate work. But whether the outcome was planned or not, it was at least received by the audience than John Cena tapping out in the final match of his career was.