The conclusion of NXT Takeover: Stand and Deliver saw an absolute war between former Undisputed Era member Kyle O’Reilly standing tall over his former teammate in that faction, Adam Cole, in their hellacious Unsanctioned Match.
O’Reilly ended the match with a top turnbuckle knee wrapped in a chain onto Cole, smashing Cole’s chest onto the exposed legs of a folding chair. The former NXT Champion was last seen being stretchered out of the ring.
The general consensus from us here at SLTD Wrestling was that Adam Cole would be the winner of the Unsanctioned Match, but obviously we were wrong. If Cole had won, we foresaw an extended Cole-O’Reilly program well into the summer, with perhaps a rubber match a la the epic Cole vs. Johnny Gargano clashes of 2019, before their story finally concluded.
But with such a devastating loss, it’s clear that Adam Cole’s time on NXT has reached its natural conclusion. Debuting in 2017 with the Undisputed Era by taking out Drew McIntyre, Cole went on to be a mainstay of the War Games match for four years, became the first ever North American Champion and capped off with the longest run as NXT Champion in history.
What else would be left for Adam Cole to do on the black and yellow brand? Despite this alleged ridiculous issue with being “too short” in the eyes of WWE Chairman Vince McMahon, Cole’s charisma can definitely carry him into some meaningful future program on RAW or Smackdown.
As for O’Reilly, the way he’s being presented now is like a man on the path back to some kind of “redemption”; we saw this with Johnny Gargano several years ago over the space of a year when Johnny Wrestling was chasing the NXT Championship. While O’Reilly was unsuccessful in two NXT title matches, they’ve nevertheless solidified his status as a future contender to newly crowned champion Karrion Kross, or perhaps as the man to finally dethrone Gargano for the North American title.
But what about the odd men out in the former Undisputed Era, Roderick Strong and Bobby Fish? I recently reviewed Strong’s career in NXT and pondered what is next for the “Messiah of the Backbreaker”. The last time Strong was seen, he left the arena before he was supposed to compete in a battle royale to qualify for the Gauntlet Eliminator match on Night 1 of Takeover: Stand and Deliver, saying “he was done”.
I’m getting strong vibes of this becoming one of those psychological breakdown storylines, where the protagonist has to drag himself from the depths of despair before achieving a measure of redemption. Strong needs either something to happen, or someone to come back into his life to refocus the purpose of his career, which brings me to Fish.
The former NXT Tag Team Champion has been out with a tricep injury since the 2020 Takeover: War Games; he’s the only member of UE that has not been accounted for since the group split. Frankly, at the age of 44, Fish has definitely reached the point of retirement and its not surprising to envision him winding down his active in-ring career.
I could see him coming back to NXT to help his friend Roderick recover from his depression and get him motivated for his craft again, possibly having one final run as tag team champions or serving as a ‘coach’ or manager role for Roderick Strong and guiding him to another title, such as the Cruiserweight Championship.
For comparison, take a look at how the Shield was booked after their split in 2014. It took a year for Seth Rollins to become WWE Champion and in subsequent years to become a workhorse for WWE. Roman Reigns was groomed for years to become a main eventer, and it took him doing a heel turn to reach that level. The only member that WWE seemingly dropped the ball on was Dean Ambrose (now Jon Moxley) and in AEW Moxley’s potential was unleashed.
Adam Cole, Kyle O’Reilly and Roderick Strong have shown they can be main event players throughout their years as a faction in NXT. Now that they’ve been giving the opportunity to branch off to do their own thing, the sky can be the limit. Only time will tell.
An average professional doing the 9-5 grind who really loves wrestling across all platforms. Here's hoping wrestlers finally get some basic workers rights in 2021.
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