Welcome back to part 2 of my fantasy booking card that tackles the question “What if Clash of Champions revolved around NXT and NXT UK?”
In the first part, I took care of the NXT UK side of things, which means it’s time to round out the rest of the card with the four titles from NXT.
As with the previous post, keep in mind that this is a matter of my opinion mixed with what I think WWE would realistically do, as opposed to entirely my preference or predictions.
We have three (possibly four) matches already in the mix from NXT UK and the women’s tag titles, and with NXT, there are four more belts to take care of. Let’s get into it!
NXT Tag Team Championship
Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish cannot simply face The Street Profits again, nor should they have a repeat title defense against The Brit-Am Bruisers or even The Forgotten Sons. That’s old hat.
To get eyes on the show from people who are more familiar with the main roster, this would 100% have to be Breezango’s time to step up. Tyler Breeze and Fandango could present the perfect challengers who seem like a big enough threat without actually being able to get the job done.
They know how to put on a good match and would put over The Undisputed ERA well. Plus, I don’t think this in any way would get problematic with the WarGames card, as I can’t imagine Breezango will be heavily factored into that lineup.
NXT North American Championship
Roderick Strong is set to challenge Velveteen Dream on September 18th. I’m convinced that Strong will “fulfill the prophecy” of The Undisputed ERA holding all the belts and they specifically waited because they wanted a title change on that show.
If that’s the case, obviously it can’t happen here and this match would need to reflect the before or after of that scenario. This means either Velveteen Dream retains over someone (before) or gets a rematch for the belt against Strong (after).
Hypothetically, if this NXT Clash of Champions were to take place before that, I’d say Velveteen Dream has two primary contenders in Pete Dunne and Dominik Dijakovic.
Dunne is justified in that he already claimed he should’ve won the title if Dream hadn’t distracted the referee. This would be his opportunity to put his money where his mouth is. When it comes to Dijakovic, he was set up as the next challenger before his injury took him out of the running.
Between the two, I’d go more for Dunne. Dijakovic is far enough removed that it would take some serious backtracking and get washed away with Strong winning the title anyway. Dunne just makes more sense.
Alternatively, if this event were to take place after Strong won the title, then this just has to be a rematch. Trying to crown a new No. 1 contender would be too difficult for anybody but Dunne, who I think would be better served as someone to step up to Strong later on.
NXT Women’s Championship
Obviously, this depends greatly on what they have planned for WarGames, too, and I’m honestly not convinced in any particular direction. I could easily see a scenario where the next two months are spent building up to Candice LeRae getting a title opportunity against Shayna Baszler, or they could stick with this Mia Yim thing some more, with or without Rhea Ripley.
Since Ripley does seem to be involved and is at least somewhat protected, but clearly not the new champion, I think this would be a multi-woman scenario to cover all bases. Then, it’s just a matter of how many women would be involved.
At its most basic, it would be Baszler vs. Ripley vs. Yim. But you could add Io Shirai into the mix to make it a Fatal 4-Way. Belair could join in for a five-way, too, and there could even be Toni Storm or LeRae to turn it into a Six-Pack Challenge.
That’s somewhat of an overkill scenario in my mind, though. I’d rather stick to the Triple Threat so that Marina Shafir and Jessamyn Duke could help Baszler retain the title. That’s a clean exchange, doesn’t make it a 3-heel vs. 1-face imbalance like with Shirai and doesn’t have too many cooks spoiling the broth.
With that in mind, it opens the door for Shirai and LeRae to have a No. 1 contender’s match on NXT TV during the setup for WarGames so LeRae could get a shot at that event, if that’s the direction NXT is heading.
NXT Championship
Finally, the main event of the night. Who would Adam Cole face for the NXT Championship after putting Johnny Gargano in the rear-view and retaining against Jordan Myles?
I can’t jump the gun with Tommaso Ciampa. That’s too soon, he might not be ready, and it’s not a big enough event to pull that off. It needs to be someone on a lower level, but not too low.
Kushida, Mansoor and others aren’t there yet by a long shot and I don’t like the idea of bringing any outsiders in for this unless they’re going to be on the NXT roster going forward, similar to Tyler Breeze’s role (but he’s busy elsewhere, obviously).
Without knowing who WWE could move to NXT, I can’t just toss EC3’s name out there or anything, so I think I’m left with three options.
Option A) If Pete Dunne weren’t in the North American title match, this would be a great fit for him. He’d be my go-to choice.
Option B) Matt Riddle has the win-loss record to fight for the title. But he might be the next champion in mind. If that’s the case, he can’t face Cole here or else he either has to win the belt or they need to revisit it another time, and I don’t like doing matches in advance knowing a rematch will happen in the future.
Option C) Keith Lee would need to win some kind of battle royal or No. 1 contender’s match to establish himself. Perhaps he’d beat Dijakovic or Damian Priest in order to earn this title shot. That would be the best course of action, I think. He poses a credible threat, but isn’t someone I think they have in mind for a future TakeOver.
In any scenario, Cole would have to retain. We need that Cole vs. Ciampa match, at the very least.
Those are my thoughts on the issue, but how would you imagine WWE would do this if it were to happen? Tell us your fantasy booking scenario in the comments section below!
