Last night’s WWE NXT opened with a shocking title change where Leon Ruff has become the new North American Champion by defeating the former champion, Johnny Gargano. The episode on the USA Network opened with Johnny Gargano spinning his custom “Wheel of Challengers” to determine his to-be-declared opponent that was an attempt to break his championship curse.
Ruff ended up winning the title match as the former champion Damien Priest who was present at ringside, briefly distracted Gargano. Through this huge upset Ruff has managed to grab his first title since signing with WWE NXT back in late July. The former EVOLVE star has mostly been working with enhancement talent spots for WWE this year.
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As for Gargano, he won the WWE NXT North American title from Priest back at the NXT Halloween Havoc special on October 28. We should note that Gargano’s “Wheel of Challengers” had Damien Priest, Roderick Strong, Pete Dunne, Dexter Lumis, Bronson Reed, Cameron Grimes, Tommaso Ciampa, NXT Cruiserweight Champion Santos Escobar, Adam Cole, The Velveteen Dream, Kyle O’Reilly, Kushida, Austin Theory, and Timothy Thatcher in the lineup.
Interestingly, Theory’s name was missing when Gargano arrived at the ring for the opening contest, and Ruff’s name was written over it. This would perhaps help the storyline to unfold on WWE NXT for the next few weeks.
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Another mentioned moment from this week’s WWE NXT revealed the mystery persona behind the mask who made her presence felt at the Hall Halloween Havoc edition. The late October show included a spot where a person in a Scream Ghost Face mask invaded the Women’s Championship match.
The mystery person was unable to help Candice LeRae win that night, but she did make her return, last night. The masked Superstar showed up again this week to help Candice before she used her feet on the ropes for leverage for a pinfall win against Toni Storm while the referee couldn’t see. The masked Superstar helped Candice from Toni and then unmasked herself. She Indie Hartwell under the mask.
Indie Hartwell was actually supposed to be unmasked already on WWE NXT but that couldn’t happen, until last night. Rumors have it that she was one of the many named from the black and gold brand who had to be in quarantine after possibly becoming exposed to COVID-19. WWE had never openly announced superstars’ names who had to deal with the deadly virus and hence it’s not a confirmation.