Undisputed Era vs. Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan set for NXT Takeover: Chicago
The hard-hitting, upstart team of Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan will get their first chance to claim the NXT Tag Team Championships at NXT Takeover: Chicago.
On Wednesday, WWE announced via their website that the team of Roderick Strong and Kyle O’Reilly will defend their NXT Tag Team Championships against Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan at NXT Takeover: Chicago. This will be Burch and Lorcan’s first championship opportunity as a team.
What led to the match?
Burch and Lorcan earned this title shot by virtue of six-man tag team victory–with WWE United Kingdom Champion Pete Dunne–over O’Reilly, Strong and Adam Cole on the March 16 episode of NXT, when Burch pinned O’Reilly following a combination wheelbarrow DDT.
Later, Burch and Lorcan cut a promo staking their claim to an NXT Tag Title match. Of course, all four members of the Undisputed Era–including the injured Bobby Fish–cut irreverent promos dismissing both men as afterthoughts.
Burch and Lorcan became a team after a series of hard-hitting matches through the summer and fall of 2017. The NXT bookers have mostly used them to put over teams higher on the card for the last several months.
They began feuding with the Undisputed Era on the April 25th edition of NXT, when Cole, Strong, and O’Reilly attacked Burch and Lorcan following Cole’s successful NXT North American Championship defense against Lorcan. The next week, Burch and Lorcan came to the aid of Dunne following another Undisputed Era post-match attack. That set the stage for the aforementioned six-man tag main event last week.
Takeover Chicago will also mark the first defense for O’Reilly and Strong as a team. O’Reilly’s original tag partner Fish suffered a torn ACL and MCL last March at an NXT house show. Cole filled in to defend the titles with O’Reilly–his former Future Shock partner in ROH–at NXT Takeover New Orleans. Cole and O’Reilly kept the gold after Strong turned on Dunne and basically handed Cole the deciding pinfall. Since then, Strong has teamed with O’Reilly ever since.
Thoughts
This should be a great match. All four of these guys are workhorses in the ring and their styles complement each other well. The six-man tag match provided fans with a taste of what these two teams can do. Given time, they could craft a great story.
I don’t expect Burch and Lorcan to win the titles, but I think a great showing can elevate them up the card while Triple H and company continue to develop the rest of the tag team division.