AEW and NXT Wednesday Night Wars: 3 winners of night #11
Finn Balor
Before discussing Finn Balor, it should be noted that Keith Lee should’ve won this triple threat match.
I get that the NXT creative team didn’t want either Balor or Tommaso Ciampa ceding a pinfall or submission while they’re in the midst of strong pushes, but electing to define Lee down after he picked up so much momentum over the last three weeks feels like a miscalculation that could affect his babyface run in the long term.
Furthermore, the fact that they’ve kept Balor so strong lends to the idea that we won’t get a finish in next week’s Balor/Adam Cole NXT Championship match – we may see Johnny Gargano return to confront Balor – but no matter what they do to set up Balor’s next opponent, they didn’t need to use this janky heel vs. heel bout as a storytelling conduit.
That said, the Balor/Lee/Ciampa triple threat was as good as you would expect and the finish – in which Balor hit a Coup De Grace on Lee right after Lee drove Ciampa to the canvas with a Spirit Bomb – was well executed and made Balor look like a crafty opportunist.
Next. WWE TLC 2019: 3 tag teams who could answer Viking Raiders’ open challenge. dark
It will be interesting to see how the Balor/Cole match gets booked. Whatever they come up with, it will probably be great.