With a major announcement hyped for the show, tonight’s episode of NXT opened with Keith Lee revealing that he’s vacated the North American Championship.
The explanation for Lee vacating the title was that he doesn’t want to limit the roster’s opportunities and wants to make sure they all get the same opportunities he had. Lee defeated Adam Cole in their winner-take-all title vs. title match two weeks ago to win the NXT Championship and retain the NXT North American Championship.
Lee vowed that he’ll defend the NXT Championship as much as possible.
Lee said he wants as many people as possible to get a chance to win the North American title. William Regal then announced that the new champion will be crowned in a ladder match at TakeOver XXX on Saturday, August 22. There will be a series of triple threat matches to decide the participants for the ladder match.
Johnny Gargano vs. Roderick Strong vs. Bronson Reed is the first of those triple threat matches. It’s taking place on NXT tonight.
NXT TakeOver XXX is being held on the Saturday of SummerSlam weekend. The special was originally supposed to be TakeOver: Boston.
Lee had held the North American title since winning it from Strong in January.