Wes Lee qualified for the NXT North American Championship ladder match at Halloween Havoc, but his victory only came after a top star suffered an injury.
When Solo Sikoa was forced to relinquish his newly-won NXT North American Championship, Shawn Michaels declared that the now-vacant title would be contested in a six-man ladder match at Halloween Havoc. As previous champion, Carmelo Hayes was automatically entered in the match, and the rest of the participants are being determined with qualifying matches leading up to the October 22nd show.
Oro Mensah was the second man to qualify when he defeated Grayson Waller in his NXT debut.
On the September 27th episode of NXT 2.0, Wes Lee faced off against Tony D’Angleo in another qualifying match. The two men went back and forth for quite some time, and D’Angleo’s associate Stacks interfered on multiple occasions. However, the bout came to an abrupt halt when D’Angelo went down with an injury, clutching his right knee as the referee held up the dreaded X sign, indicating that the injury was legitimate.
After it became clear that D’Angelo could not continue, Wes Lee was declared the winner of the bout and has qualified for the Halloween Havoc match as the result of a referee stoppage. While he is no doubt pleased to have another shot at the NXT North American Championship, the former tag team champion looked crestfallen at the way the match had ended and showed concern for his opponent.
.@WesLee_WWE didn't want to win this way…#WWENXT#HalloweenHavocpic.twitter.com/zjDGqr6KXp
— WWE (@WWE) September 28, 2022
Later in the episode, Andre Chase announced that he would take on Von Wagner next week in another qualifying match, and he took a shot at wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer in the process.