– During a recent Q&A panel at Terrificon, AEW star and former AEW World Champion Samoa Joe recalled his NXT Championship win over Finn Balor. Joe surprisingly ended up winning the title from Balor at an NXT live event in Lowell, Massachusetts in April 2016. It was a rare title change at a WWE live event. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):
Samoa Joe on winning the NXT title at a non-televised event: “I thought it was one of the most brilliant things we did. When you’re building a new brand like we were with NXT, a major thing is that we want people to come to our live events. We were running live events around the nation.”
On showing that a title change could happen at a live, non-televised event: “If you knew that if you showed up to a NXT live event that a world title could change hands, I mean, it just makes that event so much more exciting. So much more fan interaction. Potentially on one night, any given Sunday you could see something amazing happen. That was kind of the thought process behind it and I’m so glad we did it that way.”
