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Tommaso Ciampa lost Matt Riddle from his team last week when it was revealed that the Original Bro would be battling Finn Balor at War Games in the absence of Johnny Gargano. This meant that Team Ciampa consisted of just the former NXT Champion, Keith Lee and Dominik Dijakovic and heading into the show there was still a question mark over the final member.
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Going up against Undisputed Era, there was no shortage of NXT stars in the locker room who would want to step up to the challenge, but Triple H revealed that it would be someone big which is why many fans believed that it would be either a huge return or a debut.
The main names in the hat were John Morrison and Johnny Gargano, but when the clock hit zero and The Undisputed Era looked up the ramp, it was Kevin Owens who made his return to NXT and interestingly there are a number of reasons why.
#4 Tommaso Ciampa and Kevin Owens are close friends
Kevin Owens was the fourth member of Team Ciampa, and in the end, it was Tommaso Ciampa that picked up the victory and put himself back into contention to reclaim Goldie, since he pinned the NXT Champion Adam Cole.
Kevin Owens was always a viable option when it came to being the fourth member since he is close friends with Ciampa outside of WWE. Owens has worked with almost all of the stars in the match having come through the ranks in Ring of Honor a few years ago and probably decided that he wanted to share the ring with some of his friends once again.
Owens only recently Tweeted a picture of Ciampa with his daughter, which shows how close the two stars must be outside of WWE, despite being on different brands.
#3 Has Kevin Owens given up on the main roster
Kevin Owens was on a fantastic run when he was first promoted to the main roster back in 2015, a huge win over John Cena put him on the path to glory before he finally lifted the Universal Championship the following year and took his place at the top of the WWE ladder. Sadly for Owens, this was more of an end than a beginning.
Over the past three years, Owens has bounced around SmackDown and Raw with neither brand knowing what to do with him. Aside from the fantastic storyline with Chris Jericho, Owens has been put in alliances and feuds with Sami Zayn because WWE always seems to revert back to the same story, and has been fired from SmackDown twice, which is why he's now on Team Raw.
Could Owens showing up on NXT tonight be him finally giving up on the politics of the main roster and deciding that he will follow in Finn Balor's footsteps and return to NXT to help their ratings in the coming months? Could it also be Owens wanting to start from the beginning once again and rebuild?
#2 Kevin Owens took Triple H up on his offer
This past week on Monday Night Raw, Triple H came out and interrupted Owens' match against Drew McIntyre to offer him the chance to return to NXT ahead of tomorrow's Survivor Series pay-per-view. Team NXT needed to have an ace in the hole and given the fact that Triple H has seen exactly what Owens is capable of, he knew he was the perfect option.
Owens is a former NXT Champion and did some of his best work whilst he was being booked by Triple H in NXT. The Game later came to the main roster and helped Kevin Owens to become Universal Champion, when he turned his back on Seth Rollins and basically handed the belt to KO.
Owens knows he's in safe hands with Triple H and regardless of what he needs to do tomorrow at Survivor Series, he knows that NXT is the place for him. Now that NXT has its own live show on a weekly basis it can start attracting some of the bigger stars, Finn Balor seems to have started an interesting trend.
#1 Revenge on The Undisputed Era
Whilst Triple H has some interesting things to say this past week on Raw, the way the segment ended was much more interesting since The Game wasn't able to get an answer from Kevin Owens because Undisputed Era had followed him to Raw and beatdown the former Universal Champion.
Owens obviously took this in his stride and many of the WWE Universe noted that on both NXT and SmackDown this week, Owens was a noticeable absentee, which proved that he wasn't truly on any side heading into Survivor Series. Owens wasn't even part of the brawl at the end of Raw on Monday, but he could have been selling his beatdown from earlier in the night.
The fact that Adam Cole and his team attacked Owens on Raw meant that he would be looking for revenge in some form and a call from Tommaso Ciampa would definitely have given him the opportunity he needed.
Maybe this doesn't mean he's returned to NXT. Perhaps this was just one match where Owens wanted revenge and he helped Ciampa to get some at the same time.
Ex WWE writer blasts Liv Morgan HERE
