Samoa Joe defended his NXT Championship last night against Shinsuke Nakamura at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn last night. He fought valiantly but was eventually defeated by the King of Strong Style following two Kinshasa’s. Following the match, as Nakamura was in the ring celebrating his historic win, we saw the referee on the outside throwing up the ‘X’ while standing next to Joe who was clutching his jaw. The ‘X’ sign usually means a genuine injury so it is being rumoured now that one of Nakamura’s final Kinshasa’s could have been the move that did the damage. As TakeOver went off air, we could clearly see an enraged Samoa Joe being led out of the area by referees and medics.
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At this point we don’t have any concrete updates but we’ll provide them as soon as we get the details. Watch this space. Till then, here are some tweets from fans regarding the injury.
Samoa Joe won the NXT Championship from Finn Balor in April at a NXT house show in Lowell, Ma. Since then, Joe has defended the championship like a boss, including in NXT's first ever steel cage match against Balor at NXT TakeOver: The End. Nakamura, on the other hand, just made his NXT debut in March this year at NXT TakeOver: Dallas at WrestleMania weekend. He has gone unbeaten since then and he beat Finn Balor to become the #1 contender for Samoa Joe's championship.
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Joe and Nakamura's feud had been hot in the lead up to Brooklyn II with Nakamura repeatedly getting under Samoa Joe's skin, with William Regal calling upon security to keep the two of them apart. The match at Brooklyn was just the beginning of this feud and they're sure to have at least one more match with Samoa Joe set to exercise his rematch clause. However, depending on the seriousness of Joe’s potential injury plans for the rematch may have to be scupper or at least delayed. While that isn’t an ideal situation, it could free up Nakamura to face a new challenger before he circles back to his rematch with Joe.
Who could be the next #1 contender is Samoa Joe is indeed injured? Some of the names high on that list must include the likes of Bobby Roode and whoever wins the match between Austin Aries and Hideo Itami.
