Blake Monroe challenging Thea Hail for the North American championship was supposed to be the first match of the evening at tonight’s (Jan. 6, 2026) NXT “New Year’s Evil” special. Instead, Monroe took Hail out, got herself banned from the show, and led to the match being cancelled altogether.
Then, Izzi Dame went out and lost a match to Tatum Paxley, presumably to end their feud.
Not long after, Hail was backstage campaigning with NXT General Manager Ava to do an open challenge. She wanted to prove she deserves to be champion, despite the flukey nature of her original win over Monroe. Ava relented after some prodding from Jordynne Grace.
Later still, wouldn’t you know it, Hail had the open challenge and before Paxley could answer the call, The Culling returned to run her off and give Dame the shot. Hail, still hurting from Monroe’s attack earlier in the evening, didn’t have enough to keep up.
Dame pinned her to become champion.
So she opened the night losing to Paxley just to swoop in and win a title an hour later.
That’s one way to do it.
Get complete “New Year’s Evil” results and coverage of this week’s entire show by clicking here.
