Credit: WWE
Stats behind who should be the crowned the new NXT Champion
After Samoa Joe was forced to vacate his NXT Title, who do the numbers favour as his imminent successor to lead the relaunched brand?
News that Samoa Joe has been forced to vacate the NXT Championship has certainly added even more intrigue to the brand’s relaunch show tonight.
It meant the announced Number 1 Contender’s fatal-four-way between Pete Dunne, Tommaso Ciampa, LA Knight and Kyle O’Reilly will instead be fought for the now vacant title.
Every since the change was made Monday night, fans took to social media to bat for which star they feel should be crowned champion. Some think it’s time for a new face like Dunne to lead the new version of the brand, whilst others feel a steady hand in Ciampa would be a good option.
With champions in wrestling, you’d like to see champions perform regularly and have a solid winning record. With this in mind, let’s see how the four men’s stats look to give an indication whose form merits being NXT Champion.
Tale of the tape
Over the course of 2021, each man has wrestled roughly the same number of matches across NXT TV and Takeovers, with 12 matches for Dunne, 13 each for Ciampa and O’Reilly and 14 for Knight.
Only one of the four returns a positive loss-win ratio in the last nine months: that meaning the only former champion of the group in Ciampa, with seven losses compared to six wins. It should be noted though that a lot of his matches this year have been in tag team matches with Timothy Thatcher, plus an NXT UK Title defeat to WALTER back at Takeover: Stand and Deliver.
LA Knight boasts an impressive eight wins this year – the joint most of the four with O’Reilly – but he has also lost six times and most recent lost the Million Dollar Championship to Cameron Grimes.
That leaves us with Dunne and O’Reilly, who each have four defeats to their name in 2021 as well as one no contest due to Karrion Kross’ interference in their Number 1 contender triple threat with Johnny Gargano back in June.
In terms of wins, O’Reilly just edges out the Englishman eight to seven, giving him a win percentage of 61.54% to Dunne’s 58.33%, which are both strong numbers.
What further gives the Canadian the edge is the fact that more of his wins have come in singles action (seven to five), plus the fact it can be argued that he has won more of his high profile matches this year, including his two Takeover victories over his now-departed former Undisputed Era ally in Adam Cole.
| Wrestler | Wins (2021) | Losses | No Contest | Win % | Loss % | No Contest % |
| Pete Dunne | 7 | 4 | 1 | 58.33% | 33.33% | 8.33% |
| Tommaso Ciampa | 6 | 7 | 0 | 46.15% | 53.85% | 0.00% |
| LA Knight | 8 | 6 | 0 | 57.14% | 42.86% | 0.00% |
| Kyle O’Reilly | 8 | 4 | 1 | 61.54% | 30.77% | 7.69% |
So the stats seem to slightly favour Kyle O’Reilly walking out of the NXT Relaunch show as champion. However, given the quality each man processes in the ring, I believe that whoever they choose to lead the brand going forward, there probably won’t be a bad option.
The founding father and ‘higher power’ of the ESSR army, Steven oversees the operation of the Suplex Retweet podcast series and is the show’s primary host. With a broad knowledge of the industry, Steven leads discussions on a wide range of subjects from stables to WCW.
Email: steven@eatsleepsuplexretweet.com
For some reason, he thinks John Cena’s real name is Allen Jones and is madly in love with Becky Lynch.
