Jordan Huie of the Overtimer here and another week of the Wednesday Night Wars is in the books – quite literally as a little history was made here tonight in the form of a title change.
On WWE NXT, Lio Rush defended the NXT Cruiserweight Championship against Angel Garza, of whom he’s developed quite a rivalry with in recent months.
The ending of the match was quite spectacular, as one would expect in such a match. Lio unbelievably found himself going for a Final Hour frog splash on the outside, only for Garza to get the knees up! He threw Lio into the ring and nailed the Wing Clipper, but incredibly this only secured a nearfall! Garza was shocked but then instead hooked the arms once more and wrenched back deep for what was effectively a submission variant of his usual finishing move! To this, Rush had no choice but to submit.
Thus, Angel Garza has become the new NXT Cruiserweight champion.
He was immediately noted as being the first Mexican holder of this title, which is actually quite surprising in a sense, given how important luchadores are to the very nature of cruiserweight wrestling. In many ways the style, and just the notion of seeing men of this size excel, is derived from south of the border. So it seems only appropriate to have someone from a storied lucha libre family to be holding the gold. (He is of course the nephew of the famed Hector Garza, and the cousin of Raw’s Humberto Carrillo.)
It was a banner night for Angel Garza, as he not only claimed the Cruiserweight title, but shortly thereafter, he proposed to his girlfriend right there in the ring and she accepted. So he’s now engaged!
For Lio, his title reign ends at 63 days. This is a bit disappointing to me, it was fun while it lasted and seemed to have potential to become a really great run. But perhaps this isn’t a title that’s gonna be meant for particularly long reigns going forward. There’s no shortage of capable champions on the roster after all, Angel Garza is definitely one of them.
