On tonight's episode of WWE NXT, a new champion was crowned in an unconventional manner.
As Dion Lennox is focused on the Men's Iron Survivor Challenge match going down at NXT Deadline this Saturday, he decided that it isn't fair that he has that going on and is also holding one half of the NXT Tag Team Championship alongside Osiris Griffin. Those titles should be given someone's full attention, and he didn't want to deprive the others in DarkState of that.
He decided to gift the title to either Cutler James or Saquon Shugars and allow them to take over his spot as champion.
After a moment of deliberating on who should get it, James stepped up to say Shugars should. Shugars rebuked, but James was insistent and endorsed Shugars again, who then accepted.
Going forward, this means that Shugars is now taking over that lineage and will be defending the title with Griffin, cementing even more so that this is not being shared under the Freebird Rule by any means. Whether WWE will reset the title reign as a fresh one or just allow Shugars to inherit the 39 days they've had for this reign is up in the air as well, considering there are times where that does get carried over (like Naomi filling in for Jade Cargill with Bianca Belair) and times where it doesn't appear to be the case and is just reset back to 0 (like Roxanne Perez taking over from Liv Morgan to team with Raquel Rodriguez).
When it comes to NXT Deadline, an update to that Men's Iron Survivor Challenge match is that Myles Borne will get the opportunity to pick his preferred entrance spot. Borne scored the pinfall in the main event of NXT, which was an eight-man tag team match where the winner (himself, Joe Hendry, Leon Slater, Je'von Evans, or Dion Lennox by proxy of anyone in DarkState winning) would earn that. Borne swooped in to take the pin, but it hasn't been revealed what spot he'll take.
Izzi Dame and Tatum Paxley will be in singles competition, with Paxley looking to exact vengeance upon Dame for turning on her and costing her the NXT Women's Championship.
Mr. Iguana will also face Ethan Page for the NXT North American Championship.
Oba Femi and Ricky Saints will open, and apparently, this is the first time ever the Men's NXT Championship will start a premium live event.