{"id":78799,"date":"2020-11-11T20:30:50","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T01:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=78799"},"modified":"2020-11-11T20:30:50","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T01:30:50","slug":"andnew-leon-ruff-nxt-north-american-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2020\/11\/11\/andnew-leon-ruff-nxt-north-american-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"#AndNEW: Leon Ruff Wins the NXT North American Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>To say that this week&#8217;s episode of <strong>NXT<\/strong> started on a shocking note would be an understatement. To start the show, <strong>Johnny Gargano<\/strong> approached the ring, having recently defeated<strong> Damian Priest<\/strong> for the North American Championship at <strong>NXT Halloween Havoc<\/strong>. Tonight, the new champion opened the show, his \u201cwheel of challengers\u201d in the ring. Gargano acknowledged his failure to retain his first North American Championship in his first defense, believing himself to be cursed. However, he believed the wheel would help him. With a spin, the suspicious wheel landed on the name of <strong>Leon Ruff<\/strong>. Little did Gargano know that his potential trickery would only strengthen the supposed curse in question.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LEONRUFF_?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@LEONRUFF_<\/a>, come on down! You&#39;ve been selected as the WINNER of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JohnnyGargano?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@JohnnyGargano<\/a>&#39;s Wheel of Challengers!!!! <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/WWENXT?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#WWENXT<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NXTNATitle?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#NXTNATitle<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/HKXrtunkGa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/HKXrtunkGa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; WWE NXT (@WWENXT) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WWENXT\/status\/1326693340797161478?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 12, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The match began with Johnny Gargano in control, as expected from the experienced North American Champion. This wasn&#8217;t to say that Leon Ruff lacked heart, however, as he attempted to fight back. However, Gargano continued to have the match in his favor, tossing the smaller Superstar into the steel steps. It would appear that \u201cJohnny Wrestling\u201d would finally be able to break the curse. That was, however, until former North American Champion Damian Priest appeared in the crowd.<\/p>\n<p>This distracted Gargano, who was caught off guard by Ruff. The smaller Superstar was able to hit a crucifix bomb on the unsuspecting champion. The referee counted the pin and, to the surprise of everyone, Ruff was crowned the new NXT North American Champion. Ruff made his way up the ramp, Priest congratulating the new titleholder all the while. The physical title might not have been able to fit the new champion, but time will tell whether he grows into his newfound role. This week&#8217;s episode of NXT began on a surprising note, to say the least.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">That\u2019s why we don\u2019t call it a belt&#8230;CONGRATULATIONS to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LEONRUFF_?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@LEONRUFF_<\/a> ! <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/AndNew?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#AndNew<\/a><br \/> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NXTNATitle?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#NXTNATitle<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/WWENXT?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#WWENXT<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/lhBAvY5emK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/lhBAvY5emK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Triple H (@TripleH) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TripleH\/status\/1326697717771476993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 12, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>At 24 years old, Leon Ruff has been a contracted NXT Superstar since this past summer. He has made multiple <strong>WWE<\/strong> appearances, not just on NXT but <strong>205 Live<\/strong>, <strong>Main Event<\/strong>, and <strong>Monday Night RAW<\/strong>. Before then, Ruff has made his name in various organizations, including <strong>EVOLVE Wrestling<\/strong>. It was here he became a one-time EVOLVE Tag Team Champion alongside <strong>AR Fox<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.\u00a0WWE fan? You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/watch.wwe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WWE Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Looking to talk wrestling, pro football, or any number of sports? Head on over to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/boards\/index.php\" target=\"_self\">LWOS Boards<\/a>\u00a0to engage in conversation with fellow fans!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To say that this week&#8217;s episode of NXT started on a shocking note would be an understatement. To start the show, Johnny Gargano approached the ring, having recently defeated Damian Priest for the North American Championship at NXT Halloween Havoc. Tonight, the new champion opened the show, his \u201cwheel of challengers\u201d in the ring. Gargano [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3354,"featured_media":78800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2192,5,3],"tags":[6558,68,4903,116,2537,47],"class_list":["post-78799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-wrestling","category-nxt","category-wwe-universe","tag-damian-priest","tag-johnny-gargano","tag-leon-ruff","tag-nxt","tag-nxt-north-american-championship","tag-wwe"],"modified_by":"Robbie Sutter","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3354"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}