Thea Hail’s unexpected championship win on the December 16 episode of WWE NXT wasn’t just a surprise to fans — it caused total creative mayhem behind the scenes.
According to a new Fightful Select update, WWE’s production crew was blindsided by the botched finish, which resulted in Hail defeating Blake Monroe for the NXT Women’s North American Title in an unplanned pinfall. The timing couldn’t have been worse — NXT was just wrapping up its final tapings of the year ahead of the roster’s Christmas break.
“One NXT staff member told Fightful Select that the situation happened at the worst possible time, as the brand was finishing up filming for the year so talent could go home for a Christmas break. As a result, weeks of creative had already been finalized and filmed. After the title change happened, there was a pretty frantic rush to try to correct things that had already been filmed in order to make sense of them.”
The fallout from the botched finish wasn’t just internal. WWE’s website briefly listed Blake Monroe as the winner after the match aired — an error that was quickly corrected once the real finish was reviewed.
“There was actually an error on WWE’s website briefly, indicating Blake Monroe had won.”
The original plan for the match was for Monroe to retain the title. But during the final moments, Monroe had the wind knocked out of her after a move from Hail. She struggled to lift her shoulder in time, and the referee — instructed to call the match like a shoot — counted to three.
“Monroe had the wind knocked out of her when Hail came off the ropes and tried to recover to get her shoulder up, but wasn’t able to do it in time.”
“Since Hail is so young, we are told she likely didn’t realize she needed to give Blake a moment to catch her wind and went right for the pin. Since referees are instructed to call pinfalls as if they are legitimate, the referee had no choice but to count the three count.”
In the confusion, Monroe’s theme was mistakenly played — before production quickly cut it off and switched to Hail’s. WWE is now expected to address the incident during the upcoming NXT tapings at the Performance Center. There’s speculation the company may try to walk back the title change, possibly returning the belt to Monroe before 2025 kicks off.
For now, Thea Hail is still officially recognized as champion — but the botch has turned what was supposed to be a routine finish into one of the most disruptive NXT moments of the year.
How do you think WWE should handle this? Should Hail keep the title or should they fix the mistake on TV? Sound off in the comments and let us know what you’d do.
December 17, 2025 1:53 pm