WWE NXT Sees Major Betrayal As Faction Turns On One Of Its Own

The May 19 episode of WWE NXT ended with a shock as DarkState officially turned on Saquon Shugars and kicked him out of the group.

The main event of the night featured Brad Baylor and Ricky Smokes of The Vanity Project defending the NXT Tag Team Titles against DarkState’s Shugars and Lennox.

For weeks, tensions had been growing inside DarkState. Shugars and Lennox kept having communication issues, while Osiris Griffin and Cutler James had warned them that if they failed to bring the titles back to the faction, changes would happen.

Instead of pairing Griffin with Shugars as many expected, the faction chose Lennox and Shugars in one final attempt to fix their problems.

DarkState betrays Saquon Shugars after loss to Vanity Project

The match was chaotic. Before things could properly settle down, DarkState attacked Vanity Project outside the ring. Shugars especially looked fired up, hitting big moves throughout the match.

However, the problems between Shugars and Lennox kept popping up. Late in the match, Shugars tagged himself in without Lennox noticing. Lennox hit Ricky Smokes with a spinebuster and went for the pin, thinking he was still the legal man. The referee stopped the count, which frustrated Lennox and created even more tension between the partners.

Things only got worse when Shugars accidentally caused Lennox to fall off the apron while avoiding an attack from Baylor. As DarkState got distracted, Smokes rolled Shugars up with a quick cradle pin to retain the championships for The Vanity Project.

Then came the shocking betrayal.

As Shugars tried to recover, Osiris Griffin and Cutler James entered the ring and surrounded him. At first, it looked like they were about to blame Dion Lennox for the defeat. Instead, they suddenly attacked Shugars.

Lennox looked unsure at first. But soon after, he joined in and started beating down Shugars, revealing that the betrayal had been planned all along. Shugars tried to fight back but the numbers game caught up to him.

DarkState then cleared the announcer’s table. Griffin and James threw Shugars toward Lennox, who powerbombed him straight through the desk.