Backstage Update on Botched Finish to NXT Women’s North American Title Match at 12/16 WWE NXT Show – Blake Monroe Reportedly Was “Injured” & “Unhappy” Backstage Over Title Loss Incident

As noted before, the December 16th WWE NXT show at the Performance Center in Orlando, Florida featured Thea Hail defeating Blake Monroe to become the new NXT Women’s North American Champion. Hail’s victory was later confirmed to not have been planned and was due to a botched finish call by the referee after Monroe appeared to have gotten the wind knocked out of her from Hail’s springboard senton move.

Fightful Select reported that their sources recently provided additional details over the botched finish to the match.

Those spoken to reportedly stated that Monroe later claimed that she got injured after the spot for her reason why she was unable to kick out from the pinfall. Monroe reportedly was also unhappy backstage about how things had unfolded.

People involved with Monroe’s creative in NXT reportedly were not happy with how things ended and quickly made the decision to have a title rematch between Monroe and Hail.

It was reported that while the match referee, Felix Fernandez, was originally believed to have received praise backstage over his way of handling the situation, those spoken to stated that Fernandez actually got “heat” instead for not checking on Monroe when she was hurt. It was also reported that Shawn Michaels, Matt Bloom, and other referees had communicated to Fernandez that he had handled things the right way in regards to the botched finish.

Monroe is currently scheduled to face off against Hail for a rematch of the NXT Women’s North American Championship at WWE’s NXT New Year’s Evil 2026 show on January 6, 2026.