NXT Championship History: Every Champion From Seth Rollins to Grayson Waller
38 reigns, 29 champions and four vacancies: from the Gold Rush tournament in 2012 and Adam Cole's 396 days to Grayson Waller's win at Heatwave in Edinburg.
Grayson Waller is the NXT Champion. At Heatwave in Edinburg, Texas on August 30, 2026 he beat the defending champion Tony D'Angelo, Cruz Montana and Zilla Fatu in a four-way, pinning D'Angelo for the win, and became the 29th man to hold the title. He was booked to defend it at Halloween Havoc on October 31 against D'Angelo, who earned the rematch by beating Myles Borne on the October 13 episode of NXT. There have been 38 reigns since the belt was introduced in 2012, and it has been vacated four times.
Seth Rollins and the Gold Rush, 2012
WWE turned NXT into its developmental brand in June 2012, replacing Florida Championship Wrestling, and the NXT Championship was the first title it created for it. Dusty Rhodes, then NXT's on-screen commissioner, announced an eight-man tournament called the Gold Rush, with four NXT wrestlers and four from the main roster. Rollins beat Jinder Mahal in the final at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida. The match was taped on July 26 and aired on August 29, 2012.
Big E Langston took the title from Rollins in December, and Bo Dallas beat Big E in May 2013, two days before his 23rd birthday. Dallas is still the youngest NXT Champion.
The TakeOver years, 2014 to 2018
On February 27, 2014, three days after the WWE Network launched, NXT ran its first live special, Arrival, and Adrian Neville won the title from Bo Dallas in a ladder match in the main event. Neville held it for 287 days. Sami Zayn ended that reign at TakeOver: R Evolution in December, in a match where Zayn would have had to leave NXT if he lost, and he lost the title two months later to Kevin Owens at TakeOver: Rival when the referee ruled he could not continue.
Finn Bálor won it from Owens at The Beast in the East in Tokyo on July 4, 2015, the first time the title changed hands outside the United States. He kept it for 292 days. Samoa Joe took it from him at a house show in Lowell, Massachusetts in April 2016, lost it to Shinsuke Nakamura in Brooklyn that August, and became the first two-time champion at TakeOver: Toronto in November. Joe's second reign lasted 14 days before Nakamura won it back in Osaka.
Bobby Roode beat Nakamura at TakeOver: San Antonio in January 2017 and held the title for 203 days. Drew McIntyre took it from him in Brooklyn and lost it to Andrade "Cien" Almas at TakeOver: WarGames in Houston, and Aleister Black beat Almas at TakeOver: New Orleans in April 2018.
The black and gold era, 2018 to 2021
Tommaso Ciampa won the title from Black on a taped episode in July 2018 and held it for 238 days. He had to give it up in March 2019 because he needed neck surgery. Johnny Gargano won the vacant title at TakeOver: New York on April 5, 2019 by beating Adam Cole in a best of three falls match.
Cole took it from Gargano less than two months later at TakeOver: XXV in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on June 1, 2019, and held it for 396 days. Nobody has held it longer. WWE counts 403, because the match where he lost it was taped on July 1, 2020 and aired a week later. NXT had moved to the USA Network in September 2019 and was being promoted as WWE's third brand, and for that period the NXT Championship was billed as a world title.
Keith Lee beat Cole in a Winner Takes All match at The Great American Bash in 2020. Karrion Kross beat Lee at TakeOver XXX but separated his shoulder in the match and gave the title up four days later, the shortest reign there has been. To fill the vacancy, Bálor, Cole, Ciampa and Gargano wrestled a 60-minute iron man match that ended with Bálor and Cole tied, and Bálor beat Cole for the vacant title a week later. Kross won it back at TakeOver: Stand & Deliver in April 2021. Samoa Joe beat Kross at TakeOver 36 that August to become the only three-time champion, and three weeks later he relinquished it. WWE reported an injury; Joe later said he had tested positive for COVID-19 and that the brand's change of direction played a part.
NXT 2.0 to the CW, 2021 to 2026
NXT went back to being a developmental brand in September 2021, and the title lost its world championship billing. Ciampa won the vacant belt in a four-way against LA Knight, Pete Dunne and Von Wagner. Bron Breakker beat him at New Year's Evil in January 2022, lost it to Dolph Ziggler in a triple threat in March, and won it back from Ziggler on Raw in Dallas on April 4, 2022. Breakker's second reign lasted 362 days, and at Worlds Collide that September he beat Tyler Bate to merge the NXT United Kingdom Championship into his title.
Carmelo Hayes ended it at Stand & Deliver in Los Angeles in April 2023, and Ilja Dragunov beat Hayes at No Mercy that September. Trick Williams won his first title from Dragunov in April 2024, in a match he would have had to leave NXT for losing. Ethan Page took it from him in a four-way at Heatwave in Toronto, and Williams won it back on October 1, 2024, the night NXT made its debut on The CW, with CM Punk as the special referee.
Oba Femi beat Williams and Eddy Thorpe in a triple threat at New Year's Evil on January 7, 2025 and kept the title for 263 days. Ricky Saints beat him at No Mercy in September 2025. Femi got it back at Deadline in December, then beat Leon Slater on January 6, 2026, left the belt in the ring and went to the main roster. Joe Hendry won the vacant title in a seven-man ladder match on February 3. D'Angelo beat Hendry, Page and Saints at Stand & Deliver in Chesterfield, Missouri on April 4, and held it for 148 days until Waller pinned him at Heatwave. The run-up to Waller's Halloween Havoc defense is in our Halloween Havoc card story, and the event's longer past is in our Halloween Havoc history.
Every NXT Champion
| Champion | Won | Where | Days |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seth Rollins | July 26, 2012 | NXT, Winter Park, Fla. | 133 |
| Big E Langston | Dec. 6, 2012 | NXT, Winter Park, Fla. | 168 |
| Bo Dallas | May 23, 2013 | NXT, Winter Park, Fla. | 280 |
| Adrian Neville | Feb. 27, 2014 | Arrival, Winter Park, Fla. | 287 |
| Sami Zayn | Dec. 11, 2014 | TakeOver: R Evolution, Winter Park, Fla. | 62 |
| Kevin Owens | Feb. 11, 2015 | TakeOver: Rival, Winter Park, Fla. | 143 |
| Finn Bálor | July 4, 2015 | The Beast in the East, Tokyo | 292 |
| Samoa Joe | April 21, 2016 | Live event, Lowell, Mass. | 121 |
| Shinsuke Nakamura | Aug. 20, 2016 | TakeOver: Brooklyn II | 91 |
| Samoa Joe (2) | Nov. 19, 2016 | TakeOver: Toronto | 14 |
| Shinsuke Nakamura (2) | Dec. 3, 2016 | NXT, Osaka | 56 |
| Bobby Roode | Jan. 28, 2017 | TakeOver: San Antonio | 203 |
| Drew McIntyre | Aug. 19, 2017 | TakeOver: Brooklyn III | 91 |
| Andrade "Cien" Almas | Nov. 18, 2017 | TakeOver: WarGames, Houston | 140 |
| Aleister Black | April 7, 2018 | TakeOver: New Orleans | 102 |
| Tommaso Ciampa | July 18, 2018 | NXT, Winter Park, Fla. | 238 |
| Johnny Gargano | April 5, 2019 | TakeOver: New York | 57 |
| Adam Cole | June 1, 2019 | TakeOver: XXV, Bridgeport, Conn. | 396 |
| Keith Lee | July 1, 2020 | The Great American Bash, Winter Park, Fla. | 52 |
| Karrion Kross | Aug. 22, 2020 | TakeOver XXX, Winter Park, Fla. | 4 |
| Finn Bálor (2) | Sept. 8, 2020 | Super Tuesday II, Winter Park, Fla. | 212 |
| Karrion Kross (2) | April 8, 2021 | TakeOver: Stand & Deliver, Orlando | 136 |
| Samoa Joe (3) | Aug. 22, 2021 | TakeOver 36, Orlando | 21 |
| Tommaso Ciampa (2) | Sept. 14, 2021 | NXT 2.0, Orlando | 112 |
| Bron Breakker | Jan. 4, 2022 | New Year's Evil, Orlando | 63 |
| Dolph Ziggler | March 8, 2022 | Roadblock, Orlando | 27 |
| Bron Breakker (2) | April 4, 2022 | Raw, Dallas | 362 |
| Carmelo Hayes | April 1, 2023 | Stand & Deliver, Los Angeles | 182 |
| Ilja Dragunov | Sept. 30, 2023 | No Mercy, Bakersfield, Calif. | 206 |
| Trick Williams | April 23, 2024 | Spring Breakin', Orlando | 75 |
| Ethan Page | July 7, 2024 | Heatwave, Toronto | 86 |
| Trick Williams (2) | Oct. 1, 2024 | NXT, Rosemont, Ill. | 98 |
| Oba Femi | Jan. 7, 2025 | New Year's Evil, Los Angeles | 263 |
| Ricky Saints | Sept. 27, 2025 | No Mercy, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. | 70 |
| Oba Femi (2) | Dec. 6, 2025 | Deadline, San Antonio | 31 |
| Joe Hendry | Feb. 3, 2026 | NXT, Orlando | 60 |
| Tony D'Angelo | April 4, 2026 | Stand & Deliver, Chesterfield, Mo. | 148 |
| Grayson Waller | Aug. 30, 2026 | Heatwave, Edinburg, Texas | current |
Records
Adam Cole's 396 days is the longest single reign, with Breakker's second reign at 362 next and Bálor's first at 292 third. Bálor has the most days in total, 504 across two reigns, ahead of Breakker with 425. Samoa Joe is the only man to win it three times, and he was also the oldest champion, 42 when he won it at TakeOver 36. Kross's four days in August 2020 is the shortest reign.
Seven men have held it twice: Nakamura, Bálor, Kross, Ciampa, Breakker, Williams and Femi. The title has been vacated four times, for Ciampa's neck surgery in 2019, Kross's shoulder in 2020, Joe's relinquishment in 2021 and Femi's move to the main roster in 2026. Waller's reign stood at 51 days on October 20, 2026.
Questions
Who was the first NXT Champion?
Seth Rollins. He beat Jinder Mahal in the final of the eight-man Gold Rush tournament, taped on July 26, 2012 and aired on August 29, 2012.
Who is the current NXT Champion?
Grayson Waller, as of October 20, 2026. He won the title at Heatwave on August 30, 2026 in Edinburg, Texas, in a four-way with Tony D'Angelo, Cruz Montana and Zilla Fatu.
Who has the longest NXT Championship reign?
Adam Cole, who held the title for 396 days from June 1, 2019 to July 1, 2020. WWE recognizes it as 403 days because his loss to Keith Lee aired on tape delay on July 8.
Who has won the NXT Championship the most times?
Samoa Joe, with three reigns, in 2016, again in 2016 and in 2021. Finn Bálor holds the record for most combined days, 504 across two reigns.
