We shoot backstage and we see Trick Williams talking to Carmelo Hayes, asking why he offered to put his title shot on-the-line without his knowledge. Hayes says he didn’t do it if he didn’t think Trick could handle it. He gasses him up but Trick still thinks it was the wrong thing to do.

Hayes says he’ll be by his side to make sure he gets it done. Trick stops him and says they talked about this before. He wants to do this on his own. Hayes looks disappointed by that. On that note, we head into another commercial break.

Axiom and Nathan Frazer as well as Riley Osborne and Duke Hudson are announced as two more teams for this year’s Men’s Dusty Rhodes Tag-Team Classic Tournament. The fourth team joining the previously announced two and the duo of Baron Corbin and Bron Breakker, are the duo of Malik Blade and Edris Enofe.

NXT World Tag-Team Champions The Family duo of Tony D’Angelo and Channing “Stacks” Lorenzo respond to a vignette from OTM earlier in the show and mention their title defense against the duo on next week’s show. They introduce “The Glue of The Family — Adrianna Rizzo.”

As they go to walk off, we see Joe Gacy pop out of their trunk to freak them out. He said he needed a place to nap. After these insanely rapid-fire quick-hit segments finally wrap up, we return inside the CWC where Grayson Waller’s theme hits and out comes the host of “The Grayson Waller Effect” for our final match of the night.

He settles in the ring and his entrance tune dies down. The drumroll begins and then the insanely loud “Whoop that Trick!” chants begin as the 2023 Men’s Iron Survivor Challenge winner emerges and heads to the ring where hew will put his guaranteed title shot against NXT World Champion Ilja Dragunov on-the-line against the SmackDown Superstar.

The ring announcer handles the formal pre-match ring introductions for this high stakes main event, and then the bell sounds to get this one officially off-and-running. We see Trick jump off to a dominant start as the commentators spend a lot of time focusing on who the former NXT Champion that Shawn Michaels was teasing on X could be.

Now the fight spills out to the floor as Waller takes over control of the offense. He taunts Booker T at the commentary desk, asking if Trick is his boy before he goes to throw him over the table and into Booker’s lap. Instead, Trick reverses and sends Waller flying. He hops up on the commentary desk and plays to the crowd as Booker T yells at him to finish Grayson off.

Back in the ring, Trick continues to work over Waller, who ends up shifting the offensive momentum back into his favor. He talks into the camera off-mic about how he’s “already whooped that Trick” as we shift gears and head into a mid-match commercial break as this match continues here on the special annual New Year’s Evil episode of NXT on USA.

When we return, we see Waller taking it to Trick, who he has hung upside down in the corner of the ring. After some more back-and-forth action, we see each guy start to hit high spots, such as Waller connecting with a Flat-liner for a close pin attempt and Trick hitting a huge Avalanche spot off the top-rope for a close near fall attempt of his own.

Things build to a spot where we see Trick has Waller dead to rights, only for Carmelo Hayes to unnecessarily run down to the ring and jump on the ring apron. Trick gets in his face and asks what he’s doing here. As Waller recovers on the floor, it looks like Hayes is about to cost Trick his title shot, when out of nowhere, the former NXT champion that HBK promised appears, and it’s Kevin Owens.

With his broken right hand and all, he blasts Waller with a knockout punch. Trick then finishes Waller off for the win, keeping his title shot in tact. After the match, Trick celebrates as Hayes looks nervous at ringside. That’s how this week’s show goes off the air. Thanks for joining us!

Winner and STILL NXT World Championship No. 1 Contender: Trick Williams