NXT Champion Bobby Roode defends his title against Shinsuke Nakamura: Courtesy of the award-winning WWE Network.

The era of Gloriousness continues: In a battle for the very soul of NXT, Bobby Roode denied Shinsuke Nakamura’s bid for the new-look NXT Championship, ensuring that The Glorious One does indeed (for now) hold the future of the yellow ropes in his hands.

Roode quickly went back to Nakamura’s knee, an injury to which allowed Roode to claim the title in the first place. This tactic proved unsuccessful until he dodged a Kinshasa and chop-blocked Nakamura’s knee, bringing the challenger to the ground, but Nakamura brought Roode down with him and mangled him with an armbar, trying to take away the Glorious DDT in return.

An adrenalized Nakamura somehow got to his feet and unleashed a barrage of kicks on Roode’s battered arm, even mustering the energy to kick out of a Glorious DDT. Roode, frustrated, flat-out tried to get himself disqualified by grabbing hold of the ring bell, but all that did was give Nakamura even more time to recover while Roode squabbled with the ref.

Unfortunately, Nakamura’s knee was too banged-up to take one more hit, and that’s what Roode administered — specifically, a running shoulder block that all but sent Nakamura end-over-end and allowed the champion to administer a tornado Glorious DDT off the second rope. In other words: New NXT Championship, same NXT Champion. And the fate of NXT itself? Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?