Finn Balor vs. Samoa Joe: Winner and Reaction from 2015 NXT TakeOver London

Finn Balor conquered his biggest challenge since becoming NXT champion on Wednesday as he defeated Samoa Joe at NXT TakeOver: London.

WWE had a picture of the champion:

WWE NXT and WWE Universe had some of the highlights of a match that featured plenty of them: 

Ringside Xcess thought the match lived up to the hype and had high praise for Joe:

WrestlingINC.com didn't think as highly of the match and wondered what's next:

Balor and Joe headlined NXT's first foray to the United Kingdom, but the build toward their encounter started long ago and was fueled by The Samoan Submission Specialist's hunger to become NXT champion.

At NXT TakeOver: Respect in October, Balor and Joe joined forces to win the Dusty Rhodes Classic tag team tournament. Joe subsequently asked for a shot at Balor's title, but NXT general manager William Regal forced him to earn it in a Battle Royal instead.

Samoa Joe fell short, so he eventually decided to take matters into his own hands by attacking Balor.

That caught the attention of both Balor and Regal, which led to Joe getting precisely what he asked for on the heels of NXT TakeOver: Respect.

At the same time, Joe brought out a great deal of intensity in Balor. In order to combat that, the challenger played some mind games by refusing to engage in a war of words, as seen in this GIF courtesy of WWE NXT:

Balor also quickly came to realize that Samoa Joe was unlike anyone he had ever come up against in NXT.

Joe beat Balor down on multiple occasions, and most of those altercations ended with the champ being choked out by the Coquina Clutch:

Samoa Joe got the better of Balor at essentially every turn leading up to the special event, but the titleholder had some aces up his sleeve.

In addition to the fact that the Irishman wrestled in front of a very Balor-friendly crowd on Wednesday, he also busted out his alter ego, The Demon, to match the ferocity that Joe had displayed in the weeks prior to TakeOver.

That ultimately worked to Balor's advantage as he defeated Samoa Joe and continued his march toward 200 days as NXT champion.

Despite the victory, it is entirely possible that Balor hasn't seen the last of Samoa Joe since he is by far the biggest heel currently on the roster.

At the same time, though, there are some intriguing potential matchups that could be on the horizon such as Apollo Crews, Baron Corbin, newcomer James Storm or even a returning Sami Zayn.

There continues to be a great deal of excitement in NXT, and Wednesday's main event was another example of why as Balor and Joe laid it all on the line in a battle for the biggest prize the brand has to offer.

TakeOver was once again a rousing success, and the efforts of Balor and Samoa Joe were among the chief reasons for that.

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