Samoa Joe vs. Finn Balor: Winner and Reaction from NXT Lowell

The third time was the charm for Samoa Joe, even if it wasn't on the WWE Network.

The Samoan Submission Machine defeated Finn Balor on Thursday at an NXT live event in Lowell, Massachusetts, to win his first NXT title and end Balor's 292-day title reign.

This was the third time since December that Joe and Balor had fought for the NXT title, with The Demon coming out on top twice at NXT TakeOver: London and NXT TakeOver: Dallas.

WWE shared an image of the former TNA and Ring of Honor world champion capturing the gold:

At first glance, it appeared as though Balor was setting up his Coup de Grace finisher from the top turnbuckle, but Joe immediately dashed toward the corner and landed the Muscle Buster for the pinfall victory.

Despite in defeat, Balor was happy to be a part of the show:

This was a shocking turn of events, as titles rarely change hands on house shows, especially one day after Joe defeated new main-show addition Apollo Crews by submission.

Ring of Honor, one of the companies Joe has worked for in the past, congratulated its former champion:

This will go down as a questionable move with a mix of intrigue. After Joe and Balor had already wrestled twice, putting the belt on Joe on a live show doesn't make sense. It would've worked to have Joe win the belt in Dallas at the beginning of April. Instead, with no one watching the network, it went down as an Internet-breaking moment.

Bleacher Report's Donald Wood questioned the way it all unfolded:

Now for the intrigue: It appears it'll soon be time for Balor to join the main roster. Eric Arrington of Daily Wrestling News noted Balor could be called up to Raw, and the Bullet Club could be re-formed with AJ Styles, Karl Anderson, Luke Gallows and Balor. There's an added caveat of Balor being involved in the WWE world heavyweight title picture with Roman Reigns, according to Arrington.

There was speculation Balor would debut during Monday's edition of Raw in London, but that didn't happen, per Marc Middleton of Wrestling Inc.

Arrington also stated Styles could turn heel soon, which would defeat the purpose of a possible heel turn for Reigns.

As for Joe, he'll get a chance to run things on NXT as the top guy, with a possible main-show call-up in the near future. He's already proved to be one of the best in-ring workers in the company, so it's only a matter of time before he gets involved on Raw in some capacity.

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