Dominik Mysterio was forced into action on WWE SmackDown.
On July 18th, Dominik Mysterio captured the NXT North American Championship with a victory over Wes Lee thanks to multiple helping hands from the Judgment Day. The victory marked Mysterio’s first singles championship in WWE.
Just three days later, Mysterio was back in action on Smackdown thanks to a surprise challenge from Butch. Although “Dirty Dom” tried to get out of the match by saying there was no one from NXT to make it official, Shawn Michaels popped up to do just that.
In the ring, Mysterio again got the win thanks to Rhea Ripley pulling out all the stops at ringside.
Dominik Mysterio Gives NXT Huge Boost
Dominik Mysterio’s appearance and win in NXT have been a massive boost for WWE, with the television ratings coming up strong. Writing in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer noted that Mysterio’s match helped NXT score a ratings win over AEW.
“We got a lot of talk from different people within WWE after the NXT rating came out. The key points were how much the Wes Lee vs. Dominik Mysterio quarter did, the 72.2 percent year-over-year increase in 18-49 (keep in mind last year’s number was down due to being head-to-head with the All-Star game but NXT’s growth since using main roster stars has been tremendous) and also pointing out that the final quarter of the show did total viewer numbers similar to Dynamite and how the show beat the previous Saturday’s Collision which was a loaded up show.”
Elsewhere on SmackDown, Roman Reigns and Jey Uso set the terms for their huge match-up at SummerSlam.