What's the story?
On Saturday, January 14, former ROH Superstar Kyle O'Reilly made a surprise appearance at Extreme Canadian Championship aka ECCW, challenging El Phantasmo for the ECCW Championship.
Surprisingly, O'Reilly beat Phantasmo, making it his first title victory after losing the Ring of Honor Championship at Wrestle Kingdom 11.
In case you didn't know...
Kyle O'Reilly lost his ROH Championship to Adam Cole at Wrestle Kingdom 11, after deciding not to re-sign with the company, thus ending his term with the company after eight years.
The heart of the matter
Kyle O'Reilly won the ROH Championship from Adam Cole on December 2nd, 2016 at Final Battle in a No-DQ Match. His contract expired on December 31st, five days before his title defense at Wrestle Kingdom.
F4WOnline's Dave Meltzer while speaking on the subject of O'Reilly's expired contract, informed listeners by saying that the outcome of O'Reilly's match at Wrestle Kingdom will provide a definitive answer for O'Reilly's future with the company.
On January 11th, 2017, O'Reilly was pulled from ROH's website and their future live events.
Many fans speculated O'Reilly's next destination to be NXT, but his win at ECCW makes it clear that doesn't seem to be the case.
ECCW was the first promotion O'Reilly wrestled in. He later started working in other promotions such as Full Impact Pro, High-Risk Wrestling, Dragon Gate, Chikara, and many others before joining Ring of Honor. O'Reilly's also wrestled in other well-known promotions such as PWG, NJPW, and EVOLVE.
What's next?
O’Reilly's title win makes it clear that he's not going to NXT, at least not now, so we'll just have to wait and see what he does next.
Sportskeeda’s take
Although he’s not joined NXT yet, a great talent like O'Reilly will not stay hidden from the watchful eye of the WWE. So maybe after a few months, we can expect to see O’Reilly in a WWE ring.
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