WWE NXT Halloween Havoc 2026: 3 Things We Hated & 3 Things We Loved

WWE NXT once again held the spookiest night of the year on Saturday, presenting Halloween Havoc from the Performance Center. While the main world titles were on the line, the show felt as much like a preview of Wednesday's big edition of "WWE NXT" as it did a PLE. You can read about everything that happened over on the WWE NXT Halloween Havoc 2026 Live Blog.

The Wrestling Inc. Staff were keeping tabs on the Halloween-themed shenanigans, and they have plenty of thoughts for you. They're ready to sing the praises of stuff like the Weapons Wild Match or Shiloh Hill's success at synthesizing a way to block Naraku's dangerous mist. There was plenty to hate, however, like the bogus main event, or the fact that the whole show felt more like a go-home show for Wednesday's big show. As always, the comments section will be open, should you decide to keep the conversation going.

It's been a long night of costumes, matches, and Danhausens, so let's cut the chit-chat and get to the best and the worst of the 2026 edition of Halloween Havoc.

While this is definitely going to come off as me complaining about working a PLE on Halloween, I swear it's not. I'd be bitter if this show was on any other Saturday of the year, as it wasn't very good, and felt pretty unnecessary. I had this thought floating around in my head since Heatwave at the end of August, and that thought is that "NXT" PLEs are just episodes of the developmental brand, with an extra hour tacked on.

It goes beyond the commercial breaks, now that PLEs air on the CW Network. It's also the fact that WWE isn't taking them on the road too often anymore. Heatwave was in Texas, but Halloween Havoc, Great American Bash, and Vengeance Day were all held at the Performance Center. While the PC crowd is great, when a show isn't at a different venue, it just doesn't feel as special, or as big of a PLE.

This show, in particular, felt odd, as WWE is obviously trying to load up its Wednesday edition of "NXT" this coming week, as the show is going up against "AEW Dynamite: Blood & Guts" due to election coverage. The date of the mid-term election has, of course, been set, so this was definitely something WWE knew was going to happen, at the least, the "going up against an episode of 'Dynamite'" part, for quite some time. There were only two title matches that meant anything tonight, and both champions retained their gold.

When I say that these PLEs feel like elongated episodes of "NXT" television, that's clearly seen through things like Cruz Montana and Dion Lennox's backstage segment, where they aired their grievances ahead of their unsanctioned match on TV. There was quite a bit of time devoted to this, including the reveal that UFC fighter Michael Chandler will randomly be the special guest enforcer for the bout. It felt like any other segment on weekly "NXT" programming. General Manager Robert Stone was even making matches for TV during the PLE, including one for Vanity Project, who didn't even have a match at Halloween Havoc. These aren't things you usually see on a main roster PLE.

This whole show could have been dropped, with the other non-title matches placed on shows throughout November. Even the title matches for Wednesday are more exciting than tonight. NXT Champion Grayson Waller is facing CM Punk, and Jordan is defending her NXT Women's Championship against a mystery opponent. Both John Cena and Cody Rhodes are also appearing. It's going to be a much bigger show, making Halloween Havoc, while fun in spots, ultimately pretty meaningless.

Written by Daisy Ruth

I have largely not been keen on the storyline between Myles Borne and Tavion Heights with how long it's been going on for and how messy it's felt like it's been at times, but I will admit that their Weapons Wild Match from Halloween Havoc is easily my favorite encounter in the ring that the two men have had with one another.

While I think it was time for Heights to finally score a win against Borne after several matches between the pair, I was still willing to overlook Borne emerging as the victor here because of how fun this Weapons Wild Match ended up being. Borne and Heights' storyline has felt quite lackluster and stale, but this actually felt like a proper fight between two former friends who have come to despise each other and want to do everything in their power to brutalize one another with weapons. It didn't feel like it was just another standard and formulaic WWE stipulation match that only used normal items like chairs and tables, and felt grittier than the vibe that "NXT" generally airs on their programming.

I was especially a fan of Heights not hesitating to deliver a Con-Chair-To to Borne's ankle as a callback to Borne doing the same to Heights a number of weeks ago, and Borne hitting Heights with a camera to send him crashing off the ropes and through a table on the outside. The energy both men brought made it feel special, and it was easily my favorite match on the entire card.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Going into this event, Tony D'Angelo versus Grayson Waller for the NXT Championship always stood out as one to inevitably disappoint. Coming out of the event, that turned out to be very much the case.

Both men went out and worked hard in what unfortunately turned out to be a very soulless, run-of-the-mill contest. There was an announcer's desk bump, several steel step bumps, some cheap heat with Waller tormenting D'Angelo's wife holding their daughter at ringside, and then a weapon tease, subsequent referee bump, actual weapon usage, and a rolling cutter for the win.

It took ages to get there and a whole lot of things happening, but it didn't really matter at any stage. These were just a collection of spots that could comprise a good match sewn together and expected to stand on their own merit.

Waller was going to win, and the division was going to continue with a vanilla champion, or D'Angelo was going to win, and the division was going to go back to having a vanilla champion. So it was hard to care for anything that was going to happen, and ultimately, when it did. And then it managed to be completely overbooked as well, so it was boring and long.

The finish also leaves one with the worry that this not going to be a one-and-done deal and they are going to continue feuding. That's frustrating and it hardly compels one to want to watch the product.

Written by Max Everett

The only wheel-spinning match we got tonight, since Myles Borne and Tavion Heights' stipulation had been decided on during the go-home edition of "NXT," was the "Very Nice, Very Evil" match pitting Zilla Fatu against Charlie Dempsey. Danhausen, who had the honor of spinning the wheel, revealed his match type was anything goes, falls count anywhere. While the match between Fatu and Dempsey ended in the ring, the "anything goes" aspect certainly came into play, as the entirety of BirthRight got involved in the match.

While we had already seen a Weapons Wild match to kick off the night, I always love a good hardcore stipulation, so I did enjoy the various weapons spots, which were quite different from Borne and Heights' match. They used shovels and even pieces of the set to batter one another, including various pumpkins and jack-o'-lanterns around the ring. I wouldn't go as far as to call this comedy, but when it comes to the pumpkins, this was slightly more silly than the serious feud of Heights and Borne.

What I liked most about this, however, was that despite Uriah Connors, Lexis King, Channing "Stacks" Lorenzo, and Arianna Grace all getting involved, Fatu still thankfully went over the stable he refused to join, the one he's been feuding with for weeks. Fatu took out all members of the faction, outside of Grace, to get the victory over Dempsey with a frog splash, as BirthRight had taken out his injured hand for him to nail his iteration of the Samoan Spike.

I never liked the feud to begin with, even though I will admit it made a ton of storyline sense, since Fatu is a nepo baby himself. I found myself wondering if someone from the Bloodline was going to make a surprise appearance at the Performance Center to help him out, but in the end, I'm glad that no one did. Fatu proved that he's not just a nepo baby, and he can get things done on his own, even when he's up against the numbers game. I'm hopeful this was the end of this story, as Fatu got a solid victory here, and he can move on to something more interesting.

Written by Daisy Ruth

On a night where we saw two WWE Superstars travel to an alternate dimension, Zaria get distracted by the ghost of a saxophone player, and Dave LaGreca dressed as a version of Cody Rhodes if he had been put through a tumble dryer, the biggest jump scare throughout all of WWE NXT Halloween Havoc 2026 came at the very end of the show.

Following this successful WWE NXT Championship defense against Tony D'Angelo in what was a pretty lackluster main event, Grayson Waller thought he would be able to enjoy his Halloween in peace. That was until the host of the evening, Danhausen, came out to reveal that he had a special message from a good friend of his directed at the NXT Champion. That message was from none other than CM Punk, who told Waller that he was a landlord and that he was coming to collect his rent in the form of an NXT Championship match this Wednesday.

Now, let's all take a big step back and look at the big picture here. You have Grayson Waller, NXT Champion, a man who has said a fair few things about Punk in the past because that's his gimmick: he talks trash about everyone. He is being challenged to a match by CM Punk, former WWE Champion, a man who is already in a much more interesting feud with Kevin Owens that could conclude literally this week.

In reality, we all know why this match is happening. "WWE NXT" is going head-to-head with the Blood and Guts edition of "AEW Dynamite," a show that routinely pulls in some of AEW's strongest ratings, and WWE officials want to load the show up as much as possible because wrestling fans aren't allowed to enjoy more than one thing at a time. It's why Cody Rhodes, Chad Gable, Rey Fenix, Tatum Paxley potentially, Dragon Lee, and the actual real-life version of John Cena are all on the show along with Punk.

However, in storyline, this makes next to no sense. Waller could simply say no because that's what a smart person would do. Punk would be walking into a No Holds Barred match with Kevin Owens on "WWE SmackDown" two days later not at 100%, and because you don't want Punk losing to Waller because why would you? The match is probably going to have a screwy finish where no one looks good either. All this is really is another transparent decision made solely to mess with another wrestling show regardless of whether it works or not, and at the end of the day, that is the main problem.

Written by Sam Palmer

The way the Shiloh Hill and Naraku storyline had been built, there was very little sense in just sticking them in a wrestling ring and telling them to have at it. Hill had spent weeks going all "Resident Evil" on the lore behind the poison mist and the agent he was developing to counter it. Naraku said he would be using the black mist, the most dangerous of the mists. Halloween Havoc needed an ample delivery mechanism for all of the bizarre brilliance that came before.

Fortunately, they settled on the cinematic method, delivered in segments throughout the show before they eventually got in the ring to settle things. Naraku and Hill both got mist on their faces in a backstage brawl to get things started, and then each segment continued what could only be described as a Mist Trip for both of them. Hill was exceptional in these, and Naraku was actually quite amusing as well, as they went through spooky scenes with benevolent and malevolent extras of some undead assortment.

They finally came face-to-face in this backstage trip, joined by a zombified referee Adrian Butler, who said something in Zombish to the effect of "You two, fight." They obliged and burst through wooden boards into the ringside area, and thus started the match in a traditional sense.

What really sold this was Butler emerging from the wreckage completely normal, tying together that everything that happened before they got to ringside had been hallucinatory. They went and had what would have been a perfectly alright, if brief, match inside the ring with an even better ending to cement this as a job really well done; Naraku sought to mist Hill, but he delivered his own 'Fog' to successfully counteract it, while also creating a pretty dope visual.

This was a perfect encapsulation of the words Halloween Havoc. It was exactly what's endearing about Hill, the quirky, cartoonish spiritual successor to the ilk of Bray Wyatt. He felt right at home in this setting and it also managed to make Naraku interesting, and that in itself is an accomplishment.

Written by Max Everett