The Undisputed Era


The Undisputed Era is a professional wrestling stable performing in WWE's NXT brand, consisting of Adam Cole, Bobby Fish, Kyle O'Reilly, and Roderick Strong.
The stable was formed by Cole, Fish and O'Reilly on August 19, 2017 at shortly after signing with WWE, although Fish and O'Reilly had already been a tag team since 2012 under the name reDRagon. After, Fish suffered an injury in March 2018, April 7 at marked a turning point for The Undisputed Era: during the event, Cole became the inaugural NXT North American Champion, he and O'Reilly won the 2018 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, and Strong joined the stable at the end of a lengthy feud against it; both Cole and Strong were subsequently recognized as co-Tag Team Champions under the Freebird Rule. O'Reilly later had two more additional reigns as NXT Tag Team Champion, one with Strong and one with Fish, while Cole became NXT Champion at, becoming NXT's second Triple Crown winner. On September 18, Strong won the NXT North American Championship, making The Undisputed Era the first stable to simultaneously hold all the male titles on NXT. All four stayed champions until January 22, 2020, when Strong lost his title to Keith Lee.

History

Origins

In 2010, Adam Cole and Kyle O'Reilly debuted in the Ring of Honor promotion as a tag team that would later be named "Future Shock", but the two split up in 2012 and began a longstanding rivalry against each other. In December 2012, O'Reilly formed a new tag team with Bobby Fish known as reDRagon, with the two winning the ROH World Tag Team Championship on three occasions, while Cole would form his own stable in 2014 known as The Kingdom. In the summer of 2015, reDRagon entered into a feud with The Kingdom, and began teaming with Cole after he seemingly had a falling out with his teammates and left the group. However, Cole's exit from The Kingdom was revealed to be a hoax when he attacked O'Reilly during his match for the ROH World Championship at All Star Extravaganza VII on September 18. Their reignited rivalry continued until January 2017, when O'Reilly left Ring of Honor in hopes of signing with WWE. Cole and Fish would follow suit, with Cole leaving in May and Fish in June. During their years in Ring of Honor, Cole, O'Reilly and Fish each had several matches against, and occasionally teaming with, fellow ROH wrestler Roderick Strong.
On the July 12, 2017 episode of NXT, Fish made his NXT debut, losing to Aleister Black. On the August 2 episode of NXT, O'Reilly made his NXT debut, also losing to Black.

Formation and tag team success (2017–2019)

At on August 19, Fish and O'Reilly debuted as a team, attacking the newly crowned NXT Tag Team Champions, SAnitY, as well as their opponents for the night, The Authors of Pain. Later that night, the two aligned themselves with Adam Cole and attacked newly crowned NXT Champion Drew McIntyre. The following month, the trio of Cole, Fish and O'Reilly was officially dubbed "The Undisputed Era".
On the October 11 episode of NXT, Taynara Conti interfered in a triple threat match between Nikki Cross, Peyton Royce and Liv Morgan on behalf of The Undisputed Era, preventing Cross of SAnitY from winning. At, The Undisputed Era defeated SAnitY and The Authors of Pain and Roderick Strong in a WarGames match, the first of its kind in 20 years. On the December 20 episode of NXT,, Fish and O'Reilly defeated SAnitY to capture the NXT Tag Team Championship, marking their first title win in WWE. On the January 10, 2018 episode of NXT, Fish and O'Reilly were scheduled to defend their titles against SAnitY in a rematch, but assaulted them backstage, rendering them unable to compete. Later that night, they were forced to defend their championships against Black and Strong by NXT general manager William Regal, and successfully retained their titles after Cole interfered and distracted Black. At, The Undisputed Era defeated The Authors of Pain to retain the titles. On March 4, Fish suffered a torn ACL and MCL in his left knee at an NXT live event.
On April 7 at, Cole became the inaugural NXT North American Champion in a ladder match also involving EC3, Killian Dain, Lars Sullivan, Ricochet and Velveteen Dream. Later in the night, O'Reilly and Cole successfully defended the NXT Tag Team Championships against The Authors of Pain and Strong and Pete Dunne after Strong turned on Dunne to allow O'Reilly to pin him, joining the stable and turning heel in the process. With Strong joining the group, he was also recognized as part of the NXT Tag Team Champions. At, O'Reilly and Strong successfully defended the titles against Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan.
After developing a rivalry with British Strong Style, the two factions faced off on the first day of the WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament event, where The Undisputed Era lost. On the second day of the event, O'Reilly and Strong lost the NXT Tag Team Championship to Seven and Bate. However, O'Reilly and Strong regained the titles just two days later. With the win, O'Reilly and Strong became just the second team in NXT history to win the titles more than once. At, O'Reilly and Strong retained their titles against Bate and Seven. After the match, O'Reilly and Strong were attacked by the debuting War Raiders. On the same night, Cole lost the North American Championship to Ricochet.
On the August 29 episode of NXT, Cole and Strong defeated Ricochet and Dunne and attacked them along with O'Reilly after the match. However, the War Raiders came to the ring, chasing The Undisputed Era away. On the October 10 episode of NXT, Ricochet defeated Cole and Dunne in a triple threat match to retain the North American Championship. On the October 17 episode of NXT, O'Reilly and Strong retained the NXT Tag Team Championship against the War Raiders by disqualification after Fish returned from injury and attacked Hanson and Rowe. On the October 31 episode of NXT, Cole and Fish were scheduled to face the War Raiders. However, Hanson and Rowe attacked The Undisputed Era during a backstage promo. The brawl ended up in the ring, where The Undisputed Era got the upper-hand. Ricochet and Dunne entered on the War Raiders' behalf as the brawl progressed to even the odds. While the groups were fighting, general manager William Regal announced that The Undisputed Era would face the team of the War Raiders, Ricochet and Dunne in a WarGames match at. At the event, The Undisputed Era were defeated after both Ricochet and Dunne pinned Cole. At, The Undisputed Era lost the NXT Tag Team Championships to The War Raiders.

Domination of NXT (2019–2020)

All four members competed at. Strong lost to Matt Riddle in the opening match. Fish and O'Reilly were unsuccessful in a four-way ladder match for the vacant NXT Tag Team Championship. In the event's main event, Cole defeated Johnny Gargano to win the NXT Championship. The win made Cole the second Triple Crown winner in NXT history. On the August 15 tapings of NXT, O'Reilly and Fish defeated Street Profits for the NXT Tag Team Championships, making O'Reilly the first wrestler to become a three-time NXT Tag Team Champion. On September 18, 2019 during the debut episode of NXT on the USA Network, Roderick Strong defeated Velveteen Dream for the NXT North American Championship, marking Strong's first singles title in WWE, and making The Undisputed Era the first group to have all three male championships on the NXT brand; the WWE Cruiserweight Championship became the NXT Cruiserweight Championship on October 9, therefore elevating the number of male NXT titles to four.
In the build-up for the NXT and NXT UK co-branded pay-per-view, Worlds Collide, The Undisputed Era began feuding with Imperium, which was further intensified during the closing moments of on January 12, 2020, where the group attacked Imperium following Walter's successful title defense against Joe Coffey. At Worlds Collide, Imperium defeated The Undisputed Era despite being outnumbered 4-3 after Wolfe suffered an injury early in the match.
In parallel, Strong lost his title to Keith Lee, while Fish and O'Reilly took part in the 2020 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, defeating NXT UK Tag Team Champions Gallus in the first round and losing to Grizzled Young Veterans in the semifinals. Behind on Imperium
At, Cole successfully retained his title against Tommaso Ciampa after receiving help from the rest of The Undisputed Era, and from Johnny Gargano, who attacked Ciampa with the belt. However, Fish and O'Reilly lost the tag team titles to Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic winners The BroserWeights, leaving The Undisputed Era with only one title for the first time since August 2019. On the April 22 episode of NXT, Velveteen Dream and Dexter Lumis defeated Cole and Strong in a tag team match, where Dream pinned Cole. This led to an NXT Championship match on the May 6 episode of NXT where Cole successfully retained his title against Dream and again at on June 7 in a last chance Backlot Brawl match, due to the stipulation at the event where if Dream lost he can no longer challenge for the NXT Championship again while Cole is still champion.
On the July 8 episode of NXT The Great American Bash Night 2, Cole would lose the NXT Championship to Keith Lee in a Winner Take All match ending his historic reign at 403 days.

Championships and accomplishments

1For The Undisputed Era's first reign, Fish and O'Reilly won the title as a duo, with Cole and Strong later being recognized as co-champions under the Freebird Rule.