NXT STAND & DELIVER Preview & Predictions

NXT STAND & DELIVER
APRIL 2, 2022
AMERICAN AIRLINES CENTER
DALLAS, TEXAS

What’s good homies? It’s your boy Suit Williams (@SuitWilliams) here to give you the skinny on NXT Stand & Deliver. From the hunnies to the fellas, a whole lot of people have been buggin’ lately, and now they’re coming to Dallas to get down to business. It’s lit, it’s loud, it’s like that! It’s NXT 2.0!

I promise I won’t do that anymore.

KICKOFF SHOW
NXT WOMEN’S TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH
TOXIC ATTRACTION (GIGI DOLIN & JACY JAYNE) (C) VS. DAKOTA KAI & RAQUEL GONZALEZ

NXT ran their first Women’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic last year, which was won by Dakota Kai and Raquel Gonzalez. Their reward was a Women’s Tag Team Title match against Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler, which they lost due to some ref screwjob shenanigans. They ended up being rewarded with the brand new NXT Women’s Tag Team Championships, which they would lose an hour later to the team they beat in the finals of the Dusty Cup. Raquel went on to win the NXT Women’s Championship at Stand & Deliver last year. Dakota then turned on Raquel and feuded with her for a little while before she disappeared. Raquel then lost the Women’s Title when Dakota Kai showed back up and hit her with a shovel. They feuded again before they entered this year’s tournament with different partners. Raquel got injured by Toxic Attraction causing her team to lose. Dakota got to the finals with her partner, but they lost to Io Shirai and Kay Lee Ray. But Io and Kay Lee didn’t want a tag title match, so Dakota gets the title match. Not with her partner of course, but with a returning Raquel Gonzalez, whom Dakota had been feuding with for the better part of a year. Got all that? Prediction: Toxic Attraction

LA KNIGHT VS. GUNTHER

This match came together because GUNTHER feels that LA Knight is all talk and no action. LA Knight thinks that GUNTHER is too much of a wrestler and not enough of a sports entertainer. To quote Vince McMahon, “Do you want to be a professional wrestler, or do you want to be a WWE Superstar? WWE Superstar sounds a whole lot better to me than being a professional wrestler.” Prediction: LA Knight

TOMMASO CIAMPA VS. TONY D’ANGELO

They have heavily hyped this match as Ciampa’s last NXT match, so this will be an emotional battle in Dallas. Tony D’Angelo is as green as the day is long, having just had his TENTH match in his career a few weeks ago. So this will either be Ciampa beating up on the cartoon mobster and leaving with his head held high, or Ciampa doing the honors and giving D’Angelo the biggest win of his career. The “right thing” would be to have D’Angelo win, but losing here won’t do him any damage. Not to mention the fact that I don’t see any type of high ceiling for him anyway. Let’s give Ciampa and his fans a nice little moment. Prediction: Tommaso Ciampa

WWE NXT TAG TEAM TITLE TRIPLE THREAT MATCH
IMPERIUM (FABIAN AICHNER & MARCEL BARTHEL) (C) VS. MSK (NASH CARTER & WES LEE) VS. THE CREED BROTHERS (BRUTUS CREED & JULIUS CREED)

As I said earlier, Imperium as a unit are main roster ready. Their work is impeccable, and Aichner and Barthel have been a high-level tag team for a lot longer than people realize. The Creeds are far from ready, looking outright dangerous at certain points, but they are over as part of the Diamond Mine. MSK are also good, even if a certain pocket of the Performance Centre crowd hate them for whatever reason. This match should be good, and it should be set up to make the Creeds look like the stars. There is a mystery team that has been targeting the Creeds for a while now, taking them out of the tag title match they were supposed to have last month. Whether they make themselves known here or not, I think that will take their attention away from the titles for now. MSK will get these titles back for the time being. Prediction: MSK

WWE NXT NORTH AMERICAN TITLE LADDER MATCH
CARMELO HAYES (C) VS. SANTOS ESCOBAR VS. CAMERON GRIMES VS. GRAYSON WALLER VS. SOLO SIKOA

The NXT Black and Gold Memorial Ladder Match is here. Carmelo Hayes may be the MVP of NXT 2.0 so far, having solid main events on most weeks of the show and making a strong claim of being the “A Champion”. He decided to defend his title in a ladder match to prove his claims of being the best as any valiant babyface would…wait, he’s a heel? Uhh, ok. Solo Sikoa has been a background player in his run so far, so him winning the title would be a surprise. Santos Escobar has been spinning his wheels in NXT since losing the Cruiserweight Title, so this would be something for him to do. But Legado Del Fantasma is more than ready to move onto the main roster, even if they would die a death up there. That leaves Grayson Waller and Cameron Grimes. Waller has been a red-hot heel since laying out Johnny Gargano in his farewell segment. He just came off of winning his feud with LA Knight, and this would be a solid next step in his elevation up the card. Meanwhile, Cameron Grimes has been consistently over as a babyface in NXT for a long time, and has recently wanted to win a title to honor the promise he made to his late father. With the way they’ve pushed the Grimes story lately, he should win this title here. BUT THINK ABOUT THE HEAT. Prediction: Grayson Waller

WWE NXT WOMEN’S TITLE FATAL FOUR WAY MATCH
MANDY ROSE (C) VS. IO SHIRAI VS. KAY LEE RAY VS. CORA JADE

Mandy Rose and Toxic Attraction have been the centerpieces of the NXT Women’s division since the reboot to 2.0. A stark contrast from the black and gold/Four Horsewomen-era of NXT, Mandy and her unit have been a throwback to the tittilation era of women’s wrestling. Her matches have been exactly what you would expect from Mandy Rose at this point, which is perfectly forgettable. This match was originally going to be a singles match against the Sk8tr Grrl Cora Jade *rawr xd*, but she’s been booked to be the biggest dork on the planet for a good long while. After trapping Gigi Dolin and the other one in Home Alone-like traps, Cora had a chance to fight Mandy one-on-one. Mandy beat her ass like she stole something and left her laying in the parking lot. In the wake of this absolute character assassination, Io Shirai and Kay Lee Ray were added to give this match some semblance of credibility. I would love for the title to go on either one of them, but I have a feeling that Cora will win in spite of her godawful booking. Prediction: Cora Jade

WWE NXT TITLE MATCH
DOLPH ZIGGLER (C) VS. BRON BREAKKER

Bron Breakker is the next of a long line of “can’t miss stars” that NXT has produced. He’s got the unmistakable jock energy that a Steiner carries, he’s got charisma, and he can work at a considerably high-level for someone this early in their careers. The most important thing though is that he’s tall. He’s got as good a chance of making it on the main roster as any NXT call-up in their history considering he’s the first big star of the 2.0 era headed by Vince McMahon and Bruce Pritchard. All the other big names of the NXT era were credited to Triple H bringing them into the fold, whether they be the already established stars like Shinsuke Nakamura and Sami Zayn or the wrestlers who became stars in NXT like Bayley or American Alpha. Triple H was the one who got the credit for those people, which may have been to their ultimate detriment. Whenever Vince McMahon has a star that he didn’t have a hand in making, he’s far less likely to understand what got them over, and far less likely to push them to their fullest potential as a result. Just look at the WCW Invasion way back when. Even when Vince OWNED THE COMPANY, he couldn’t bring himself to give any WCW stars an honest-to-god push.

Bron Breakker won’t have that problem because he’s a Vince McMahon creation, which gives him the best chance to reach the potential that anyone can see in him. Now he’ll have other issues, mostly that Vince McMahon can’t get anybody over for love nor money these days, but those are issues for down the line. Right now, Breakker (god I hate typing that name) is a hot young developing talent with a lot of potential. Meanwhile, Dolph Ziggler is in NXT as the solid veteran hand. He’s working both as a Sean Waltman-style measuring stick to see which talents are main-roster ready and as the person who has to put on a decent match in these NXT main events. He’s done a good job of it, and he’s looking more motivated now than he has in years. These two guys, both with something to prove in NXT 2.0’s first foray outside of the Performance Center, should come together to have a good main event here. The result will depend on whether or not WWE is ready to strap the rocket to Breakker’s back on the main roster. If they want to give him a few more months of seasoning, they’ll have him win the title back and continue on as NXT’s lead babyface. If they think he’s ready for the big shows, then Ziggler will retain and hold the title until the next big babyface is ready to take it from him. I think they pull the trigger on a Breakker main roster push, but either way, this will be the most interesting result on this show. Prediction: Dolph Ziggler