NXT’s Candice LeRae Shows off Shawn Michaels-Inspired Gear She’ll Wear in Next Week’s Ladder Match

Back when WrestleMania 36 was supposed to happen in Tampa, the NXT brand had its next TakeOver event, NXT TakeOver: Tampa Bay, scheduled to take place this Saturday at the Amalie Arena. However because of the coronavirus pandemic WrestleMania was pushed to the Performance Center in Orlando, and every other event planned for that weekend has been canceled. As a replacement, the matches that were planned for TakeOver will take place over the next few weeks of television, including a six-way ladder match to earn the No. 1 contender spot for the NXT Women’s Championship. Candice LeRae is booked to compete in that match, and she revealed via Twitter on Thursday that she plans on wearing ring gear inspired by a classic Shawn Michaels look.

LeRae will take on Mia Yim, Tegan Nox, Dakota Kai, Io Shirai and Chelsea Green in the ladder match on next week’s episode.

The look LeRae is referencing is from when Michaels and Razor Ramon battled for the Intercontinental Championship in a ladder match at WrestleMania X.

Elsewhere on the same episode, LeRae’s husband Johnny Gargano will take on Tommaso Ciampa in the finale of their years-long rivalry. The match will have no rules and take place in a separate building away from either the Performance Center or Full Sail Live.

During an interview with PWInsider’s Mike Johnson this week, Triple H explained why the company opted to put the TakeOver matches on NXT rather than reschedule the event.

“The decision to not doing a TakeOver separate and bringing TakeOver and putting them on to the weekly episodes really came down to the decision of, amount of content that needed to take place in a very short period of time leading into WrestleMania,” he explained. “It just made sense for us to do it in a different factor. When you take into consideration it’s a separate event but no one is going to be there to see it live anyway, it really made sense for us to do it this way. Not all the matches, at this point, will be able to take place, but we’ll get there down the line and continue to create the content that we can.”