WrestleMania 39 weekend is almost here and is stacked with big events, including the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony, NXT Stand & Deliver, and two nights of WrestleMania action. WWE is focused on knocking this year’s event out of the park, but they’ve also got eyes on what comes next, and it seems those plans span a few months after WrestleMania. That seems to be the case, as today WWE revealed the date and location of NXT Battleground, which will take place in Lowell, MA on May 28th. Being that far out, we don’t have any kind of card, though it is worth noting that Battleground is set to take place on the same day as AEW Double or Nothing this year.
This will be a premium live event as opposed to one of NXT’s Tuesday special events (like Great American Bash). More NXT events have been featured as premium live events over the past year, including Halloween Havoc, which went quite well, and Stand & Deliver is looking to be a stellar event if the card is any indication.
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As for running opposite of AEW, while it is on the same day, Battleground is likely not to run against Double or Nothing. In times past, if NXT events are on the same day as an AEW event, NXT’s events start earlier and are largely over before AEW’s event starts. With Double or Nothing being a major AEW event, it would seem likely that this will be the case once again.
Stand & Deliver looks to shake up some things in the Title scene, as there’s quite a bit of gold on the line. The Men and Women’s NXT Championships are up for grabs as are the Tag Team Championships and the North American Championship, so we could end up with several new Champions by the end of it.
The two biggest matches are Bron Breakker vs Carmelo Hayes and the NXT Women’s Championship Ladder Match with Roxanne Perez defending her Title against Gigi Dolin, Indi Hartwell, Zoey Stark, Lyra Valkyria, and Tiffany Stratton. It was unknown if Perez would be able to compete after fainting a few weeks ago, and it was determined to be a mix of exhaustion and anxiety. Now she’s in the mix to defend her Title, though she will have to be on her A-game to keep one of the other five competitors from taking it.
Breakker vs Hayes has been a long time coming, and if Hayes wins, it will start a new chapter in NXT. Breakker has held the NXT Championship or been in the Title mix for the past two years, and if he loses, he could very well move to Raw or SmackDown. Hayes has been long linked to the North American Championship, and many have wondered what an NXT Title reign with Hayes would look like. This could be the start of getting that answer.
In a previous interview with ComicBook, Shawn Michaels talked about the change from the Black and Gold era of NXT to the NXT 2.0 era, as well as the brand’s step into a new era that looked to mix the two.
“I certainly don’t want to undersell anything, but I don’t know that it’s a new era where there’s a big change,” Michaels said. “Certainly, there was the Black and Gold, there was 2.0 and now we have, I think what I guess is a hybrid. I mean, we don’t want this NXT to really have to be defined as anything other than your NXT, to be perfectly honest. I don’t want this to be Hunter’s or Vince’s or even mine for that matter. This is the NXT that belongs to the men and women of NXT that come through our system and to those passionate and loyal fans that watch us some support us, to be perfectly honest.”
Are you excited for Stand & Deliver? Let us know in the comments and as always you can talk all things wrestling with me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!
