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News: Io Shirai vs. Raquel Gonzalez Will Main Event WWE NXT Takeover Stand & Deliver Night 1 on April 7

By John Canton • Published 20th March 2021

The first-ever two-night WWE NXT Takeover event will take place on Wednesday, April 7 and Thursday, April 8. The first part will take place in the two-hour NXT timeslot on USA Network (or wherever you watch NXT depending on what country you are in) and then the Thursday night event will be streaming on Peacock/WWE Network like most Takeover events.

The first match announced for NXT Takeover Stand & Deliver will see NXT Champion Finn Balor defending his title against former champion Karrion Kross.

Today, WWE announced that the NXT Women’s Title match is officially on with Io Shirai defending her title against Raquel Gonzalez. Since Shirai handed Gonzalez the contract to sign on NXT on Wednesday, Gonzalez shared this video of her signing the contract.

While it hasn’t been officially announced yet by WWE, it would make sense to have Balor vs. Kross headline Night 2 of the Stand & Deliver Takeover event.

Here’s the official announcement from WWE.com today:

Io Shirai isn’t waiting for her next challenger to step up. Instead, she’s coming to them.

The Genius of the Sky will defend the NXT Women’s Championship against the dominant Raquel González — her opponent of choice — as they main event Night 1 of NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver on Wednesday, April 7 on USA Network, as first reported by “Muscle & Fitness Hers.”

Time and time again, Shirai has soared past the competition, prevailing against the best NXT has to offer. Candice LeRae, Toni Storm, Dakota Kai, Tegan Nox have all failed to knock her from the throne.

Shirai, not one to rest on her laurels, didn’t celebrate her most recent defense against Storm for long, confronting González later that night and demanding to face “Big Mami Cool.”

Few Superstars, if any, have had a more impressive past year in NXT than González. Bursting onto the scene with her alliance with Dakota Kai, González has racked up accolades in short order. She has defeated former NXT Women’s Champions Rhea Ripley and Ember Moon, and with Kai won the first-ever Women’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic and were crowned the first-ever NXT Women’s Tag Team Champions.

Will “Big Mami Cool” show that her dominance knows no bounds? Or will Shirai’s genius prove unsolvable once again?

Watch NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver, beginning Wednesday, April 7, on USA Network and continuing Thursday, April 8, streaming exclusively on Peacock in the U.S. and on WWE Network everywhere else!

TJR Thoughts: Title change coming? I think so. Gonzalez has beaten everybody in her path as a singles wrestler over the last few months, including Rhea Ripley. Gonzalez also pinned Shirai to win the NXT WarGames match in December and ever since then I thought Gonzalez was going to be the woman to beat Shirai for the NXT Women’s Title. Shirai has been the champion since June 7, so it would make sense for Gonzalez to beat her for the title after ten months.