During last week’s “WWE NXT” Roadblock event, “NXT” Women’s Champion Roxanne Perez retained her title against Meiko Satomura. However, after her victory, Perez unexpectedly collapsed, prompting WWE to provide ongoing updates about her condition, including her discharge last Friday night.
Although the incident appears to be part of a storyline, there are conflicting reports about its authenticity. On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer expressed uncertainty about the situation, hoping there were no serious issues but acknowledging the possibility of them.
Meltzer suggested WWE’s vagueness was due to the uncertainty of the situation. Fightful Select reported that Perez’s “injury” is purely a storyline element. WWE’s continued coverage and replay of the incident on “NXT” programming support this theory.
As part of this storyline development, WWE Senior Vice President of Talent Development Creative Shawn Michaels announced this week that with Perez’s health in question, “NXT” would hold qualifying matches to potentially crown a new women’s champion at Stand and Deliver. Michaels tweeted, “With Stand and Deliver in less than three weeks, I have the obligation to announce we possibly have to crown a New NXT Women’s Champion.”
On Tuesday night’s “NXT,” Zoey Stark and Gigi Dolin both qualified for the Ladder Match at Stand & Deliver, scheduled for April 1 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. Perez has been the “NXT” Women’s Champion since defeating Mandy Rose on December 13.