The NXT Women’s Championship will be on the line on the 7/12 episode of WWE NXT 2.0.
During tonight’s NXT Great American Bash, it was announced that Mandy Rose will defend the NXT Women’s Championship against newly crowned NXT Women’s Tag Team Champion Roxanne Perez and Apollo Crews will face Giovanni Vinci on the 7/12 episode of WWE NXT 2.0.
Mandy Rose is coming up on her one-year anniversary since rejoining NXT as she made the move from WWE “RAW” back over to the company’s (at the time), black and gold brand. Rose has become a mainstay of NXT’s transition into the current 2.0 version of the show and when she faces Perez, she’ll be making her sixth title defense since defeating Raquel Gonzalez (now SmackDown’s Raquel Rodriguez) for the title at Halloween Havoc, last October.
Perez signed with WWE this past March and immediately earned the opportunity at Rose and the NXT Women’s Championship by winning the first-ever NXT Women’s Breakout Tournament, last month. Perez defeated Kiana James, Lash Legend, and Tiffany Stratton to secure the guaranteed opportunity at a title of her choosing. Since winning the tournament, Perez aligned herself with Cora Jade, who Rose defeated, alongside Io Shirai and Kay Lee Ray (now Alba Fyre) to retain her title in a fatal-4-way match at NXT: Stand & Deliver this past April during WrestleMania 38 weekend.
During the 6/7 episode of NXT 2.0, Apollo Crews made his return to the brand after last competing on NXT programming in April 2016. Crews and Solo Sikoa defeated NXT North American Champion Carmelo Hayes and Grayson Waller in tag team action during Crews’ return match two weeks later.
Vignettes hyping the debut of Giovanni Vinci began airing on NXT programming this past May, and Vinci was revealed as the former Imperium’s Fabian Aichner. Vinci rebranded as his current gimmick after his stablemates WALTER (Intercontinental Champion, GUNTHER) and Marcel Barthel (Ludwig Kaiser) departed the brand for WWE “SmackDown”, this past April. Vinci made his in-ring debut on the 6/8 episode of NXT 2.0 and called out Crews, following the latter’s promo during the 7/5 broadcast.
